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  • Betelgeuse brightened recently?

    From Stuart Levy@21:1/5 to All on Tue Apr 11 20:55:50 2023
    Skywatchers, does it seem as though Betelgeuse has brightened recently?

    It seems now about as bright as Rigel and Capella, where it had been clearly dimmer than both. It is outstandingly bright!

    Looking at an aavso.org plot of its brightness over the last couple of years, it does seem to have brightened, especially recently. The green path on the plot - maybe this is some running mean of the many observations? - has brightened by about half a
    magnitude since just early February of this year.

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  • From Quadibloc@21:1/5 to Quadibloc on Wed Apr 12 07:48:42 2023
    On Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 8:44:59 AM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:
    On Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 9:55:54 PM UTC-6, Stuart Levy wrote:
    Skywatchers, does it seem as though Betelgeuse has brightened recently?

    It seems now about as bright as Rigel and Capella, where it had been clearly dimmer than both. It is outstandingly bright!

    Uh, oh. A while back, there were articles about the possibility of it going nova in the near
    future, with possible disastrous consequences for Earth. And then articles came along
    saying that this possibility was now eliminated.

    Your observation suggests that this optimism may have been premature.

    But according to this,

    https://astronomy.com/news/2020/02/when-betelgeuse-goes-supernova-what-will-it-look-like-from-earth

    life on Earth will be unharmed by a Betelgeuse supernova. However, that star will be as bright as
    the Moon at first or last quarter.

    John Savard

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  • From Quadibloc@21:1/5 to Stuart Levy on Wed Apr 12 07:44:57 2023
    On Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 9:55:54 PM UTC-6, Stuart Levy wrote:
    Skywatchers, does it seem as though Betelgeuse has brightened recently?

    It seems now about as bright as Rigel and Capella, where it had been clearly dimmer than both. It is outstandingly bright!

    Uh, oh. A while back, there were articles about the possibility of it going nova in the near
    future, with possible disastrous consequences for Earth. And then articles came along
    saying that this possibility was now eliminated.

    Your observation suggests that this optimism may have been premature.

    John Savard

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)