That never happened and Betelguse recovered from its sudden dimming and I noted it slowly returning to its normal brightness. Orion has other objects for casually observing with binoculars and take the opportunity to view the “Orion Nebula” a place where new stars are forming and their glow illuminates the gas cloud. A relatively bright star cluster NGC1981 is just above the nebula and just below the middle star in “Orion’s Belt”. NGC1981 is composed of 10 stars. The stars may appear constant, however like all things they have a set lifetime. The brilliant star which marks Orion’s left leg, Rigel, shines blue/white, however this phase of its life is not going to last as it “burns” its hydrogen fuel rapidly and will undergo a rapid and disruptive series of events as it enters the later phase of its life as it expands into a Giant and throws off enormous amounts of its atmosphere. Astronomers have slowly built up knowledge of how stars form, shine, decay and end their lives. The brightest star we can see, Sirius which is a mere 8.61 light year distant and 200-300 million years old formed with a companion, Sirius B. Sirius B, the companion star, was much more massive and consumed its hydrogen fuel more voraciously. The star underwent a series of violent outbursts losing much of its mass and it collapsed to become an unseen “White Dwarf”, Sirius B which is also known as “the Pup”. Sirius B is invisible to most observers but when using a considerably large telescope and a method of obscuring the light from brilliant Sirius it is possible to glimpse it. If we had been able to view the pair of stars 120 million years ago, we would have witnessed the catastrophic end of that brilliant star. Whenever we observe the night-sky we may be lucky to witness some incredible event millions of km distant as a star suddenly ends its life. Some observers carefully study stars which are known to undergo regular and incredible surges in brightness (magnitude), some are easily viewed using binoculars. As you may notice the lives of stars are measured in millions or even billions of years however astronomers have produced accurate models of how stars form, shine and eventually end their lives. If you would like to find out more about astronomy please contact james.ince1@tiscali.co.uk or any member of the Bassetlaw Astronomical Society we welcome your questions. Have a healthy and enjoyable New Year