Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse!

Plainly visible to the naked eye in the Northern Hemisphere’s winter sky, Betelgeuse is an iconic red supergiant star that marks the right shoulder of Orion the Hunter. This image is part of my mini-quest to shoot up-close images of all seven of the major stars in the Orion asterism, which include Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka, Saiph, and Rigel. I recently completed shooting the three stars of Orion’s Belt. Some time ago, I published an image of Rigel with the Witch Head Nebula. I hope to get to Bellatrix and Saiph in winter 2026-2027. So stay tuned.

At only around 550 light years from Earth, Betelgeuse could blow itself apart in a supernova explosion any time now. It has also been behaving weirdly lately, brightening and dimming significantly. Scientists theorize that its recently-discovered companion star, Siwarha, has been churning up gas in Betelgeuse’s atmosphere, causing it to change in apparent brightness from our vantage.

The Orion Constellation is an astrophotographer’s dream. It houses the aforementioned Witch Head along with the Great Orion Nebula, the Keyhole Nebula, the Horsehead Nebula, and many other spectacular formations. Every corner of Orion is packed with something spectacularly beautiful. I could, and probably will, spend the rest of my life shooting Orion and never run out of ways to reveal its splendors.

But one thing that has largely failed to capture popular imagination, even among many astrophotographers, is that significant amounts of dust and ionized gas surround many of the bright stars in Orion. These areas present much richer and more interesting fields than many people realize. It’s my hope that this image, as well as the others I’ve already published and other images yet to come, dispel any notion that these giant stars sit alone in the darkness.

One reason for this lack of awareness is that astrophotographers tend to shy away from ultra-bright stars like Betelgeuse. This is because they tend to overexpose, often requiring exposure times of varying lengths, and they can cause severe reflection issues in the optical train, which makes them difficult to process. I can’t say enough about the superior optics and construction of Takahashi refractors. They have their issues, but when it comes to handling wide dynamic ranges and staying true to the photons that pass through their glass, they are spectacularly good.

A tidy little bonus that was unbeknownst to me when I shot this image is that it contains vdB 61. That checks another box on my list of vdB objects to capture: