After spending the last 5 years imaging the Orion Constellation, I’ve thought about this very topic at length. As we look up and see the asterism (an arrangement of stars that appear to form symbols or shapes) of Orion – the hunter, we are seeing stars along our visual plane. Spatially however, these stars COULD actually be millions of light years away from each other but appear very close together. As magnitude or brightness vary in stars, it’s common for stars to be deceptively different. We assume that the brighter stars must be closer, but in reality, this isn’t the case.
In today’s APOD selection, this wonderful graph displays just this phenomenon. Kudos to R.C. Davidson for the published work.
Have a look at this image and join us on FB to discuss the image!
Hope over to APOD – Nasa’s Astro Photo Of the Day to see the high resolution graphic!
