Conversation

Tod R. Lauer
@TodLauer
So, like, Betelgeuse - let's not go all nutty over a little dimming. It's long been known to be variable, has a huge tenuous outer atmosphere, and huge convection cells that individually span a large chunk of the "surface." Radiation transfer has a Poissonian component.
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Tod R. Lauer
@TodLauer
And I wouldn't reach for HST just now. For bright source like this ground-AO is likely to be superior - particularly for those having good success bringing it into the optical band, where gains of factors of several over HST are offered. Optical interferometry,
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Tod R. Lauer
@TodLauer
or non-redundant aperture masks also would be handy. The goal is to resolve the state of the atmosphere just now. Disk resolved spectroscopy (VLT/Gravity?) would be especially attractive. HST could provide UV, but with the apparent cooling, this would probably not offer much.
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Tod R. Lauer
@TodLauer
And I wouldn't think of a SN event just now. As close as Betelgeuse is, when you hit O/Ne burning in the last year of its life (or so), the core is going to be so hot that it will wail in neutrinos and we should see that. We will actually know when it's fixing to go.
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