Above+the+atmosphere

The Ozone absorbs the light from stars as it travels through the atmosphere. The amount of light absorbed is directly proportional to how much Ozone is between you, the observer, and the star.

In addition, fluctuations in the atmosphere make the star "twinkle", and their images are not as small as they might be.

Sometimes the air can be especially turbulent, smearing out stars. Just to give an example, below are two snapshots taken of the star Betelgeuse on two different nights.



The reason why it looks so much larger on the right is due to excessive smearing caused by the turbulent atmosphere, which was particularly bad that night.


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