Image of Betelgeuse’s surface taken in January 2020
eso_eso2109d June 16th, 2021
Credit: ESO/M. Montargès et al.
The red supergiant star Betelgeuse, in the constellation of Orion, underwent an unprecedented dimming in late 2019 and early 2020. This stunning image of the star’s surface was taken with the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in January 2020, and is one of the images taken during an observing campaign aimed at understanding why the star became fainter. Betelgeuse’s brightness returned to normal in April 2020. Astronomers now understand that Betelgeuse’s dip in brightness was the result of a dusty veil that emerged from the star, partially concealing its southern region.
Provider: European Southern Observatory
Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso2109d/
Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, None, Germany
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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Image Details
Position Details
Color Mapping
- ID
- eso2109d
- Subject Category
- B.3.1.5
- Subject Name
- Betelgeuse
- Credits
- ESO/M. Montargès et al.
- Release Date
- 2021-06-16T17:00:00
- Lightyears
- Redshift
- Reference Url
- https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso2109d/
- Type
- Observation
- Image Quality
- Distance Notes
- Facility
- Very Large Telescope
- Instrument
- SPHERE
- Color Assignment
- Orange
- Band
- Optical
- Bandpass
- H-alpha
- Central Wavelength
- 645
- Start Time
- Integration Time
- Dataset ID
- None
- Notes
- Coordinate Frame
- ICRS
- Equinox
- J2000
- Reference Value
- 88.7929376683, 7.40706597123
- Reference Dimension
- 798.0, 798.0
- Reference Pixel
- 399.0, 399.0
- Scale
- -1.02010522546e-07, 1.02010522546e-07
- Rotation
- -0
- Coordinate System Projection:
- TAN
- Quality
- Full
- FITS Header
- Notes
- Creator (Curator)
- European Southern Observatory
- URL
- https://www.eso.org
- Name
- Telephone
- Address
- Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
- City
- Garching bei München
- State/Province
- None
- Postal Code
- D-85748
- Country
- Germany
- Rights
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
- Publisher
- European Southern Observatory
- Publisher ID
- eso
- Resource ID
- eso2109d
- Resource URL
- https://www.eso.org/public/archives/images/original/eso2109d.tif
- Related Resources
- Metadata Date
- 2021-04-23T14:06:23+02:00
- Metadata Version
- 1.1
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
