Well, Min, the color isn't all that apparent. Our eyes aren't well suited for discerning colors in low light conditions. Some are better than others. Personally, I have no trouble picking out Mars or Aldeberan by their color, but everyone is different.

A distinct possibility, C/D. In some photos Mars looks a little pink to me. Can you imagine if I was the ancient who first pointed that out? Mars would have ended up not as the god of war but the god of interior decorating.

(May 22, 2013 at 9:41 pm)Minimalist Wrote: A distinct possibility, C/D. In some photos Mars looks a little pink to me. Can you imagine if I was the ancient who first pointed that out? Mars would have ended up not as the god of war but the god of interior decorating.

Could be... Or the patron.of hairdressers.

Are you able to detect any color in.stars? Orion.and.Taurus are good northern constellations for bright stars and contrasting colors. If you can't pick out color there, it may just be your eyes.

(May 22, 2013 at 8:22 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: Well, Min, the color isn't all that apparent. Our eyes aren't well suited for discerning colors in low light conditions. Some are better than others. Personally, I have no trouble picking out Mars or Aldeberan by their color, but everyone is different.

Very good point, rods versus cones and all that. Telescope solves the problem though.

But the ancients did not have telescopes and the Egyptians called Mars "har decher" - "red one."

Minamilist, Mars always looks reddish to me personally, where are you seeing it from, as latitute and light polution might make changes too. Plus I reckon the ancients would have had a far better view that we have today. Some people do have better night vision that others though, rods are more sensitive than cones in the eye, but not good with colour.

God of interior decorating, I like that one BTW.

I'm 35 miles NW of Phoenix out here in Errorzona. But even when I lived in NY all the planets just looked like lights. As I recall the stars "twinkle" and the planets don't.

Remember, the ancients weren't as far removed from Adam and Eve, so they had super-vision. They had retinas stuffed with so many rods and cones that some of them would just leak out. Which was kind of gross. But they could see that Mars was red, and they probably even had heated discussions about whether Pluto was really a planet or not.

Right.

And Cthulhu Dreaming mentions Aldeberan, so cool, like you fellow Lovecraftian.