Achernar was known to be flattened, but as with all other stars in the night sky except for Betelgeuse and now Sirius, it had never been made out and therefore its shape was never verified.
At 144 light years from the Sun and spinning extremely fast at approximately 225Km/sec, Achernar ranks among the Top Ten brightest stars as visible from Earth.
This main sequence hot Class B star is estimated to have 6 to 8 times the Sun´s mass and to be 2.700 times as luminous.
The multicolored Corona greatly protuding out of the Fabergé Egg-like body of Achernar makes this true stellar kaleidoscope one of the prettiest objects ever found in the night sky.
MEADE 14” LX200, SBIG ST2K. Exposure time: 0.005 seconds in high resolution. Image development in CCDops, Maxim DL5 and Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended
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