Earth could have two suns?

global warming

Arthur C. Clarke got into the ramifications of having two suns in one of his Space Odyssey series of books and the effects of two suns would be pretty serious especially for nocturnal species.

Raise taxes to save the night creatures from extinction!

I demand you trade in my darkness credit scheme.

Also in "Nightfall" which I thought was pretty good. But I liked "The Nine Billion Names of God" even better.

If it hasn't happened yet none of us will live to see it, 640 light years away, if it even happened earlier in our lives none of us would see it. I'm thinking I won't be expecting it anytime soon

Somewhere in that article there's a Champagne Supernova Gallagher brothers beating each other joke but I'm too lazy to find it.

This is all my semi-informed speculation. I may be wrong, but I hope not. It's also predicated on us not moving much farther away from Betelgeuse by the time it does blow.

Eta Carinae is a much more likely candidate for a within-our-lifetimes supernova as it's much more massive even than Betelgeuse, and has been displaying clear signs of major instability within recorded history.

Unfortunately, it's not visible from Canada, being well into the southern celestial hemisphere (Betelgeuse is at about 7° north, so it's visible even from much of the southern hemisphere, but Eta Carinae is almost 60° south). It is, though, ten times farther away than Betelgeuse so when it does explode, it'll have its impact much diminished.

However, being at 60° south, if one were in the southern hemisphere, it would be seen to shine day and night if one were at at least 30° south latitude (~Sydney or farther south). If Betelgeuse blows in Summer, it will have the sun to compete with whhereas if it blows in Winter, we'll be able to read by it at night as I've heard people were able to when the Crab supernova blew almost a thousand years ago.

What will be most interesting, though, will be watching the rapid evolution of the nebula that Betelgeuse will spawn. Being 10 times closer than the Crab nebula, everything will look 10 times bigger and 100 times brighter (light falls off as the square of distance). The nebula may even be visible to the naked eye. The Crab is about a fifth the angular diameter of the full moon after a millennium, but it might only take 100 years for Betelgeuse's nebula to reach that size being so much closer, and it will be brighter not only by being closer, but also by being younger and physically smaller. And in a telescope, it would be an incredibly awesome sight.

Sorry for geeking out, but space is amazing, and anybody who is alive when Betelgeuse goes will be in for a much bigger treat than a mere second sun for a couple of weeks.

You own a telescope Hurley?

Yep, but it's not so functional right now. It was a cheap piece of kit I bought at Costco with the earnings from my first few months at my first part time job. 4.5 inch newtonian equatorial, but the mount was designed for a 60mm refractor from what I hear, so it was jiggly as heck and would take a few seconds to settle down from any movement or errant breath. The mount later broke, but I still have the tube in case I ever get the time and desire to fashion a dob mount for it. More likely by the time that happens I'll be more inclined to buy a bigger better 'scope, this time a dob from the get-go.

You?

Looking at a couple "beginner" scopes, most interested in the Meade ETX 80, researched them a bit and they seem to be a relatively popular scope for people starting out.

http://www.telescopes.com/telescopes/re ... escope.cfm

But what I would really like...

http://www.telescopes.com/telescopes/ca ... lt=results

Yea, those ETXs are really nice for the goto capability. Set it out, find a couple bright stars, and tell the computer what you want to look at. The 8 inch catadioptrics are a little more exotic and as you can see, you pay for what they do (provide lots of focal length for astrophotography).

If and when I buy another 'scope it'll be something like this:

http://www.telescopes.com/telescopes/do ... scope1.cfm

I have a little experience with finding objects and nothing beats a dobsonian for aperture per dollar.

I could get my tan on all year round!