Finally after a LONG time I got out and used my
scope! Beautiful clear, warm evening and thought I would do some
astrophotography work. Well you know how it is....
After not having things up and running for a while I discovered that
AstroTortilla just wouldn't co-operate. So after fighting it for an hour
or so I just moved over to Betelgeuse, centered it and took 10 each 10
second exposures. This morning I processed them and this is what I ended
up with. Not bad for a frustrating night. (
PS I finally got AstroTortilla working late in the evening!)
Scope:
Skywatcher 254N
Camera: Canon 350d (Modified)
guided
10 each @ 10 seconds
stacked with
DSS
Post processed in StarTools
from Wikipedia:
Betelgeuse (
,
,
[1] or
),
[2] also known by its
Bayer designation Alpha Orionis (shortened to
α Orionis or
α Ori), is the
ninth-brightest star in the night sky and second-brightest in the constellation of
Orion. Distinctly reddish, it is a
semiregular variable star whose
apparent magnitude varies between 0.2 and 1.2, the widest range of any
first-magnitude star. Betelgeuse is one of three stars that make up the
Winter Triangle, and it marks the center of the
Winter Hexagon. The star's name is derived from the
Arabic إبط الجوزاء Ibt al-Jauzā', meaning "the hand of Orion". The Arabic letter for
Y (which has two dots) was misread as
B (with one dot) by medieval translators, creating the initial B in Betelgeuse.
[citation needed]
The star is classified as a
red supergiant of
spectral type M2Iab and is one of the
largest and most
luminous
observable stars. If Betelgeuse were at the center of the Solar System,
its surface would extend past the asteroid belt, possibly to the orbit
of Jupiter and beyond, wholly engulfing Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.
Estimates of its mass are poorly constrained, but range from 5 to 30
times that of the Sun. Its distance from Earth was estimated in 2008 at
640
light-years, yielding a mean
absolute magnitude
of about −6.02. Less than 10 million years old, Betelgeuse has evolved
rapidly because of its high mass. Having been ejected from its
birthplace in the
Orion OB1 Association—which includes the stars in
Orion's Belt—this crimson
runaway has been observed moving through the
interstellar medium at a
supersonic speed of 30 km/s, creating a
bow shock over 4 light-years wide. Currently in a late stage of
stellar evolution, the supergiant is expected to proceed through its life cycle before exploding as a
type II supernova within the next million years. An observation by the
Herschel Space Observatory in January 2013 revealed that the star's winds are crashing against the surrounding interstellar medium.
[16]
In 1920, Betelgeuse became the second star (after the Sun) to have the angular size of its
photosphere measured. Since then, researchers have used
telescopes
with different technical parameters to measure the stellar giant, often
with conflicting results. Studies since 1990 have produced an
angular diameter (apparent size) ranging from 0.043 to 0.056
arcseconds, an incongruity largely caused by the star's tendency to periodically change shape. Due to
limb darkening,
variability, and angular diameters that vary with
wavelength,
many of the star's properties are not yet known with any certainty.
Adding to these challenges, the surface of Betelgeuse is obscured by a
complex, asymmetric
envelope roughly 250 times the size of the star, caused by colossal
mass loss.
