Betelgeuse my beloved <3 <3 i hope i live to see the day you explode
this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2025
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Probably already has, sadly we won’t know until that light reaches us.
We don't actually know how far away Betelgeuse is: it could be 500 light years away; it could be just around the corner getting a pack of ciggies and a six-pack to watch the footie on the sky box a bit later, yeah? Come around six, I'll get the missus to defrost a pizza and we can talk fantasy football. The parking might be a bit shite, but the neighbour's away this weekend, so just use their driveaway and pop a "soz" letter through their door just in case. Also, ask Suze if her brother still fixes boilers as ours has gone up this week and it could use a look-see, cheers. If you see the bailiffs outside, tell 'em to get bent.
Except that it's wrong. Space is cool, and Betelgeuse is impressive, but that isn't how it looks.
The star is out of focus, and the movement is due to the earths atmosphere. I could get that visual with my phone and a handheld binocular.
Any image of a star (except for our own sun), which is more than just a point of light, is a faulty representation. It's misleading. Share cool stuff, but let's not say things that we don't know to be true.
Actually i just said something that i assumed to be true, but wasn't
""Any image of a star (except for our own sun), which is more than just a point of light, is a faulty representation.""
Turns out we do have 'higher' resolution pictures of stars, thanks to raoul. I'm sorry. mistakes were made. I'll go on my lunchbreak now and think about what I've done.
Any image of a star (except for our own sun), which is more than just a point of light, is a faulty representation. It's misleading. Share cool stuff, but let's not say things
You got me! I did not know we had that. Thanks. Which one is that?
(I guess we also have the images of the light surrounding black hole in the center of our galaxy, which is also quite far away, and has quite som pixels. Although it is also larger than a typical star.)
No problem!
I take the pictures from the Betelgeuse wikipedia article. Things is evolving fast and we can get pretty incredible pictures now!
But I'm looking at it! It's right there! All wobbly and shit! How can it not look how it looks? And how does it look if not like that?
Not so red, huh?