Expert: Jayendra Upadhye - 2/26/2008

Question
The night of Feb. 25th in Homer, AK.
Viewed a light in the sky which did not move other than with the rotation of earth. Looking through binoculars and through the naked eye, the object greatly changed colors green/blue/red/purple and was twinkling greatly compared to the other stars. What was I viewing?

Answer
Hi,
In all probability you were looking at one of the 3 listed stars below. (look at references below).

When you look at bright blue stars near the horizon, you often see them changing colors, as shifting intervening atmospheric layers play optical tricks on you.

In the tropics, that happens with Sirius.

look up the star chart in references below and decide by altitude to overhead (midpoint of the star chart), which star you actually looked at. Use constellation outlines as guides.
then substitute the name in the wikipedia star links i provided, to find out your star.

references:-
------------
http://www.wunderground.com/US/AK/Homer.html

2 - scroll down and Click on "view full star chart" to get
http://www.wunderground.com/sky/ShowSky.asp?TheLat=59.69861984&TheLon=-151.49310...

3 - click star names & constellation borders check-boxes and redraw.
to get
http://www.wunderground.com/sky/ShowSky.asp?CurDir=Up&TheLat=59.69861984&TheLon=...

there you will find prominent star names listed, out of which, the most prominent yellowish star is Capella (a bit over the horizon, it is a very bright yellowish star (12th brightest in the sky).

On the opposing horizon, but much higher would be vega (5th brightest star in night sky, only 25 light years away), a bluish bright star.
Vega is part of the precession of the poles around the night sky and was once the pole star, which it will again be in 14,000 ad

travelling around the horizon, midway between the two would be Arcturus, a red giant (3rd brightest star in the night sky, brightest in the northern hemisphere!).
refer:-
capella:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capella_%28star%29
vega:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega
arcturus:-  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcturus

Please do rate the answer if you find it interesting.
regards
Jayen