Sunday, 3 July 2022

The Garnet Star

 

Mu Cephei or Herschel's Garnet Star - a stack of short duration light frames taken with a tripod mounted Canon 200d DSLR and a Samyang 135mm lens. Credit: Pip Stakkert.


Credit: Astrometry Net

"Mu Cephei is a red hypergiant star in the constellation Cepheus. It is a star reaching the end of its life and has begun to fuse helium into carbon. Mu Cephei is a very large cool star with a mass some 19 times the mass of the Sun and when it eventually goes supernova it is likely to collapse and create a blackhole. The Garnet Star is estimated to be over 3000 light years distant from our Solar System. It is surrounded by an expanding shell of ejected material". - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.