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I tried searching on the internet and could not find anything, so does anyone know if there's a website which tracks and shows Betelgeuse's magnitude daily? I just went out today and saw that it's now about the same brightness as Bellatrix.

hamayoun
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1 Answers1

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The American Association of Variable Star Observers tracks observations of a number of variable stars, including Betelgeuse. There are typically many such observations each day, primarily at visible wavelengths. It's quite easy to generate a light curve in the band(s) and date range of your choice.

I'm also aware of a Twitter bot that tweets light curves from AAVSO data several times a day, including long-term projections, but I assume you'd be more interested in looking at the individual measurements yourself.

HDE 226868
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  • There's quite a bit of variation in the measurements, though, e.g. from 0.423 to 3.3151. Is this expected? – Eric Duminil Feb 19 '20 at 12:06
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    @EricDuminil One of those is in the R band and one of those is in the B band, so it's not surprising. Different wavelength filters will give different magnitudes for a particular object. – HDE 226868 Feb 19 '20 at 14:44