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?

  • anolemmi@lemmi.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    This is all correct and is commonly known as redshift or blueshift. It’s the same idea as when a car or train passes by and you hear the pitch get higher as it approaches you, and then lower as it leaves you.

    To add to it though, stars themselves (regardless of our perspectives on them) do come in different colors. Betelgeuse is an easy star to find in the night sky that has a distinctly redder color compared to most stars. It’s the left armpit star in the constellation Orion.

    Stars have different colors based on many factors like their composition and how hot they burn.

    • EddoWagt@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I don’t think redshift applies to stars, as all the stars we can see are in the milky way and not moving away from us, not sure of there’s any galaxies you can see with the naked eye

      • SMT42@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        It does apply, technically, but yeah the effect is too small to see with the naked eye

        A few nearby galaxies are visible, most notably Andromeda, but still redshift isn’t naked eye visible for these