Stargazing News - May 17th, 2025
From
CJ@21:2/156 to
All on Fri May 16 06:17:53 2025
Saturday May 17, 2025
Catch the Colors of Stars (all night)
Stars shine with a color that is controlled by their surface (or photospheric) temperature, and this is captured in their spectral classification. In mid-May every year, the three bright stars of the Summer Triangle asterism are
climbing the eastern sky after dusk. Deneb, Vega, and Altair are A-class stars that appear blue-white to the eye and have temperatures in the range of 7,500 to 10,000 Kelvins. Arcturus, which dominates the southern sky in evening, is
an orange, K-class giant star with a temperature of only 4,300 K. Chara, the fainter of Canes Venatici's two stars, is a yellowish, G-class star with a temperature of 5,900 K, similar to our sun's. Reddish Antares, the heart of Scorpius, which twinkles above the southern horizon, is an old M-class star with a low surface temperature of 3,500 K. You can estimate the temperatures
of other stars by comparing their color to these bright reference stars.
(Data courtesy of Starry Night)
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