Betelgeuse (Bruce Rohrlach)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: The star Betelgeuse (αOri)

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Betelgeuse

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Betelgeuse

On Sunday night I imaged Betelgeuse (9th brightest star in the night sky) with the Newtonian. A pulsating red supergiant in Orion, Betelgeuse, and its neighbour Bellatrix, define the shoulders of Orion. It is thought to be a runaway star from the Orion OB1 group.

The life of Betelgeuse is one of: Live fast, die young and go out with a bang. High mass stars like Betelgeuse are very short-lived due to their rapid stellar evolution. Betelgeuse may only be ~6 million years old and is in the final million years of it's life. Compare this to the 4.6 billion year age of the sun.

Betelgeuse has a diameter that, if in place of our sun, would reach the orbit of Jupiter. Despite being mass-equivalent of 15-20 solar masses, it's extraordinary size (capable of containing 1.6 billion solar volumes) means its average density is less than the earth's atmosphere. Most of this star is so tenuous that Betelgeuse has often been called a "red-hot vacuum".

Currently, internal radiation pressure is expanding the star by counteracting the inward pull of gravity. In a relatively short period (estimates range from 100,000 to a million years for this rapidly evolving star) when its hydrogen fuel in the core runs out, outward radiation pressure will decrease and the star will implode before rebounding as a Type II supernova. Consensus is that whilst it would not pose a hazard to earth it would likely, for a period of a few months, outshine the moon and be visible during the day.

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Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape
Artificial satellite

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

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