APOD 2.4

"Frosted Leaf Orion" (November 17, 2010)

This picture shows the night sky from Earth from Japan. It really illustrates how much living in the city affects my viewing of the stars. From this location away from all the city and the lights, so many stars can be seen. At my home, where I usually make my observations, I would never be able to get the view that this photographer got in Japan.

In this photograph you can see, the constellation Orion. You can clearly see the stars that make up his belt and dagger. You can also see Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, a little blue cluster in the sky, known as the Pleiades open star cluster, and Betelgeuse, the red giant. And, the larger streak that is seen in the left of the photo is a meteor from the Leonid meteor shower. Recently we have learned in star lab that the Pleiades open star cluster is the most famous star cluster on the sky because it can be seen without binoculars even in the city. However, the thing that most surprised me was Betelgeuse. It is a red giant, but I didn't realize how much of a giant it was. Apparently if it was put at the center of our Solar System it would extend to the orbit of Jupiter. That is huge considering the relative sizes and the distances between the planets that we have learned about in class. It still hard to comprehend how large these stars and planets can be.