I either saw this or maybe a twinkling Sirius. I was on the balcony and noticed a white dot that was flashing different colors like red and green. I asked my partner what a UFO looks like lol. It never moved, just kept flashing light like a disco star. I looked it up and came across twinkling, and specifically Sirius. I'm just now seeing that Saturn could have been visible

[–] m3t00@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

pretty sure this was a planet NW of me a few days ago. not sure which. no twinkling

[–] Cadeillac@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I don't think it was that big, but I'm in the middle of Arkansas so I don't know how it would look from here. I didn't realize twinkling was a phenomena. Pretty cool to learn about. I think the atmosphere bends the light?

[–] Mikelius@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago

The light flickering on stars and planets has to do with the Earth's atmosphere. In a dark sky look straight up and the stars directly above you will blink much less, and as you look at stars closer and closer to the horizon, they start to blink more and more. The worse your overall seeing conditions are for the night, the more intense the blinking can get.