ABSTRA C T We report contemporaneous multi-wavelength interferometric imaging of the red supergiant star Betelgeuse (a Orionis), using the Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telescope (COAST) and the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), at wavelengths of 700, 905 and 1290 nm. We find a strong variation in the apparent symmetry of the stellar brightness distribution as a function of wavelength. At 700 nm the star is highly asymmetric, and can be modelled as the superposition of three bright spots on a strongly limb-darkened disc. However, at 905 nm only a single low-contrast feature is visible and at 1290 nm the star presents a featureless symmetric disc. The change in spot contrast with wavelength is consistent with a model in which the bright spots represent unobscured areas of elevated temperature, owing perhaps to convection, on a stellar disc that itself has a different appearance, i.e. geometrical extent and limb-darkening profile, at different wavelengths. The featureless centre-to-limb brightness profile seen at 1290 nm is consistent with this model and suggests that future interferometric monitoring of the star to quantify the size changes associated with radial velocity variations should be performed at similar wavelengths in the near-infrared.

We report the first direct detection of long-term periodic diameter variations in a Mira variable. Angular diameter measurements of the 313-d period variable R Leonis at 833 nm and 940 nm obtained between 1996 February and 1997 June using the Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telescope (COAST) and the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) show a cyclic modulation of the apparent stellar diameter by approximately 35 per cent. The agreement between these new data and archival measurements from 1992 January suggests coherence in the modulation over a 5-yr period, Our data are consistent with recent models which suggest that, in photometric bands with only weak to moderate molecular contamination, periodic variations in stellar diameter of order 50 per cent can be maintained, The measurements indicate that the apparent stellar diameter was largest at visual phase 0.5 and that any phase shifts between the visual light curve and those at 833 and 940 nm were at most 0.05, The large offset (similar to 0.25) between the phase of the observed diameter maximum and that predicted for the photospheric continuum diameter variations suggests that our observations are more sensitive to the changing temperature structure of the outer atmosphere than to the deeper continuum-forming layers.