Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Thursday, February 9th.  The sun will rise at 7:51.  It’ll be up for 10 hours and 10 minutes, setting at 6:02.   The moon, 2 days past full, will rise at 8:38 this evening.

The bright red star at the upper left corner of the constellation Orion, high in the south at 9 p.n. Is Betelgeuse.  The name is a contraction of an Arabic phrase that means “Armpit of the Central One”.  Betelgeuse is a huge star with a diameter four times that of the earth’s orbit of the sun.  It is throwing of gas and creating a nebula around itself.  It’s distance from us isn’t accurately known, since it doesn’t have a companion star.  It’s about 643 light years away, give or take 148 light years.  Betelgeuse is about 18 times the mass of the sun and 140 thousand times brighter.  It is in the latter stages of its short life,of 10 million year so far.  Within another million years or so it will probably explode in a supernova.  The good news is that it’s moving away from us.

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Orion upright and due south. Created using Stellarium.

Betegeuse in Orion

Betelgeuse and its nebula. From ESO's Very Large Telescope.

More information on the image above:   http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1121a/