Re: Coloured objects list?

jtaylor wrote:
Is there an ordered list of objects that show colour, such that depending on
the size & quality of telescope you could find the ones that would show
particular colours, or particularly strong colour?

To the eye, not to a camera...would like to be able to show newbies
(including yours truly) pretty coloured jewels in the sky.

By and large, that's going to be stars and planetary nebulae; the only
diffuse nebula I've ever seen color in was the Orion Nebula, and that
in a large-ish scope (certainly not in the C5+).

Look up carbon stars; those show the most extreme colors of any single
stars. Double stars often show distinct colors, because of the contrast
effect mentioned in a couple of related threads. Here's something I
received by fax a long time ago:

Strongly Colored Double Stars

Stars are sorted by right ascension. Separations are given in arc seconds,
and are generally good to +/- 0.3 arc seconds. All positions are epoch
1991.25 (Hipparcos/Tycho) and precessed to J2000.0. Separations and
magnitudes are per Hipparchos/Tycho except

* Secondary information gleaned from N. Howard, The Telescope Handbook
and Star Atlas

Star RA Dec Sep Mag Color

HR 9094 (Struve 3053) 00h02m36s +66d05m56s 15.1 5.9,7.2 yellow/blue
35 Piscis 00h14m58s +08d49m15s 11.2 6.0,7.6 white/purple
55 Piscis 00h39m55s +21d26m18s 6.1 5.4,8.4 yellow/blue
Achird (eta Cas) 00h49m05s +57d48m59s 10.1* 3.5,7.5* yellow/purple
Alrisha (alpha Piscis) 02h02m02s +02d45m49s 1.8 3.8,4.9 green/blue

Almaak (gamma And) 02h03m53s +42d19m47s 10.0* 2.1,5.1* orange/cyan
66 Ceti 02h12m47s -02d23m36s 15.8 5.6,7.6 topaz/violet
Polaris (alpha UMi) 02h31m47s +89d15m50s 19.0* 2.0,8.8* yellow/blue
Kaffaljidhma (gam Cet) 02h43m18s +03d14m10s 2.4 3.5,5.9 yellow/blue
Miram (eta Persei) 02h50m41s +55d53m43s 27.7 3.8,8.4 white/blue

V711 Tauri (Str 422) 03h36m47s +00d35m17s 6.6 5.8,8.8 gold/blue
30 Tauri 03h48m16s +11d08m36s 9.0 5.1,9.8 green/purple
rho Orionis 05h13m17s +02d51m40s 6.8 4.5,8.9 yellow/blue
kappa Geminorum 07h44m26s +24d23m53s 6.8* 3.6,3.7* orange/blue
Algieba (gamma Leonis) 10h19m58s +19d50m30s 4.3* 2.2,3.8* yellow/green

2 Canis Venaticorum 12h16m07s +40d39m36s 11.5 5.7,8.6 red/blue
Algorab (delta Corvi) 12h29m51s -16d30m54s 23.8 2.9,9.4 purple/yellow
24 Comae Berenices 12h35m07s +18d22m37s 20.0 5.0,6.6 blue/orange
35 Comae Berenices 12h53m17s +21d14m42s 28.3 4.9,9.4 purple/blue
Izar (epsilon Bootis) 14h44m59s +27d04m27s 2.9 2.4,4.7 orange/green

Xi Bootis 14h51m23s +19d06m02s 6.8 4.5,6.8 yellow/purple
Rasalgethi (alph Her) 17h14m38s +14d23m24s 4.2 2.8,5.3 orange/green
36 Ophiuchi 17h15m21s -26d36m00s 5.1 4.3,5.0 yellow/red
95 Herculis 18h01m30s +21d35m44s 5.8 4.3,5.1 red/green
5 Aquilae 18h46m28s -00d57m41s 12.2 5.9,7.5 white/blue

omicron Draconis 18h51m12s +59d23m17s 36.0 4.6,8.1 orange/green
Ascella (zeta Sgr) 19h02m36s -29d52m48s 8.0* 2.6,5.8* green/blue
Albireo (beta Cygni) 19h30m43s +27d57m34s 34.0 3.0,5.1 yellow/blue
17 Cygni 19h46m25s +33d43m43s 25.6 5.0,9.2 red/blue
57 Aquilae 19h54m37s -08d13m38s 35.3 5.7,6.5 yellow/green

HR 7693 (Struve 2628) 20h07m50s +09d23m59s 3.0 6.4,8.6 yellow/purple
kappa Cephei 20h08m53s +77d42m40s 7.2 4.4,8.6 white/blue
gamma2 Delphini 20h46m39s +16d07m29s 10.0 4.3,5.2 green/yellow

For planetary nebulae, simply pick bright ones. They will basically
show a bluish-green color (at least, they do to me), so it's not as
though there's great variability there. Using a nebula filter like the
Orion Ultrablock will make them stand out more, but since it's a
narrowband filter, some people might consider that "cheating." :)
Objects to try are M27 (Dumbbell), M57 (Ring), NGC 2392 (Eskimo),
NGC 7662 (Snowball). NGC 2392 might be lost in the glare of the Sun,
though. Does anyone else have any planetary nebula suggestions?

--
Brian Tung <brian@xxxxxxx>
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html
.

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