While camping, I noticed that if you look long enough at almost any star, you start seeing some tiny, subtle colors in that star. Even crazier, they sometimes flicker between more colors. In my case orange, blue and something like cyan.

Besides constellations, what else could you observe regarding starts, with the naked eye?

  • colonial@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Most of the more exotic colors (such as green) are caused by various optical tricks.

    Physically speaking, all true stars are roughly one of these colors:

    • Red
    • Orange
    • Yellow
    • White
    • Blue

    The exact color of a star depends on its size/temperature. Red stars are the coolest, while blue stars are the hottest.

    • Lemmylaugh@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      So not only are we the goldilocks of planet position in the solar system, we are also the goldilocks of star temperature?

      • Perfide@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        No, the sun is actually white. It looks yellow(or red, when closer to the horizon) for the same reason the sky looks blue, rayleigh scattering.

        • wewbull@feddit.uk
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          1 year ago

          Had we evolved under a red star, I’m pretty sure we’d be saying our star was “white”. We have eyes which were optimised for the frequency spectra of our star.

          • Dandroid@dandroid.app
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            1 year ago

            I assume it’s all relative, right? We could just as easily say there are hotness 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The question was, is ours perfect at a 3? And the answer was actually ours is a 4. If our star was a 1 and we evolved under that, I don’t think it would change our perspective on the different hotness levels. A 4 would still be a 4.

          • Perfide@reddthat.com
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            1 year ago

            No, it is a yellow dwarf, which has nothing at all to do with the color of the sun and everything to do with the mass,temp and fusion properties of the star.

            Color wise though, it doesn't just look white to us, it IS white. Snow is white because it's reflecting sunlight, which is also why polar bear fur is white, and it's why rainbows show all visible colors, because the sunlight they're formed from contains all visible wavelengths, aka white.

              • Perfide@reddthat.com
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                1 year ago

                Okay? How is that relevant then, when we're specifically talking about the color of stars, not their classification?

      • colonial@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Most of them, yes. The reddest stars (like Proxima Centauri) are too cool and dim to be visible to the naked eye, but if you go somewhere with no light pollution and let your eyes adjust you should be able to perceive some differences between stars.