THIS is a star!!!??

[Face_explosion]

Ok,  I remember learning in school that stars are Suns much like the one cruising around the Earth. The other day I was checking out the sky and found this… can someone tell me what's going on here?

[jrastro]

It looks like an out of focus star to me. How did you photograph it? Did you use a telescope?

 

[Knighty2112]

Looks like bad seeing with a very out of focus star, most likely quite low in the sky too perhaps.

[baldeliftman]

Its a out of focus star and tube currents " the fire inside the telescope" (if the telescope has not cooled down you get tube currents )

[barkis]

A bright scintillating Star for sure, well out of focus too. 
Sirius is a good example of this, it is low down in southern the sky. and can be seen
twinkling with the naked eye.
The twinkling, scintillation, is due to the Earths atmosphere disrupting the starlight as it passes through to your eye/scope eyepiece. 
The starlight has to pass through much more of the earths atmosphere  when targets are so low in Declination,
hence the disturbance becomes  even more pronounced.

 

[Face_explosion]

The video footage exacerbates the look. It pulsates and looks a lot like the 4D hypercube the way it folds in on itself over and over. It was taken with a camera (p900) thru an old Meade telescope. I'll post the link to a YouTube video that displays this movement a little clearer. Does anyone have pics of these phenomena in focus?

[Moonshane]

 

[Moonshane]

ps

the sun most definitely does not orbit the Earth.

[cotterless45]

C'mon, you'll be telling us the Earth isn't flat next .

[Moonshane]

now who's being ridiculous

 

 

[Face_explosion]

Is your video out of focus too? I'm confused as to what a star would look like in focus...

[psamathe]

20 minutes ago, Face_explosion said:

Is your video out of focus too? I'm confused as to what a star would look like in focus...

.

(Sorry)

[Knighty2112]

Below is an image of normal stars in focus free from any 'twinkling' effects from either the atmosphere, or been low down on the horizon.

[DeepSkyBagger]

An in-focus star appears as a point of light. If a star appears to have any structure at all it is either out of focus, or is being watched through turbulent atmosphere - the Earth's that is, not anything else's. The twinkling of a star's light occurs only in the last few miles of its vastly longer journey. 

[DeepSkyBagger]

I have a friend who as a young lad with his first telescope made detailed drawings of all these fantastically shaped stars that he could see. Then he discovered how to focus the scope. He's a highly accomplished observer now.

[ArmyAirForce]

Sirius focussed with a Bahtinov mask, 1 metre focal length....

 

[Stu]

Some good images here from a certain Mr Peach.... 

http://www.damianpeach.com/binaries.htm

This one is interesting too as it shows how the atmospheric seeing conditions affect stellar images

http://www.damianpeach.com/pickering.htm

[cloudsweeper]

On 28/04/2016 at 16:45, Moonshane said:

ps

the sun most definitely does not orbit the Earth.

Didn't Galileo get into trouble for such heresy?

[Stub Mandrel]

On 28/04/2016 at 16:45, Moonshane said:

ps

the sun most definitely does not orbit the Earth.

Yes it does, it's just the barycentre is deep within the sun ;-)

[Moonshane]

Touche!

[Face_explosion]

Here is a link to my friend's footage of Capella:

atmospheric conditions right?

[carastro]

I have seen this effect when placing a scope indoors and trying to view through a window with a radiator underneath it - rising heat.  

I don't do that any more, and I think all the suggestions above are correct, uncooled scope and out of focus.

Carole 

[Knighty2112]

Wow! 883x magnification! No wonder the stars are dancing around a lot, plus all the turbulence in the atmosphere been magnified by the same amount too! On the best nights, with perfect conditions you'd be looking at most to push any scope capable of high magnifications of less than half of what was used here for this video! On most nights you'd be lucky to get anywhere near 200x with a good scope and optics! 

[Face_explosion]

Not understanding what all this turbulence is... The motion happening to that thing is consistent and geometric. It seems as though it's pulsating.  I seems more likely atmospheric conditions can hinder our vision by obscuring something so we can't see it at all, but atmospheric conditions don't modulate with that kind of consistency, form and color. I think the motion is caused by the star and perhaps moisture diffracting a bit of it.

[Knighty2112]

3 minutes ago, Face_explosion said:

Not understanding what all this turbulence is... The motion happening to that thing is consistent and geometric. It seems as though it's pulsating.  I seems more likely atmospheric conditions can hinder our vision by obscuring something so we can't see it at all, but atmospheric conditions don't modulate with that kind of consistency, form and color. I think the motion is caused by the star and perhaps moisture diffracting a bit of it.

Turbulence in the air (which is what causes the stars to twinkle and dance about, especially at high magnitudes) is caused by the movement of warm air which causes the light to get diffracted (just like light is diffracted in water too) through this warm air as it goes in front of the star. And, just like water, if the air is turbulent the image of the star moves and shakes, just like your legs seem to quiver about under the water when you are having a bath and the water is disturbed.

At higher magnifications (normally around 150x to 200x) on a normal night the stars (and the planets too) will seem to wobble and move about. This is always caused by the air turbulence as you look at the images through any telescope. The images will be even worse if viewed when it is above something that is radiating heat upwards from it too, like the roofs of house tops. We've all seen in movies and in real life the effects of air turbulence on a hot summers day when looking at a distant road where the heat causes the image of the road to shimmer in the distance. Exactly the same thing going on here in the night sky too as heat is radiated in the rising air into the sky. And the more you zoom in on any turbulence (whether in the day or the night time) the more the image will appear to shake around.

Hope this helps to understand.