This gorgeous widefield view is a closeup of the constellation Taurus -- the bright orangey star in the lower left is Aldeberan, the brightest star, and the literal bull's eye, in the constellation. Like many of the brightest stars, Aldeberan was named by Arabic astronomers; the name means “the follower,” because it was always following the Pleiades through the sky.
But what is that other, even brighter, star just below the Pleiades in the bottom center? That's not a star; that's our neighbor Mars, dropping in for a photobomb. In this picture it could pass for Aldeberan's younger sibling, but like so many pairings in our night sky, the two of them are billions of miles apart and only appear close in our limited line of sight from Earth.
The red glow at the top of the image is the California nebula.
Image Credit and Copyright: Petr Horalek / Institute of Physics in Opava
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