Multi coloured star?

[Mr Moff]

Recently when it's nice and clear and almost dark,in roughly the south west direction I can see a star that rapidly changes colour.

I only get to view it for around an hour because it doesn't go very high and then disappears behind the bungalow next door.

The other night I managed to get the scope on it for about 20 mins and it looks fantastic changing colour.

Can anyone tell me what star it is?

Danny.

[eddy]

A shot in the dark id say Sirius in the constellation of Canis Major. I say this because a) Its one of the brightest stars in the sky and well known for 'dancing' and c) pretty low in the SW/W sky at the moment

I could be wrong, but im pretty confident

[Dave Smith]

Would agree with Sirius. Because it is low in the sky, the light from it travels through a large thickness of atmosphere and will refract (i.e. bend due to the change in light speed) and as the atmosphere is in constant turmoil the different rainbow colours will be continually changing. It is actually very pretty through a telescope. This twinkling of stars is a sign of bad seeing.

Dave

[Mr Moff]

Thanks for the replies.I'm hoping to get some video footage when I next see it.

Something I did notice is when I swaped between a few eyepieces the view didn't seem to degrade when running higher power.

Danny.

[Tribal-Wolf]

It is often mistaken for an Plane or a UFO lol

[barkis]

You get that colour scintillation when bright objects are low in the sky. The planet Venus is often seen with blue and red limbs. It doesn't shimmer like Sirius, because it's a planet, and has measurable size, whereas stars are point sources, and are affected more by earths atmospheric conditions.

Ron.

[rwilkey]

I saw it last night, yes, in my opinion it is Sirius.

[AceShaw]

I noticed the same thing, also just discovered that my scope has an identification feature that will tell me whats in my eye piece... what a treat!

[Stargazer_00]

Sirius does this alot,first time I saw it I thought 'OMG I'm seeing a star go Nova!' only to come back inside and google it. That aside it still is a fantastic sight, caused by our atmosphere (hubble wouldnt see that muhaha!)

[LukeSkywatcher]

Sirius "The Dog Star", is quite amazing to observe.

[jonathan]

Last time I was out there were lots of stars doing this, quite high up from the horizon too; it was poor seeing so didn't get the telescope out.

[kenmyers]

A few weeks back it was flashing red blue red yellow green blue yellow red white green yellow red red yellow blue white red blue

I was mesmerised and spent my whole session on it!

[parklife2uk]

I observed this a couple of weeks ago and was almost convinced it was a plane until I viewed it through through the telescope and realised how wrong I was....

[Parus major]

To my eye Arcturus is equally mental.

[Admiral Crispy]

From my location Jupiter turned a very deep Mars-like red when it was about 5 degrees above the horizon! However that was in a West/Northwest direction, so I would say it had to be Sirius!

[kenmyers]

To my eye Arcturus is equally mental.

I agree, it is awesome. Mental. Awesome mental.

[lupuvictor]

What our eyes perceives as a single star is actually a binary star: Sirius A and Sirius B A1V (A) / DA2 (. These two stars are visible in the video below. Distance that separates the two stars, varies between 8.1 and 31.5 AU.

Telescope Celestron C8" Newtonian, super plossl 20mm, 2x Barlow

Sirius star video

[iwatkins]

If you really want to disco, get Sirius in the centre of your most powerful eyepiece and defocus until you get a really big disc. Light show is fantastic.

Cheers

Ian