The atmosphere's ceaseless movement create swarms of individual air pockets or cells, each with a slightly different temperature and density. When a beam of starlight pierces Earth's atmosphere each cell acts like a lens that refracts or bends the star's light. When a cell or cells direct the light toward your eye the star appears a little brighter. When it bends light away from your line of sight the star appears a little fainter. Nothing is static. As the swarm of airy lenses crosses your field of vision the star brightens and fades rapidly and unpredictably.
Our eyes perceive the silent fury as twinkling. When we see a star high overhead it twinkles little because it passes through much less "thick" air than a star viewed near the horizon left.
Twinkling is more intense the closer a star is to the horizon because its light traverses the bottom, thickest layer of the atmosphere. When viewed overhead we look through about 10 miles of dense air and then hundreds of miles of practically nothing. The more air, the more eddies and the greater the glimmer.
Objects near the horizon show dispersion because the thick, dense atmosphere acts as a prism to spread light into a spectrum of rainbow colors. The moon was photographed with a telephoto lens and Mercury with a telescope. Bob King, left, and Austin Jarboe. Incoming starlight is also affected by dispersion , where light of different colors or wavelengths is refracted by different amounts as it passes through the atmosphere.
Dispersion is most evident the closer a star is to the horizon for the same reason twinkling is: the air is densest there and bends light more strongly. Through a telescope, a low, bright star looks like an elongated, rainbow-colored streak. You can see the same colors along the top and bottom edges of the rising full moon when viewed through binoculars.
Just for fun I attached the camera to a telescope, aimed it at Sirius and jiggled the scope around for this colorful abstraction. As the brightest star in the nighttime sky I'm going to officially crown Sirius as the Twinkle King. It helps that for mid-northern latitude observers the star keeps fairly low in the sky where it's more affected by atmospheric turbulence than similar bright stars.
Moving air in the atmosphere can be called turbulence. Instead, the starlight is refracted or is spread around in different directions in the atmosphere. The starlight becomes bent as it moves towards the Earth. Additionally, as the bent starlight reaches us, the star also twinkles. The two effects of the atmosphere on the light causes us to see a twinkle. However, you should remember that the star itself is not twinkling. I was StarGazing a while ago before I researched about its name in Google.
From Philippines here. This star seemed like having a disco on its own. I was outside my back door last night and this star caught my eye! Through my binoculars it was even more brilliant and gorgeous. I was able to see the small companion star.
I actually went in to wake my husband so he could come out and look at it to tell me what it was. I appreciate this website. I had no idea of its name — now I know. Thank you for the light show, Sirius! Time for a telescope, I think…. I looked at the sky about 5am and l saw something in the sky which l thinking was a star , but it look like a a arrow of sorts its really hard to describe.
So l got my binoculars to see it better it appeared to be moving l thought it was my hand shaking but , l know l have a steady hand this thing was wiggling all around like a connect the dots then in circles. I was like it didnt want me to watch.
Im not on any meds. I got my husband up to see it. He said its a ufo? I will be watching again tmrw. If anyone jas seen something like this please do tell. It was amazing thing to see. I googled it, and it said that some stars dance before winding down??
I know this star has always been sitting there, but last night it caught my eye with the unusual brilliance. Thank you for sharing your similar story. Woke my husband up, too!
Hard to believe in eternity also… they say the Universe is just so old… hard to believe the big bang… so, what was before the big bang? Also, hard to believe, all this for us… but I doubt it is.
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