Discovered courtesy of Tumblr once more, are a set of pretty amazing visualisations originally from Halcyon Maps showing how drastically the sizes of stars can vary. These show how the view would appear from Earth if you replaced the Sun with a different star. As it happens, it varies a lot!
There are some more on Halcyon Maps, where you can also buy prints!
Interestingly, while this shows the difference between star sizes, it’s not so accurate if you wanted the planet to be habitable. Halcyon Maps point out that this is just a concept because liquid water would never exist on planets with views like most of these. A Bit More Detail picks up on this too. The funny thing about habitable zones is that larger stars are brighter and put out more radiation, so habitable planets would be further away.
Interestingly, if an actual habitable planet were in orbit around a red giant star like Arcturus, the star would appear much smaller than the Sun, but much brighter. A little point of light so intensely bright that it can illuminate the whole sky. It’s a little difficult to imagine how it might look. The habitable zone is just that much further away from the star itself.
Conversely, in the habitable zone of a red dwarf, the star would loom, huge overhead. A dim but dramatic presence in the sky. It may seem disconcerting to creatures like us, but a planet under a red dwarf sun would likely also be tidally locked, meaning the Sun would never move from its position in the sky. It would hang eternally in the same spot. No sunrises and no sunsets.
