The River and the Whale

 The neighboring constellations Eridanus (The River) and Cetus (The Whale) cross the southern meridian during late night in mid-October.  Between the two of them they contain four of the nearest star systems and two of the nearest naked-eye stars: magnitude-3.7 Epsilon Eridani (Ran) and magnitude-3.5 Tau Ceti.  These two stars are circled in the image below, Epsilon Eridani on the left, Tau Ceti on the right.

E-M1iii + Leica 15mm f/1.7 + softon filter.

Epsilon Eridani, aka "Ran",  is 10.5 ly distant, the third closest naked-eye star (after Alpha Centauri and Sirius), and the 9th closest star system overall.  Tau Ceti is 11.9 ly distant and is the 9th closest naked-eye star and the 19th closest star system.  

Epsilon Eridani has one known planet and two asteroid belts. Tau Ceti has two confirmed planets and possibly an additional six that are suspected.  Both of these stars are slightly smaller than our sun at about 80% of the sun's mass.

The finder chart below shows both naked-eye stars and two nearby red-dwarf stars: UV Ceti and YZ Ceti, which are the 6th and 21st closest star systems, respectively. These two stars are too faint to show up in the image above, but were discussed in a previous post here.

credit: SkySafariAstronomy.com