Hi Trevor & All,
Quote:
Originally Posted by TrevorW
... situated about 2.5 deg NW from 2.25 mag, extremely hot O5 supergiant Zeta Puppis (this star, at 2,400 light years distance, is one of the brightest stars known, with absolute mag -7.1, corresponding to 60,000 solar luminosities).
|
Yes I'm a big an of both this cluster (nice pic) and in particular the star Zeta Puppis (Naos). It is in fact my most favourite'st star of the lot and I was just admiring it while bobing around in the pool outside (its still 27 deg C here just before midnight).
There is some new info about this star here:
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/naos.html
Courtesy of Jim Kaler that paints the picture well. It is probably the most powerful star within 1000 ly of the Sun, the earliest O-type (O5) bright naked eye star in the sky, the 2nd brightest O-Type star in the whole sky after Zeta Orionis and shines with a total luminosity 360,000 times greater than the Sun.
Best,
Les D