Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Thursday, June 6th.  Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 26 minutes, setting at 9:24.   The moon, 2 days before new, will rise at 5:22 tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow the sun will rise at 5:57.

Star and planets colors are quite subtle.  This is partly due to the fact that we are color blind at very low light levels.  Only the brightest stars show color at all.  Telescopes however aid our color perception because it makes the stars brighter.  The planet Saturn, now in the south at night has a distinct yellowish hue, caused by the color of its atmosphere.  The star Spica to its right is the bluest of the bright first magnitude stars, and shows as a bright arc light.  Arcturus, above both Saturn and Spica has a yellow to orange hue.  Antares low in the southeast has a definite reddish hue.  In a telescope it also looks like a sparkler due to our turbulent atmosphere.  Red stars are the coolest stars (temperature wise) while blue-white stars are the hottest.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Stellarium does a pretty good job of showing the subtle colors of stars, which is also reflected in the color of the star labels.  Click on the image to enlarge.