To find the star, begin half-way down Eridanus. Gather together all the upsilon Eridani stars: binoculars. Now drop due south two full fields of vision to find alpha Caeli and its neighbours: binoculars.

Beta Caeli is due north of alpha, while gamma is northeast of beta. The only other Bayer stars (zeta and nu) are both sixth-magnitude, while the only variable of interest is R Caeli, found in the same field of vision as beta: binoculars.

R Caeli is a Mira-type long-period variable with a period of 391 days. It ranges from a very faint 13.7 to a brightness of 6.7, easily confirmed in binoculars.