Blue-Purple Star
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by 20151351
Does anyone know you those weird blue-purple stars are called
Posted
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by ElisabethB moderator
Hi 20151351 and welcome to the Zoo
The purple/blue center of the star to the left is an optical artifact. It is not the real color of the star. You'll see that a lot in the brighter stars.
happy hunting ! 😄
Posted
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by DZM admin
By "optical artifact," does that basically mean "visual error introduced by the camera?" Do artifacts tell us anything more than "there is a bright star here," or is that all that can be extrapolated?
Also, is the turquoise item on the right also a star, and its real color?
Posted
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by Capella05 moderator in response to DZM's comment.
Hi DZM 😃
Artifacts can be caused by several things - there could be a problem with camera / telescope; processing errors with the data itself, or outside factors such as optical strikes etc... Also objects such as meteors / asteroids and the odd plane can also cause some interesting effects 😃
With the current images we are classifying (SDSS), most of the artifacts are caused by over saturation of really bright foreground objects (stars). The colours are not real 😃
There is more information in this thread here
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by ElisabethB moderator in response to DZM's comment.
Hi DZM
Yes, optical artifacts can be caused by very bright objects, internal reflections in the telescope, filter problems, etc...
And I don't think this particular artifact tells us anything, besides the fact that it is a bright star.
The turquoise object to the right is also a foreground star from ur galaxy, as are all the smaller round ones in this image.Posted
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by DZM admin
I suppose not all that glitters is gold... the stuff with the coolest colors is a distraction from the great hunt for the really interesting stuff like mergers, voorwerpje, and AGNs, yes? 😃
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by ElisabethB moderator
Oh, but these can have amazing colors as well ! 😄
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