Shades of the Red Giant

This image shows the shades of Betelgeuse, as observed from Earth. The variation in the shades is what we call the "twinkling" of a star. A star twinkles, thanks to the atmospheric refraction and the amount of twinkle varies due to many atmospheric factors. The effect becomes most prominent when the star is near horizon as the light passes through more atmosphere than when near zenith.

Betelgeuse is a red giant star located at the Orion constellation. It is around 600 light years away from earth.

This image is made with 1300 individual images of Betelgeuse captured with three different levels of defocusing. The defocusing was done intentionally to make the colours prominent and also to increse the size of the star. The levels of defocusing can be understood in the image with 3 different sizes of the star in the image: Large (high-defocusing), Medium (mid-defocusing), Small (low-defocusing). I shot a total of 1500 images (300+600+600) and randomly selected 1300 images to compose the final one. The images were shot when the star was around 12-18 degress above horizon. The final output image was slightly above 240 megapixels.

Equipment: Nikon D5600, Sigma 150-600c

Exif: 258 × 1/3 seconds, ISO 1000, f/6.3, 600mm (high-defocused)
498 × 1/6 seconds, ISO 1000, f/6.3, 600mm (mid-defocused)
544 × 1/8 seconds, ISO 1000, f/6.3, 600mm (low-defocused)