Zooming in on the unusual binary star V471 Tauri

This video starts with a wide-field view of the sky and zooms in on the bright northern constellation of Taurus (The Bull). The two very bright star clusters of the Pleiades and the Hyades are very prominent and the zoom ends with a close-up look at an apparently unremarkable star called V471 Tauri. This object has been imaged using the new SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope and this new improved view shows that there is no brown dwarf close to the double star, as had been expected.

Credit:

ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2/N. Risinger (skysurvey.org). Music: movetwo

About the Video

Id:eso1506a
Release date:18 February 2015, 12:00
Related releases:eso1506
Duration:50 s
Frame rate:30 fps

About the Object

Name:V471 Tauri
Category:Stars

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