I saw Betelgeuse this morning at ~05:00, it looked brighter and twinkled alot more than the last time I saw it which was before it disappeared from the evening sky. It now seems as bright if not brighter than the diagonally opposing star in Orion which I didn't think it was before. Maybe it is just my imagination. Is this because it was in the morning sky ? Or has it changed somewhat ?
I believe it's an irregular variable, occasionally brighter than Rigel (the diagonally opposing).
Haven't checked it out lately, so maybe I should go and look too.
I had a look at the data for this on the AAVSO site. It doesn't seem to have changed much. The attached graph is from the last 400 days but maybe worth a look in the morning.
Ok, thanks. It's good to know I wasn't just dreaming. It was only the fact I couldn't sleep and went outside for a smoke that I saw it. If I had to guess I would say it seems ~1.5 x brighter than last time i saw it (a couple of months ago). Whenever I go outside and Orion is up Betelgeuse is always the first thing I look at, optimistically hoping to see it blow up even though I know there is very little chance of it going yet. It never hurts to look though right ?
I got up and ckecked it out again this morning at about the same time, I can't believe how much the colour has changed from a few months ago. It is now definately bright yellow instead of the dull orange I remember it being. I'm fascinated by how much it has changed over so little a time.
I read some stuff about this event in the may/june AS&T. Betelgeuse seems to have been shrinking alot recently. No one is quite sure why yet. I considered attributing this change in size to the shrinking that occurs prior to the next fusion stage but that happens very quickly, while this size change has occured over many years.
