I personally find even the existence, and the size of stars to be almost beyond comprehension.
Stars are some of the strangest, most fascinating objects that humans can see.
It's now suspected that there are many more planets orbiting stars than there are stars. That's more planets than billions of trillions of stars.
In the image below is the star Rigel.
I shot this about 2 months ago with a 10" SCT Catadioptric telescope and a Canon 40D. The image was post processed, calibrated, aligned and stacked.
Rigel is a Blue supergiant at about 800 light-years out, and shines with approximately 40,000 times the luminosity of our own sun.
What is interesting about this image below is Rigel's companion star, Rigel B. Looking closely to the upper right of Rigel, Rigel B can be seen.
What is truly amazing, is that the tiny companion, also has companion and is what is called a binary system, of 2 stars orbiting each other. I was not able to "split" the other little companion of Rigel B.
Rigel B is what is called a spectroscopic binary system, consisting of two main sequence stars that orbit their center of gravity every 9.8 days.
The shot might not look like much, until it's realized that Rigel A, the large star, is over 500 times brighter than it's tiny companion, and it makes for a very challenging target to "split" the two stars. It took several attempts until I "captured" the little companion hiding within the massive glare.
According to people much smarter than I, Rigel is in the process of dying, and is most likely fusing internal helium into carbon and oxygen. According to the pros, Rigel seems destined to explode.
Thought you might be interested.