Planet Earth
International Astronomical Union WGSN

Colors of the Stars

With which stars do you see colors?

Modern astrophysics can measure the colors of the stars and on photos we see that the sky is colorful. However, our eyes cannot perceive the color for all stars, because (“at night all cats are gray”) then only the light sensors (rods) of our nerve cells on the retina react and there is not enough light for the color sensors (cones). Only for the bright stars we just see the color – but where exactly is the limit magnitude?

Watch the sky and report back to us,
a) at which stars you recognize a color
b) which color the respective star has.