star Stellar coloursastronomy

Stars differ in colour. Most of the stars in the constellation Orion visible to the naked eye are blue-white, most notably Rigel (Beta Orionis), but Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis) is a deep red. In the telescope, Albireo (Beta Cygni) is seen as two stars, one blue and the other orange. One quantitative means of measuring stellar colours involves a comparison of the yellow (visual) magnitude of the star with its magnitude measured through a blue filter. Hot, blue stars appear brighter through the blue filter, while the opposite is true for cooler, red stars. In all magnitude scales, one magnitude step corresponds to a brightness ratio of 2.512. The zero point is chosen so that white stars with surface temperatures of about 10,000 K have the same visual and blue magnitudes. The conventional colour index is defined as the blue magnitude, B, minus the visual magnitude, V; the colour index, B − V, of the Sun is thus +5.47 − 4.82 = 0.65.