Talk:Rigel

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[edit] Season location

At what time of the year is Rigel most visible? I'm trying to locate it around the earth at the spring, summer, winter or fall position

In which hemisphere? :) I imagine it makes a difference? I only know that, in the northwestern United States, we see Rigel most clearly from October to April. Don't know if that's specific enough for you. It also depends on whether you want when Rigel is at its peak at midnight, or whether you want it earlier in the evening. Jwrosenzweig 19:49, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Hemisphere in this case (N/S) doesn't matter. Rigel is in the night sky during the winter, as you say. It's in the southern celestial hemisphere, but very near the celestial equator, meaning that it is visible from the entire southern hemisphere of the Earth and all but the highest latitude Arctic regions of the northern hemisphere. -- Decumanus 19:53, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Hemisphere does matter when the question is asking in terms of the seasons. Winter in the northern hemisphere translates to summer in the southern. --seav 19:14, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
How high does it get from Glasgow (Scotland)? I don't think Orion rises very high in the sky.81.107.126.114 14:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I was gonna say :P It's summer right now and Rigel is bright and high... SpitValve 08:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Giant or Dwarf

The article says Rigel is a super giant; however it is linked to both Category:Blue-white dwarfs & Category:Blue-white supergiants. Something seems amiss. Wendell 16:43, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I suspect the dwarf category was added because the companions of Rigel are main sequence. I have deleted that category though, just to keep things clear as Rigel is usually understood to be the main star.--Kalsermar 19:32, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

what the hell -- unsigned

In this case, should we split off Rigel B as a separate aticle? -- CaptainMike 17:41, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Celestia

Excuse me, but what a junk Celestia imagery. :-p It's not even an "artists" rendition as it claims, unless a software is now an artist. :-p

Anyway, my point is, wouldn't it be better to have real images than just Celestia things? Keep in mind that Celestia use about 5 textures for all documented stars it supports in our galaxy. Sure, a real picture can't be quite as up close, but still... It'd at least depict Rigel. -- Northgrove 16:52, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Right, the current image is pretty useless as it is not informative. In addition, it is wrong because B supergiant stars like Rigel don't have sunspots. A size comparison might be handy.— JyriL talk 17:14, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Radius and diameter

I don't get it. On Rigel's page it says its 70 solar radii. Yet the list of largest stars has the units in diameter. This list has Rigel on it listed as 70 sun diameters. So is it a simple mistake?

No mistake, but what is exactly the problem? 70 radii means the radius is 70 times the radius of our sun. 70 diameters means 70 times the diameter of our sun. Both things are equivalent.--CWitte 14:53, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
The problem is the back-and-forth. Rigel's radius and diameter are 70 times that of the Sun, yes, but we should adopt a consistent rule across articles to avoid this minor confusion. Radius or diameter? You choose. 68Kustom (talk) 02:03, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] image

What can be seen on the "artist's impression" image? Why is "viewed from 1AU" and how should it look like eg. from 2AU or from 7 ly? I just see a white circle, some spots and nothing else. Maybe one should put a small sun inside the picture to a a comparision at least, --CWitte 08:21, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the point of this image either. Rigel is white, blurry, seems to have sunspots or something, and it's so big it doesn't fit into the frame of the picture. / edg ☺ ☭ 01:09, 15 March 2008 (UTC)