Bright Star that flickers red, white, blue

I know the star that you are seeing.. But I dont know it's name without looking it up. It is one, of the brightest stars in the sky, but is relatively low in the horizon if you're in our part of the country and at low elevation. I see it fairly often when gazing with my scope when we have terrible viewing conditions. it seems to correlate with humidity. I am in central Ms, btw. Also, not usually an ac but I can't sign in tonight.

And this is my first time posting..lol

Crazy...

Also, the amount of stars that can be seen with this effect is greatly increased through a scope and is quite beautiful to look at. what you are seeing is the light being separated like in a prism.

Bingo! It is caused by turbulence in the atmosphere. When I see the stars flashing like that, I know it will be a bad night to view with my telescope. [link to astroprofspage.com]



.

What you are seeing is a star called Capella.

"Does golden Capella sparkle red and green?"

[link to earthsky.org]

Why does a golden star flash red and green when it’s low in the sky?

The reality is that every star’s light must shine through Earth’s atmosphere before reaching our eyes. The atmosphere causes stars to twinkle. The key to stars’ flashing colors is that, when you look at an object low in the sky, you’re looking through more atmosphere than when that object is overhead.

The atmosphere splits or “refracts” the star’s light, just as a prism splits sunlight. Capella’s red and green flashes don’t come from the star itself. They come from refraction of Capella’s light by our atmosphere, when this star is low in the sky.

Why are these flashes of color so noticeable with Capella, and not with others stars? Simply this. Capella is a bright star. It’s the 6th brightest star in Earth’s sky, not including our sun.

Look for Capella low in the northeast around mid-evening, noting that this brilliant beauty sparkles with the colors of the rainbow.

Last Edited by Biochemky on 08/29/2011 03:14 AM

Thanks Deviant and Boxer - thats the best explanation I've been given and I actually understand lol.

Cool Thanks for the find!

Interesting! Thanks for the post!

So I've been looking at Capella - wow thank you for telling me that. I can sound a know-it-all to my family now. I can just see them rolling their eyes at me when I put on my know-it-all voice.

ive been noticing this one in particular for almost a year now... but i also noticed other stars also flickering... never noticed the twinkling of the stars until pretty recently

2 Dollar bill maybe?

The star is Sirius. Reference it by Orion's belt being above it.

It's always done this. The reason all the flags are red white and blue in half the world. The original red white and blue flag was the persian one.


At times it can twinkle red white and green......Which is why you see all the red, white, and green flags.

satellite

jeez they stole my cloths bag and bike on vacation and i would never want to be there but yeah they keep you smiling.

Who? Nasty kiwis?

I think this is what I was seeing back in the late nineties.
It was white with a slight red and blue flashing very near orion.

maybe we are just looking up more often

If you liken orion's belt to the stern of a boat you can see this star taking up the back of the boat.

It is quite precisely a boat. Very geometrically sound. it is Ra's boat of the Egyptians.

So again it is the star sirius in the modern constellation canus major. The boat that is made of Sirius at the end and Orion's belt as the stern is quite ancient and not well known at all.

WELL jolly gee willickers....doesnt any of you own a camera with zoom? can you please get it to us? a video plz


I got a picture of one in Coeur D'alene, Idaho. It's on fire, the flickering and tilting is due to spinning from being on fire. Look closely at the smoke and you can see the spin trail. It's not a meteor either and too low to be a star, I'm not an idiot.

[link to www.spazgraphic.com] (taken with android phone on August 13, 2011)

Seen them many times in KL, even posted here about them. I remeber the first thread I saw on them, around 2004, from Australia. The OP then called them twinklers.

I've looked through a telescope and all I can say is they are oval, pulse red-blue-green-white and are either in the low NE or NW sky (as seen from KL) and are geocentric, that's why they appear stationary.

Galactic Federation motherships? Get a life dushbag. They are way too small so I reckon they may be our military or someone/thing observing.

Sorry forgot to add, whatever I have seen is no star, unless the atmosphere can refract one to appear as two, seperated by about 60 degrees of sky.

ARCTURUS?

A bright star in the west in the evening in October – flashing colors – is Arcturus.

But let’s back up a minute. The extremely bright object in the east to southeast sky on these October 2010 evenings is the planet Jupiter. Still, many have asked about a bright star – not as bright as Jupiter, but still very bright and twinkling very actively – in the west after sunset. For example, Jim wrote, When I looked at it through my binoculars it flashed brilliant red, brilliant blue and bright white. I live in Indiana and called my cousin in Wisconsin, who also could see it. It was quite beautiful. Do you know what it was that I was looking at?
[link to earthsky.org]


[link to astrobob.areavoices.com]

With all these star, comet and what is it threads. I have learnt a very valuable lesson. Do not try and find out about what stars you are seeing from people in another bloody hemisphere.

From now on - I shall be checking all stars from the southern hemi sky charts and then I won't end up looking like a prat.

live in Uvalda, GA and i see it here also. 2 bad i dont have anything concrete on what planet or star it is yet... but i hope to know soon :)

Greetings fellow Stargazers

I'm in Denver and ive been watching something in the sky for the past month, maybe longer. Normally in the west sky but now in the Eastern sky to the left of Jupiter.
Its bright red, flashing what looks like orange and green and with binoculars, it almost looks like it separates then comes back together. Skymap doesn't recognize it and I doubt it's a space station...

I'm sorta spooked over here
I.A.W.O

Uncle Sam wants that star!

Good morning everyone. This is all I could find...sirius.
It just doesn't seem right though. I'll have to check it out again tonight.

[link to earthsky.org]

If you think it's none of the above, there was a post on here either yesterday or the day before talking about a supernova that will be visible in the northern hemisphere in about two weeks, could it be the brightness of that already reaching here a little?