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From: ethan@utastro.UUCP (Ethan Vishniac)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: nearby supernovas etc.
Message-ID: <477@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Mar-86 10:28:39 EST
Article-I.D.: utastro.477
Posted: Fri Mar  7 10:28:39 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Mar-86 08:29:11 EST
References: <8603020306.AA00249@s1-b.arpa> <8603061510.AA04282@infinet.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 20
Summary: was Sirius red?

In article <8603061510.AA04282@infinet.UUCP>, barnes@INFINET.UUCP (Jim Barnes) writes:
> In article <8603020306.AA00249@s1-b.arpa> you write:
> >By the way, in latest Sky&Telescope there's a note on Sirius being
> >reddish in recorded history (in fact about 600 AD), because at that
> >time its white-dwarf companion was in the red giant stage.
> 
> I recently (two months ago?) read an article in the Boston Globe
> that said roughly the same thing - Sirius was reddish within recorded
> history.  I posted the same question to net.astro.  The general response
> received was that the redness was due to the time of day when the
> observations were made.

I just read a note in Nature that said that Chinese records indicate that
Sirius was its present color at or around 300 BC.
-- 
"Ma, I've been to another      Ethan Vishniac
 planet!"                      {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan
                               ethan@astro.UTEXAS.EDU
                               Department of Astronomy
                               University of Texas