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Color of the Night Sky (2019)

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Re: Color of the Night Sky (2019)

#11
post #10
post #7

I teach painting and many of the points I make in class are covered by this resource. Importantly, that the sky is almost always the brightnest thing in a landscape, even at night and that colour vision at night is poor. Great resource.

The sky is bright against the landscape if you're far enough away from civilization. In an urban environment, the night sky is black with some stars at best, blue or pink at worst, and spots of artificial light overpower it here and there. Even really far away, in complete darkness, with the sky literally covered by a million stars, the sky mostly remains pitch black to the naked eye, with very faint bits of color fr…

See Orion's belt? Pretend that's a straight line. Now look perpendicular to it in both directions and you come to some fairly bright stars about the same distance both ways. One of those is red/orange and the other is blue/green. Visible to the naked eye even in an urban setting.

Re: Color of the Night Sky (2019)

#12
post #11
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sky is bright against the landscape if you're far enough away from civilization. In an urban environment, the night sky is black with some stars at best, blue or pink at worst, and spots of artificial light overpower it here and there. Even really far away, in complete darkness, with the sky literally covered by a million stars, the sky mostly remains pitch black to the naked eye, with very faint bits of color fr…

See Orion's belt? Pretend that's a straight line. Now look perpendicular to it in both directions and you come to some fairly bright stars about the same distance both ways. One of those is red/orange and the other is blue/green. Visible to the naked eye even in an urban setting.

Yes, can confirm, Betelgeuse is reddish, and Rigel is bluish, I see it nearly every night when Orion is high enough above horizon right in NYC. Mars was prominent a few weeks ago, also pretty orange. But their colors are not bright hues, not like LEDs; rather, they have some hint of color to me.

And, of course, they are but small dots, and the sky is vast and (in an urban setting) rather empty; there are few sufficiently bright stars, and of course nothing comparable to the colorful glow of space dust, nebulae, or even a noticeable atmosphere glow, except for backlight of the city.

Re: Color of the Night Sky (2019)

#13
post #11
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sky is bright against the landscape if you're far enough away from civilization. In an urban environment, the night sky is black with some stars at best, blue or pink at worst, and spots of artificial light overpower it here and there. Even really far away, in complete darkness, with the sky literally covered by a million stars, the sky mostly remains pitch black to the naked eye, with very faint bits of color fr…

See Orion's belt? Pretend that's a straight line. Now look perpendicular to it in both directions and you come to some fairly bright stars about the same distance both ways. One of those is red/orange and the other is blue/green. Visible to the naked eye even in an urban setting.

Orion’s Belt isn’t visible in many urban settings

Re: Color of the Night Sky (2019)

#14
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See Orion's belt? Pretend that's a straight line. Now look perpendicular to it in both directions and you come to some fairly bright stars about the same distance both ways. One of those is red/orange and the other is blue/green. Visible to the naked eye even in an urban setting.

Orion’s Belt isn’t visible in many urban settings

The belt is hard to see, but Betelgeuse is pretty prominent.

Venus, Jupiter, and even Mars become visible in twilight, when the sky is still comparatively bright (has intense color).

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