Could we see detail on OTHER stars?

[Herzy]

Ignoring atmospheric turbulence, could we build a telescope but enough that we could see details on Sirius or other relatively close stars to us? This could do wonders for finding exoplanets but I doubt it's even close to possible. 

[Demonperformer]

There's a process called speckle interferometry that "seems to show spots that glow, spoiling your spherical symm'try" on Betelgeuse (if the song is to be believed!)

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

At one light year, a star like the sun would be about 0.028 arcsec in size. The nearest sun-like star (alpha Cen) is therefore just 0.0066 arcsec in diameter. That would require a 17.6 m telescope or bigger to resolve at all. The EELT would have a chance, but we would need to remove our atmosphere, and I am rather fond of our atmosphere, so lets not.

Red giants and super giants are many orders of magnitude bigger, and require more modest aperture. Resolving the speck of an earth-sized planet transiting the disk would require a telescope 100 times bigger than the 17.6m cited above

[Knight of Clear Skies]

A small number of red giants are large and close enough to resolve as discs with existing telescopes. Here's an image of Betelgeuse taken with the VLT:

[DaveS]

I think Hubble has imaged some structure on the disk of Betelgeuse, but I think most other stars are either too far away or too small. Betelgeuse might be in a "sweet spot" of size / distance. Until it goes "pop" of course!

[Dr_Ju_ju]

I suppose that an array of space based scopes, sited thousands of kilometres apart, taking synchronised images, may make it possible, but the engineering\costs would be very prohibitive...

[Knight of Clear Skies]

By the way, it's possible detect the dip in light caused by transiting exoplanets, this is the most common method of detection. In some cases it has been possible to analyse the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by looking at how they affect the starlight passing through them.

[Macavity]

Apart from a side view of (presumed!) "psychedelic" Jovian Cumulonimbus,
the sight I would "most like to see" is the surface detail on another star.

Are the solar features... Sunspots, Prominences, various (convection) cells
paralleled? Are they of the same size or do they "scale" with star size etc?
Such things are modeled now. I sense things could be quite different...

[Stu]

Some relevant info here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stars_with_resolved_images

[Starwiz]

1 hour ago, Herzy said:

Ignoring atmospheric turbulence, could we build a telescope but enough that we could see details on Sirius or other relatively close stars to us? This could do wonders for finding exoplanets but I doubt it's even close to possible. 

I think it's possible.  

"He who says he can and he who says he can't are both usually right" - Confucius  

 

[Dave In Vermont]

If you're interested in this as a way to find out what makes a star do what it is, such as why Betelgeuse is a 'red-giant,' one can do this without the need (and expense) to resolve the thing. Enter: Spectroscopy.....

Spectroscopic data will tell us what a given star is creating in it's core by nuclear-fusion. This requires a spectroscope, which can be a very 'super-techie' apparatus costing a bucket of money - or something as simple as a diffraction-grating that can be simply screwed into the base of a threaded eyepiece, easily affordable to most anyone.

Here's a representation of the spectrum of visible-light:

And I'll leave a sample spectrograph of Vega - a close-by neighbor of us. As regards such in cosmic matters.

Dave

 

[Herzy]

Very interesting responses! That picture of Betelgeuse is really cool! I have read a bit about spectroscopy, and I guess it is possible to figure out a whole lot about a star without actually seeing detail on it.

[Macavity]

It is an interesting subject? Continuing in [my] above vein it seems there is a Russian APP
"spaceengine" that depicts giant stars as (albeit static) pulsating "monstrous carbuncles". 

http://en.spaceengine.org/forum/22-689-2

Some "lively debate" (interesting too) has ensued as to quite what a giant stars look like.
Opinion seems divided? Convection cells (qv) on other stars can be computer modeled:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap001222.html (The official version!)

As to whether the resultant images/animations depict what one might SEE is less clear? 
Some seem to feel there would still be a clearly defined spherical photosphere + spots etc.
Others ideas suggest we'd be looking through "tenuous gases" at a more opaque "core"?

I sense one has to carefully understand what the *professional* images actually depict?