posted
Busily tonight (at 3:30 in the morning) I decided to start looking for images of the star Wolf 359 (don't ask why, it should be obvious). Unfortunatly, all I can find are crappy shots with little specs with a line that says <-- Wolf 359. That's no good to me. I'm talking Hubble Close-ups if possible. PLEASE, someone find me a good image of Wolf 359!
------------------ "The things hollow--it goes on forever--and--oh my God!--it's full of stars!" -David Bowman's last transmission back to Earth, 2001: A Space Odyssey
posted
What do you expect to see, a disk? You won't. It's too small and too far away to be resolved as a disc, even with Hubble. Just find an artist's conception of a red dwarf in some astronomy or space art book, and go with that. Maybe throw in some ice-rock balls or asteroids for atmosphere.
------------------ "Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi
And Hubble was just looking at Wolf 359 (and Wolf 424 A/B) earlier this year. But the only picture I found of this is a small spec.
And what do you mean it's too far away? It's the 3rd closest star to Earth (7.7 light years away)!
------------------ "The things hollow--it goes on forever--and--oh my God!--it's full of stars!" -David Bowman's last transmission back to Earth, 2001: A Space Odyssey
posted
Yes, but if it's a red dwarf, it's tiny and doesn't put out a lot of light.
------------------ June is National Accordion Awareness Month. "I love being British. We don't have to do any real work, we sit around looking smug, pointing at the US and saying 'We used to be young like that once.' Then we drink tea." - Liam Ka--thingy
In a circle with a 7.7 LY radius, the circumference would be 4.6*10ex14 km. For something to appear as one degree of arc at that distance, it'd have to be 1.27*10ex12 km in diameter. A single human eye (no need to account for binocular vision at that range) has a resolution of about 20 arc-seconds. So for something to show a noticable disk at that distance, it'd have to be, I'd estimate, 50 billion kilometers in diameter (not accounting for atmospheric disturbance, in which the twinkling effect would cancel out any disk until it was much larger).
Now our sun is 1.4 mil km in diameter (give or take a foot), and since 359 is a dwarf star, I'm going to assume it's considerably smaller. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to guess how much smaller. Let's say 1 mil km diameter.
If my numbers aren't THAT far off (probably are, but I'm having fun here ), Hubble would have to magnify by 50,000 times to get a noticable disk at that distance.
------------------ "To disarm the people [is] the best and most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, American Statesman and Author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)
posted
In fact, I think only one star has ever been directly imaged as a disk, and it was a huge one, and I don't think Hubble did it.. I think it was the Keck interferometer. I'll try and look it up.
------------------ "Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi
posted
You may be thinking of Betelgeuse, First. It's huge.
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Alpha Centauri
Usually seen somewhere in the Southern skies
Member # 338
posted
And Mira, which is huge too.
BTW, Wolf 359 is approximately 150,000 kms in diameter.
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------------------ "To disarm the people [is] the best and most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, American Statesman and Author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)
), Hubble would have to magnify by 50,000 times to get a noticable disk at that distance.
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