Scheduled air date: 2003 Feb 10-16
Betelgeuse—the brightest red star as seen from Earth—reaches its highest point
in the nighttime sky at about 8:15 PM on Valentine's Day. On
the same evening, the two-days-before-Full Moon appears near the giant planet
Jupiter.
(Shown at about 8:15 PM on the evening of February 14 for mid-Northern
latitudes.)
Betelgeuse is an extremely large star, pulsating in size between about the
equivalent of Mars' orbit, to that of Jupiter's!
If you wish to view illustrations for other episodes, please see our Star Gazer Illustrated directory.
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Illustrations on this page were created using
TheSky Astronomy
Software, an advanced desktop planetarium program designed for Windows. Copyright © 1999-2006 by Software Bisque, Inc. |