Scrutable

don’t be so gloomy. here’s the content you need:

https://mobile.twitter.com/starstricken ... 3606515712

plodder wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 27, 2020 5:10 am

don’t be so gloomy. here’s the content you need:

https://mobile.twitter.com/starstricken ... 3606515712

That's cool. Thanks for the link.

cvb wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 27, 2020 8:31 am

plodder wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 27, 2020 5:10 am

don’t be so gloomy. here’s the content you need:

https://mobile.twitter.com/starstricken ... 3606515712

That's cool. Thanks for the link.

The one a few below 'of the moon making an appearance on our satelite images of the sun' reminds me of...
Spoiler:

Dust, apparently, and originating from the star itself. (Someone tell Philip Pullman.)

https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... betelgeuse

Is it normal for star to kick out enough dust to hide it from view?

I didn't follow that twitter link till now and I wonder if I misconstrued its talking about convection cells and starspots: is it actually possible to resolve any features at all of an object (even Betelgeuse-sized) 200 parsecs away? That seems impossible but I do keep finding myself having to recalibrate my boundaries of the possible.

Martin Y wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 15, 2020 12:49 pm

I didn't follow that twitter link till now and I wonder if I misconstrued its talking about convection cells and starspots: is it actually possible to resolve any features at all of an object (even Betelgeuse-sized) 200 parsecs away? That seems impossible but I do keep finding myself having to recalibrate my boundaries of the possible.

Betelgeuse was resolved as a disc using optical interferometry as early as the 1930's I think.

ETA 1920 apparently

Thanks. <recalibrates>

AMS wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 14, 2020 12:18 pm

Dust, apparently, and originating from the star itself. (Someone tell Philip Pullman.)

https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... betelgeuse

Is it normal for star to kick out enough dust to hide it from view?

Whole galaxies do it sometimes.

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 15, 2020 1:03 pm

Martin Y wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 15, 2020 12:49 pm

I didn't follow that twitter link till now and I wonder if I misconstrued its talking about convection cells and starspots: is it actually possible to resolve any features at all of an object (even Betelgeuse-sized) 200 parsecs away? That seems impossible but I do keep finding myself having to recalibrate my boundaries of the possible.

Betelgeuse was resolved as a disc using optical interferometry as early as the 1930's I think.

ETA 1920 apparently

Here's an image from December.

Betelgeuse is 55 milli arcseconds in apparent diameter.

The EHT observations of M87 and SgrA* have an angular resolution of 25 micro arcseconds, so could theoretically put 2000 pixels across Betelgeuse.

Unfortunately stars are really boring to look at in the submm-wave continuum. We get far more information from spectral line observations that don't fully resolve the disk of the star.

dyqik wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 15, 2020 3:42 pm

Betelgeuse is 55 milli arcseconds in apparent diameter.

I caught myself thinking "I know it's enormously bigger than the sun but 55mas at 200 parsecs; that would make Betelgeuse several times bigger than the entire orbit of the earth and... Oh. Wait. It is." Got the nagging feeling this was all familiar when I was young and I've got stupid. Guess I just haven't thought about in ages.