[meteorite-list] Different colors of meteors/shooting stars

[Chris Peterson]

There may be some atmospheric effects, but I don't think they are the 
usual explanation for the different colors people report.

Color vision is highly variable from person to person. The same color 
may be reported as pink, blue, or green by different people. This is 
especially true when dealing with point sources, or with transient 
effects. People are not good at judging the color of flashes. Some 
people see a lot of color in stars, others will call you crazy if you 
tell them that stars even have colors.

After white, green is the most commonly reported color for meteors. As 
Marco pointed out, that is typically from atmospheric oxygen. But it is 
worth remembering that green also marks the peak of human color 
sensitivity, and even if fairly strong wavelengths outside the green 
region are present, the event may only be bright enough to stimulate our 
green receptors. This is an effect visual astronomers are well aware of: 
when you look at something like the Orion Nebula, most people see gray. 
A few, with good vision, will see faint green. That's an oxygen 
emission, which is much fainter that the dominant red hydrogen emission, 
but that one simply doesn't stimulate our red sensors enough to show 
color. So we see a "red" nebula as "green".

Chris

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Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

On 9/10/2013 12:51 PM, Doug Ross wrote:
> Thank you for the explanation, Chris. I have often wondered about this, since various colors often seem to be reported by different witnesses to the same meteor event. Wouldn't atmospheric filtering also affect the perceived color, depending on the angle and distance from which a meteor is viewed? In much the same way as the sun's color appears to change at sunset or sunrise.
>
> Doug Ross
> doug at dougross.net