Y Canum Venaticorum (La Superba, Y CVn) is the striking red star in the center of the image. This is one of the reddest and brightest of all known carbon stars. Y Canum Venaticorum is bright enough to be spotted with the naked eye, but is best appreciated when viewed through binoculars or a telescope.
Y CVn is listed has having the spectral type C-N5. This is a J-Type carbon star which means it has an unusual chemical composition as compared to most other carbon stars. The composition of J-Type stars feature an abundance of carbon-13. Fifteen percent of all carbon stars are thought to be J-Types.
The distance to Y CVn from Earth is estimated at 231.9378 parsecs (756.48 light years).
Y CVn was studied as early as 1899 in the Astrophysical Journal publication titled On the spectra of stars of Secchi's fourth type. I. (Hale G.E., Ellerman F.). Among other things, the paper includes a most interesting account of how the bed of a conventional vertical milling machine was used to facilitate measurement of the early spectrography results that the authors had obtained using the 40 inch telescope at the Yerkes Obeservatory.
