>Betelgeuse grand minimum is not that grand
For a few months from now Betelgeuse (Alpha Orion) dim so much, that it looks as bright as the stars in the Orion belt. This is not so disturbing and does not mean that cataclysmic events are happening with it. This brightness lost is mostly in the visual spectrum. The star is still shining as the brightest one in the constellation, when looked into the inferred spectrum. Below is comparison of the Orion constellation seen in visible and inferred light. In visible Rigel (Beta Orion) seems to be the brightest star. However in Inferred, Betelgeuse outshines it quite a lot.
We all hope that this star will explode in near future, so we will have some nice target for shots and research. For our luck it is just far enough not to cause any troubles :)
Orion in Infrared:
Betelgeuse spectrum. White is infrared, Orange is Halpha.
While cleaning up my PC I found sequences of shots of Virgo galaxy cluster taken during springs of the last 2 years. Those were attempts to shot this object, but I was not satisfied with the result and left them.
I recently bought a pocket spectroscope for laboratory use. You can find it at Ali for 5$. It is with glass prism and well build. So I did some test to use with a telescope but did not
http://www.deepskywatch.com/deep-sky-hunter-atlas.html This is an amazing resource. Detailed atlas of all the sky with NGC and IC objects.
Reading a new product that claims to be 100x time more powerful then conventional telescope, I realise that this is just an astrograph with a digital camera that is doing stacked images and show them trought eyepiece or App.
I am so impressed with the K5 ability to quickly gather signal from nebulas (Quantum efficiency) and galaxies, so I decide to take one more K5 and to remove the IR-cut Filter of the old one.
