KY Cygni

[VaDirtyEstilo]

With the Parker Solar Probe about to head off to our sun, I decided to visit the closest Supergiant - KY Cygni. Only 5k Ly from the bubble. Let me tell you this star is HUGE!

Usually after a jump you end up about 7ls from any other star but when you jump to KY Cygni you end up a whopping 4.9k Ls away if I remember correctly.

Once there its a bit hard to grasp the spectacular size of this star. It almost looks like any other start from your ship. It's not until you look at the distance from it that you can appreciate the monumental size of it.

From 5kLs away KY Cygni almost fills up my view, any other star at 5kLs away is a pin dot. Even at 10k and 20kLs away KY Gygni looks big.

Anyone visit any of the other supergiants in the galaxy?

KY Cygni @ 5kLs

Random Star @5kLs

KY Cygni @ 10kLs

KY Cygni @ 20kLs

 

[Satsuma]

That really brings the size home! Biiiiiig star!

 

[iain666]

This is my favourite pic for illustrating star size differences

(Edit - that's come out quite small - comes from http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/VY_Canis_Majoris)

Or this one I took at RS Persei, fuel scooping at nearly 10 AU...

 

[Dr. Nagi]

It's always fun to see when smaller stars are orbiting the big ones, gives a much better idea:

 

[askavir]

If you like huge (and real) stars, take a detour "southwards" and head to Mu Cephei. Also 5k ly from Sol, not too far from KY Cygni. It's the same size. Make sure you can jump at least 35ly, or you won't be able to jump into Mu Cephei.

There's of course VY Canis Majoris, the biggest found yet, roughly 1.8K ly from sol, but in the opposite direction.

And there's always Betelgeuse, 600ly from Sol only, not as big but still huge, and you absolutely MUST land on the 2nd planet and see the gargantuan sunrise.

 

[Whitmann]

Just don't forget with Betelgeuse to switch off all non-vital systems because you can overheat if you're not careful.

 

[Straha Yeagar]

One of my favorite compare and contrast systems. The 8 solar mass B star is over 150 ls closer than the super giant...

Another one where the 22 solar mass O star is closer than the massive supergiant...

 

[malenfant]

Dryi Ausms AA-A H21 - I'm 1775ls from each star here: the big one is an A Supergiant with a radius of about 1.2 AU, the small one on the left is an O V star about 9 times larger than Sol (so our own sun would look even smaller here!).