# Astronomy buffs: What is the best close up picture of a star? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 3, 2003, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-buffs-what-is-the-best-close-up-picture-of-a-star/152604 "2003-02-03T22:41:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ready29003](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71e660/32.png) [@ready29003](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ready29003)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-buffs-what-is-the-best-close-up-picture-of-a-star/152604/1 "2003-02-03T22:41:40Z")
Astronomy buffs: What is the best close up picture of a star? Links please. (besides our own sun!) Any real nice closeups of Red Giants or anything like that? Are there any pictures out there with nice detail? Like maybe an infrared image of the surface of a star? ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-buffs-what-is-the-best-close-up-picture-of-a-star/152604/2 "2003-02-03T22:50:15Z")
There’s some pretty nifty stuff [here](http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/category/star/). ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-buffs-what-is-the-best-close-up-picture-of-a-star/152604/3 "2003-02-03T22:50:15Z")
No. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-buffs-what-is-the-best-close-up-picture-of-a-star/152604/4 "2003-02-03T23:04:18Z")
There are sunspots, and then there are [Starspots](http://www.google.com/search?as_q=&num=10&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=starspots&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=off). If I say any more, I’ll get it wrong, so have a look for yourself. ---
**Author:** ![drewbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drewbert/32/15890_2.png) [@drewbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewbert)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-buffs-what-is-the-best-close-up-picture-of-a-star/152604/5 "2003-02-03T23:15:00Z")
There may be others more recent, but [this](http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960122.html) shot of Betelgeuse is the only one I’m aware of. ---
**Author:** ![bryanmcc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@bryanmcc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bryanmcc)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-buffs-what-is-the-best-close-up-picture-of-a-star/152604/6 "2003-02-03T23:37:13Z")
Stars are entirely too far away to image their surface with our present level of technology. Like **drewbert** , I am only aware of a very small number of not-very-exciting images of the surface of Betelgeuse (which is not _terribly_ far away, and is honkin’ huge). Other than that, we’ll probably have to wait for several more generations of space telescopes before we get more detail. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-buffs-what-is-the-best-close-up-picture-of-a-star/152604/7 "2003-02-04T00:12:23Z")
This is a very nice closeup of a [**star**](http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/sol.html). It is a [**G2**](http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/help.html#obaf) star. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-buffs-what-is-the-best-close-up-picture-of-a-star/152604/8 "2003-02-04T00:17:51Z")
The OP **did** say “besides our own sun”! 😛 I heard (second-hand, of course) in Stellar Physics class that Betelgeuse is the only other star we can image, and we can’t do that very well. It’s about five pixels across on the Hubble. The picture in **drewbert** ’s link certainly looks like more than five pixels, but I imagine it’s combined from several different exposures. There are certainly no pictures with “nice detail”.