Is Sirius a star?

Message boards : SETI@home Science : Is Sirius a star?

Author	Message
Bob DeWoody Send message Joined: 9 May 10 Posts: 659 Credit: 62,001 RAC: 85	Message 1180363 - Posted: 24 Dec 2011, 3:18:53 UTC
	Sirius is a star, a very close one. Actually it is a binary system. Do a google search to find more information. ____________ Bob DeWoody
	ID: 1180363 ·

metiman Send message Joined: 9 Dec 11 Posts: 9 Credit: 124,407 RAC: 0	Message 1180377 - Posted: 24 Dec 2011, 5:21:38 UTC
	Sirius A is a class A star. It's supposed to be white or slightly bluish-white. Some people do report seeing it with all kinds of different colors though, especially when it's low on the horizon as it would have to be at your latitude. If you combine that with the Dogon legends it definitely gives the Dog star an aura of mystery. It's only 8.6 ly away. I'd like to fly over there and have a look. ____________ I just started a new SETI forum: setiforums.org
	ID: 1180377 ·

Gary Charpentier Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 25 Dec 00 Posts: 10313 Credit: 5,073,947 RAC: 5,971	Message 1180380 - Posted: 24 Dec 2011, 5:30:17 UTC - in response to Message 1180357.
	Color depends if you are young or old. Young it may look bluish-white. Old and it will be white. Has to do with how our eyes age and color perception of faint objects. If you just move yourself to an area with stable air you can see the colors of the brightest stars and planets as our ancestors did. ____________
	ID: 1180380 ·

Larry Monske Send message Joined: 17 Sep 05 Posts: 237 Credit: 514,490 RAC: 63	Message 1180573 - Posted: 25 Dec 2011, 3:52:20 UTC - in response to Message 1180380.
	Sirius is a very large star and 10000 times more lumious than our sun. Its extremly large size isnt the largest some are so large the lARGEST if you could orbit it at 600 mph would take 1500 years at its equartor. I dont recall its name antares maybe. Sirius also has a campanion star sirius b. The Dogon people of africa belive they come from this star a red dwarf star that is not visible to the naked eye with an ellipical orbit. How ever could these stone age people in modern times know this through elders tales.
	ID: 1180573 ·

Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 11987 Credit: 17,961,332 RAC: 59,104	Message 1180582 - Posted: 25 Dec 2011, 6:31:49 UTC - in response to Message 1180573.
	The Dogon people of africa belive they come from this star a red dwarf star that is not visible to the naked eye with an ellipical orbit. How ever could these stone age people in modern times know this through elders tales. The Dogons simply guessed that their origins were from another planet. When Sirius B was discovered, the simply retro-fitted their belief to this star. Star charts from where they claimed they came from years prior indicate that they had no clue where Sirius B was at the time.
	ID: 1180582 ·

Odysseus Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 26 Jul 99 Posts: 1786 Credit: 3,738,853 RAC: 1,806	Message 1181332 - Posted: 29 Dec 2011, 10:21:32 UTC Last modified: 29 Dec 2011, 10:23:30 UTC
	The fleeting colour changes seen in bright, white stars, most prominent when they’re at low altitudes, are due to scintillation: "twinkle, twinkle” and all that. Turbulence in the atmosphere causes transient changes in its index of refraction, so from moment to moment the frequencies that can be brought to focus in the eye will vary. The effect is rarely seen from planets, because they’re much less like point-sources and the variations from different parts of the disc tend to average out. Faint stars often seem to ‘wink’ on and off, but bright stars—Sirius especially—will display flashing colours under the right atmospheric conditions. P.S. See Wikipedia’s article on astronomical scintillation. ____________
	ID: 1181332 ·

Message boards : SETI@home Science : Is Sirius a star?