{"id":32117,"date":"2022-05-16T14:17:37","date_gmt":"2022-05-16T14:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/?p=108592"},"modified":"2022-05-16T14:37:10","modified_gmt":"2022-05-16T14:37:10","slug":"how-to-see-star-aldebaran-the-fiery-eye-of-the-bull","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/how-to-see-star-aldebaran-the-fiery-eye-of-the-bull\/","title":{"rendered":"How to see star Aldebaran, the fiery eye of the Bull"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Pete Lawrence\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 16 May 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

Aldebaran (Alpha (<\/span>\u03b1<\/span>) Tauri) is one of the more<\/span> prominent stars of the autumn and winter skies.<\/span> It is an orange giant star, shining at mag. +0.9<\/span> with a slight variability of 0.2 magnitudes.<\/p>\n

Aldebaran is particularly easy to locate \u2013 just extend the line of the three belt stars in the constellation Orion<\/a> northwest.<\/p>\n

It appears to be associated with the V-shaped Hyades open star cluster<\/a>, lying at the end of the V\u2019s southern arm, yet this is another instance where appearance is deceiving \u2013 the 153 lightyear-distant cluster is roughly twice as far as Aldebaran, which is 65.3 lightyears away.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aldebaran is also part of the well-known asterism<\/a> called the Winter Hexagon.<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Credit: Pete Lawrence<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Aldebaran is 425 times more luminous than<\/span> the Sun, and the most luminous star within 100 lightyears of Earth.<\/p>\n

It is also one of the closest giants, with a diameter estimated to be 44 times that the Sun. If you replaced our Sun with Aldebaran, it would have an apparent diameter of around 22\u00ba.<\/p>\n

Its close proximity and large physical diameter means Aldebaran presents a disc large enough to measure.<\/p>\n

Even so, this is very small at just 0.021 arcseconds.<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
The Winter Hexagon includes Aldebaran and is a useful marker for the Hyades and the Pleiades star clusters. Credit: Pete Lawrence<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

A gas giant planet several times the size of Jupiter may orbit the star: its existence was suggested in 1993, but remained doubtful until a 2015 study provided long-term evidence to back up the claim.<\/p>\n

From Earth, a number of faint stars appear close to Aldebaran.<\/p>\n

One of these, Alpha Tauri B, appears to have a similar distance and motion to Aldebaran.<\/p>\n

However, being faint at mag. +13.6 and only separated from its bright host by half an arcminute, it is difficult to confirm or deny whether it is a true, physically bound companion.<\/p>\n

This guide originally appeared in the December 2017 issue of <\/strong><\/em>BBC Sky at Night Magazine<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n

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By Pete Lawrence Published: Monday, 16 May 2022 at 12:00 am Aldebaran (Alpha (\u03b1) Tauri) is one of the more prominent stars of the autumn and winter skies. It is an orange giant star, shining at mag. +0.9 with a slight variability of 0.2 magnitudes. Aldebaran is particularly easy to locate \u2013 just extend the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":32118,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/05\/how-to-see-star-aldebaran-the-fiery-eye-of-the-bull.jpg",1200,814,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/05\/how-to-see-star-aldebaran-the-fiery-eye-of-the-bull-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/05\/how-to-see-star-aldebaran-the-fiery-eye-of-the-bull-300x204.jpg",300,204,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/05\/how-to-see-star-aldebaran-the-fiery-eye-of-the-bull-768x521.jpg",768,521,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/05\/how-to-see-star-aldebaran-the-fiery-eye-of-the-bull-1024x695.jpg",800,543,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/05\/how-to-see-star-aldebaran-the-fiery-eye-of-the-bull.jpg",1200,814,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/05\/how-to-see-star-aldebaran-the-fiery-eye-of-the-bull.jpg",1200,814,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Pete Lawrence Published: Monday, 16 May 2022 at 12:00 am Aldebaran (Alpha (\u03b1) Tauri) is one of the more prominent stars of the autumn and winter skies. It is an orange giant star, shining at mag. +0.9 with a slight variability of 0.2 magnitudes. Aldebaran is particularly easy to locate \u2013 just extend the…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/32117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}