Antares Rising Over Lubbock

The red supergiant Antares — alpha Scorpii, the heart of the Scorpion — glows distinctly crimson in this wide-field view, captured from Lubbock, Texas in the pre-dawn hours of April 23, 2026. Located some 550 light-years away, Antares is one of the largest stars visible to the naked eye, with a diameter that would extend past the orbit of Mars if placed in our own solar system.

Its cool ~3,600 K surface temperature gives it the ruddy hue that earned it a name meaning “rival of Ares,” the Greek god of war, for ancient sky-watchers who often confused it with the planet Mars. Drifting across the foreground, a band of thin cloud catches the warm glow of distant ground lights, framing the stars of Scorpius rising low in the southern sky.

The image was captured with a Google Pixel phone in a single four-minute Night Mode exposure and processed in Siril — background gradient removed, histogram stretched, and color saturation enhanced to reveal the true stellar hues recorded by the sensor.