Antares – Alpha Scorpii – A Red Giant
Often referred to as “The heart of the Scorpion”
Antares is on average the fifteenth-brightest star in the night sky, and the brightest object in the constellation of Scorpius. Distinctly reddish/orange when viewed with the naked eye, Antares is a slow irregular variable star that ranges in brightness from apparent magnitude +0.6 to +1.6.
Antares appears as a single star when viewed with the naked eye, but it is actually a binary star, with its two components called α Scorpii A and α Scorpii B. The brighter of the pair is the red super-giant, while the fainter is a hot main sequence star of magnitude 5.5. Antares is located approximately 550 light years away from Earth.
Antares is a red super-giant, a large evolved massive star and one of the largest stars visible to the naked eye. Its exact size remains uncertain, but if placed at the center of the Solar System, it would reach to somewhere between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Its mass is calculated to be around 12 times that of the Sun.
I captured this image through my 12″ F4 TPO Newtonian Reflector Telescope, Bisque ME Mount and a (unmodified)Canon 6D DSLR Camera, 180 sec exposure, ISO 800, taken at my observatories in Ohio on 06-04-2021.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com
