star or planet?

hello guys, long time board reader just registered today because i saw something strange in the sky...I'm in Boston and went outside facing the northeast, and there is a bright star in the sky, which upon closer inspection seems to be flashing colors very rapidly, blue red green yellow..its the brightest star in the sky and i even took out my friends telescope to look at stars around it but none of them are flashing colors like this other one...i tried to read a sky chart but im too close to the city to see most of the stars on it so i couldnt figure out what this was...if anyone here knows about stars and could possibly give me some answers that would be cool, thanks! neva

You know, I've seen a lot of stars flickering rapidly, and changing colour. I remember being quite freaked out on occasion by this as a child, before being reassured that it was perfectly natural.

Why do stars flicker or twinkle?
Why do stars appear to change color?

It's due to turbulence in the atmosphere. It's just like how things look wavy when you look over a hot grill in the summer, only on a smaller scale. An even better analogy is that looking at stars from inside our atmosphere is like birdwatching from the bottom of a swimming pool: the ripples distort the picture. That's one of the main reasons why space telescopes, like Hubble, provide such sharp pictures.

In addition to contributing turbulence, the atmosphere also acts like a prism when you look at stars near the horizon. Since the star colors get split into a rainbow plus the turbulence makes the star move around, it can appear like the star is changing color. When I was a kid, I thought I had spotted a UFO when I saw a star do this...

Source.

[edit on 8/10/06 by Implosion]

The only two ways I know of to determine whether an object is a star or a planet is to either look it up in star charts (easiest) or make repeated observations to see if it moves in relation to the background stars, if it does it's a planet (or an asteroid or comet etc.), if it doesn't it's a star.

[edit on 10/8/2006 by djohnsto77]

First of all, welcome aboard..

Second, can you tell us what time it was?
Was it early morinng before sunrise?

oh, I almost forgot a third thing.

this thread, so you see a bright light?

[edit on 8-10-2006 by spacedoubt]

it was around 9pm est, i just went and looked at it and it has slightly changed position to the left a bit, but not much

My guess is that, if it were near the horizon, you were seeing the bright star, Capella.

ah capella..

I was going to go out a 9, west coast time, and check it out..
I'll see if I can verify..

Just getting back to this.

Nothing unusual that I noticed.
Just stars, in thier normal positions.

As a rough guide, a star will appear to twinkle and flash (particularly when near the horizon). This is because it is basically a "point source". The disk is far too small to resolve because of the colossal distances involved. On the other hand, the light from a planet appears to be much steadier, with very little twinkling, and that's because the light is spread across a much larger (apparent) disk size.

thanks guys! you've been very helpful and efficient...

UNTIL NEXT TIME

be safe

Originally posted by spacedoubt
ah capella..

You're a dork.

EDIT: Oh, and, no problem nevathinkalone.

[edit on 10/9/2006 by cmdrkeenkid]

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid

Originally posted by spacedoubt
ah capella..

You're a dork.

[edit on 10/9/2006 by cmdrkeenkid]

oh yeah?
Takes one to visually detect, theorize, and certify one.

[edit on 9-10-2006 by spacedoubt]

And it takes an even bigger one to come up with a retort such as that!