Star name:                                          Aldebaran or Alpha Tauri

Other names:                                      Kugard (Persia), Palicium (Rome),

Constellation:                                     Taurus

Other I.D.                                            HIP 21421, SAO 94027, GSC 1266:1416, 87 Tauri, HD29139

Magnitude:                                         0.87

Absolute magnitude:                          -0.63

Luminosity, Sun=1:                            425

R.A. 2000:                                          04h 35m 55.239s

Dec 2000:                                           +16° 30′ 33.485″

Spectral type:                                     K5III

Temperature:                                      4,010K

Mass, solar masses:                            1.7

Radius, solar radii:                             44.2

Distance in light-years:                      65

 

The brightest star in the constellation Taurus and forms the “eye of the Bull”.  It is an orange giant star and looks like the Bull’s red eye.  Aldebaran is from the Arabic for “follower” as Aldebaran is seen to follow the Pleiades across the sky.

This image was taken using a Sky90 (90mm objective lens) refractor with a reducer/corrector giving a focal length of 405mm and an SXM25C one-shot colour astronomical CCD.  The image is created from a stack of 21 x 5-minute sub-exposures giving a total exposure time of just 105-minutes.