Bayer designation
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A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek or Latin letter followed by the genitive form of its parent constellation's Latin name. The original list
Detail of Bayer's chart for Orion showing the belt stars and Orion Nebula region, with both Greek and Latin letter labels visible
Betelgeuse
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Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star in the equatorial constellation of Orion. It is usually the tenth-brightest star in the night sky and, after Rigel, the second brightest in its constellation. It is
Bayer designation
…an Alpha in Leo Minor, so it also has no Alpha. (The star 46 Leonis Minoris would have been the obvious candidate.) In Orion, Bayer first designated Betelgeuse and Rigel, the two 1st-magnitude stars (those of magnitude approximately 1.5 or less), as Alpha and Beta from north to south, with Betelgeuse (the…
1998/9 ultraviolet (UV) Hubble Space Telescope images of Betelgeuse showing asymmetrical pulsations with corresponding spectral line profiles
AAVSO V-band magnitude of Betelgeuse, between September 2016 and August 2023
Comparison of SPHERE images of Betelgeuse taken in January 2019 and December 2019, showing the changes in brightness and shape
Image showing Betelgeuse (top left) and the dense nebulae of the Orion molecular cloud complex (Rogelio Bernal Andreo)