solar filter for binoculars

solar filter for binoculars

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Not every star is constant. Believe it or not, one of the most recognized points of light, the North Star is not actually constant, it also, alters its brightness every so often. It too, brightens a little and fade somewhat over and over with the passing years. Researchers are analyzing what it means. And recently, astronomers at Villanova University came to the conclusion that the North Star has brightened by about one magnitude, about 2.5 times since antiquity.

Variable stars appear in 2 basic types. The first is called the Intrinsic which often change in brightness as a result of physical modifications inside the stars themselves. These types break down within three main categories, that are the Pulsating, the Flare, as well as the Exploding stars. The second kind is recognized as the Extrinsic variable star that appear to change in brightness because something outside the star alters its light. Both types are classified as the Eclipsing binaries and the Microlensing event stars.

Pulsating stars are developing a constant state of oscillation, they bulge in and out, getting bigger and smaller, hotter and cooler, brighter and dimmer.

Cepheid variable stars are the most important pulsating type, from a scientific standpoint, they inherited their label from the first studied star of their type, the Delta in the constellation Cepheus therefore the name became Delta Cephei. Cepheids are located in faraway galaxies.

Learning the true brightness associated with a star allows us to find out its distance. Naturally, the further it is, the dimmer it looks, but in reality, it does still has the same true brightness.

A interesting tidbit to note is that when a star is two times as distant, it appears four times as faint, when the distance is tripled, it appears nine times as faint, and

whenever a star is ten times further away, it appears one hundred times as faint.

Stars known as RR Lyrae stars tend to be almost like Cepheids although not as big and bright. A few are found in globular star clusters inside our Milky Way.

Globular clusters are large balls of old stars which were born while the Milky Way was still forming. With globular clusters, there are some hundred thousand to a million or so stars all packed in a part of space just 60 to 100 light-years across.

Flare stars are small red dwarfs that undergo huge explosions, like ultrapowerful solar flares. You can not see the majority of solar flares without the actual aid of a unique colored filter, because the actual light from the flare is just a very small fraction of the total light of the sun.

Exploding stars are know as the novas and supernovas. These explosions are enormous. They are substantially more powerful and have considerably greater effects then the flare.

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The sun through a telescope.