Why is this star "twinkling" with flashes of red?

A star will appear to flash or twinkle in a variety of colors the closer it gets to the horizon. The light has to travel through more atmosphere and appears to change color. If it happens when it's directly above you, you MIGHT have something.

What the OP describes sounds kind of like how Sirius looks in the morning to me particularly when it is down near the horizon. The reason for the changing colors is partly its proximity to the horizon as well as the fact that it is a binary system of two stars in particularly close configuration. There is also speculation that it may be a trinary system.

Resolving the Red Contraversy: Scienceblogs.com

I have been setting out side with my new scope sense around 8ish and so far just one good pic
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b8229495001c.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by jennybee35


Yup, probably Arcturus. At least, it has been really cool looking for the past month or so, with bright red/yellow twinkles and such.

OK I shouldn't say the star is twinkling red. Because the star is still white, it's that there are/were red spots over the white, not as big as the white as to cover it though. Like take our sun and imagine looking at it, and seeing a green spot flashing in different areas of its circle. Now imagine it being far away, that's what I saw last night.