The Color of the Sun

[GigaG]

http://www.cracked.com/article_19649_6- ... ovies.html

Be careful, this has some bad language. But it says that the sun is white instead of yellow, but Celestia renders it as it is yellow... The sun article is near the bottom. Now this got me thinking - if a star burning at the temperature of the Sun is white, then is blue star (which is hotter) white or blue? And are red stars less red than people think they are? Sorry if this is the wrong forum, but I wanted to tell the Celestia community about this anomaly.

[john Van Vliet]

"yellow" and "white" are a bit subjective .
And what most would call "white" is not .The human eye sees things in a very broad range

with what the sun is as white about 5800 K

it is really yellow with about 6500 K as white
D65 VS. D55
so we call something yellow white , and "see" it as white but it is not

color theory fun,fun,fun....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory

what the REAL color ( temp in K or in angstroms ) is,is NOT what we "see"
and different people will "see" the SAME color as different colors so.

then again i spent many years in photographic darkrooms processing color film and prints
remember "film" you actually had to put a role of this stuff in a camera


stars are measured as the temp. of the surface for Sol that is about 5777 Kelvin ( reference 0 k is equal to -273 C and 100K is -173 C )
then you have the corona at about 1 Million K

the surface temp is do to the energy AND the size the surface area .The larger the surface area for a given energy output the "cooler" the temp

a red giant though burning He and Ar, O2 or carbon is hotter in the core BUT is a cool star at the surface

a blue giant burning H2 only and BIG is very compact ( less surface area ) is Hotter


this is just a quick run down from what i learned in school years ago
do a bit of research on your own , at some point a "light bulb" will go off and the " aah haa " moment

[GigaG]

So essentially, the Sun has a real color and the color we see? So the Sun is yellow from Earth, brighter yellow from space, but truly white?

[Fenerit]

So essentially, the Sun has a real color and the color we see? So the Sun is yellow from Earth, brighter yellow from space, but truly white?

If I look at the sun with the naked eye, for the time enough to be not blinded, I see it black in the centre.