Chi Cygni's "beat"

[Dr Mordrid]

Animation created by adding interferometer images. Interferometry is done using two or more telescopes whose baseline then becomes the diameter of a much larger virtual instrument. It's pulsating between 300 million miles and 480 million miles in diameter, much as the sun will in a few billion years.

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/image_archive/2009/103/animation.mov

artists conception