This one made me smile: the red giant Betelgeuse in Orion. This long-exposure image allows the stars in the background to be seen clearly; usually they're drowned out by the luminosity of the huge star in the foreground.
Betelgeuse looks reddish-gold in this image; I usually see it as pink. I always think of it as My Star -- I've seen it winking from my bedroom window when I was in high school, glowing from a ship's deck in the middle of the Mediterranean, burning in the skies over Zambia, peering like a friend through breaks in the evening fog over Berkeley. It's ironic that I've lived for so long in a place where stars can seldom be seen, but maybe it makes me appreciate them more when I do see them.
Image Credit and Copyright: Adam Block, Steward Observatory, University of Arizona
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