Good evening, fellow Stargazers!
Once again I was awake very early in the morning to capture another really good photo of two red "stars" rising in the eastern sky hours before sunrise.
The stars in question are the red giant star, Aldebaran -- the "eye" of Constellation Taurus The Bull and the planet Mars, one of the traditional "wandering stars" which can be seen together for the next month, or so, rising in the eastern sky. Their slightly red color helps both to stand out well in the evening sky.
In spite of the mostly cloudy conditions, I was able to successfully capture both red "stars" together -- well together being a subjective term since Aldebaran is about 65.23 light-years (or 20 parsecs) from the Sun.
Though its so far away, the red giant star Aldebaran is actually about 400 times brighter than our own Sun, and 44 times its size. Aldebaran is also the 14th brightest star in the night sky as seen from the surface of the Earth.
Aldebaran is the brightest star in the Constellation Taurus the Bull, which I was unable to get a good photo of all the stars due to the cloudy conditions. I was able to capture the bright star Elnath (Beta Tauri), the second-brightest star in Taurus in the left corner of the shot. Elnath is about 134 light-years (or 41.8 parsecs) from the Sun.
Mars is one of the five "wandering stars" (or classical planets -- those visible to the naked eye in the night sky from the surface of the Earth) and at present is moving slowly towards the sunrise and past Aldebaran. Mars will actually be traveling within the Constellation Taurus beginning on September 9th through the first week of October of this year and can be seen between Aldebaran and Elnath to observers here on Earth.
Well, until next time have a wonderful evening and be sure to keep your eyes to the night skies, y'all hear.
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