Pistol Star

[eburacum45]

I thought I might try using Celestia to have a look at the Pistol Star from a hypothetical Pluto in orbit around it
(not that such a planet would have time to form);
from here
http://www.tim-thompson.com/bright-stars.html
I got the visual absolute magnitude (high estimate) as -10.4
and the bolometric absolute magnitude as -13.3;
making a model of the star using the bolometric figure first (which includes UV) I got a temperature for Hypothetical Pistol/Pluto of 5500K;

then making a model of the star using the visual absolute magnitude I got the apparent brightness as magnitude-34.53, much brighter than the Sun as seen from Earth...

I don't know how reliable these figures are, as the Celestia simulator does all the calculations itself; but it looks good; the closest stellar type in this program is class O so that is what I described it as.
The diameter of the Pistol star is said to be about 2AU so Celestia has got that about right; how accurate is the simulator at these excessive values I wonder?

the files;

810000 "Pistol Star"
{
RA 265.75 #approx
Dec -28.8153
Distance 15575.51 #too close, but about as far away as I could get it
SpectralType "O"
AbsMag -10.4
}

"Pistol-Pluto" "Pistol Star"
{
Texture "pluto-lok.*"
SpecularTexture "pluto-lok-spec.*"
SpecularColor [ 0.135 0.12 0.08 ]
SpecularPower 9.5

Radius 1151

CustomOrbit "pluto"
EllipticalOrbit
{
Period 248.54
SemiMajorAxis 39.48168677
Eccentricity 0.24880766
Inclination 17.14175
AscendingNode 110.30347
LongOfPericenter 224.06776
MeanLongitude 238.92881
}

RotationPeriod 153.293904
Obliquity 115.60
EquatorAscendingNode 228.34
RotationOffset 320.75

Albedo 0.55
}

this image might be visible for a while until 50 megs find out I am remote linking...

[Cham]

Well, I think that at this temperature, all the planet's surface should be a red hot melted crust. The vulcan texture should be better.

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Yowzer. That's pretty impressive...

Pity you can't do volumetric nebulae in Celestia, it'd look pretty nifty with all its nebulosity around it.

[Fafers]

I'd like to thank you for the link. It was very interesting.
Quite impressive screenshot.

Just an observation:
If we use a mass greater than 85 solar masses for Pistol Star, then your "Pistol-Pluto" would have a period smaller than 27 years, considering a semi-major axis of 39.5 A.U.