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Directly above the left shoulder of Orion, as I hold my closed fist maybe eight or ten inches in front of my face the distance between them is approximately from my knuckle to my wrist.

A very bright star with an orange or dirty yellow tint.

Observing with naked eye from Essex in the UK.

Time now 11:20pm.

Thursday, 24th of November.

Observation remained unchanged during a ten minute walk back from the shops.

Has a noticeable orange tint to it I've never seen before, the left shoulder of Orion shares a little of this colour that I don't recall noticing in it before either, first thought was my glasses need cleaning 😁 but other stars don't seem to share this coloration and are displaying what appears to be their normal hue, if my memory isn't completely fried 🤗

I know Mars (yes a planet not a star, I know) is supposed to have a red tint to it but I can honestly say I've never observed any noticeable tint to any object in the night sky with a casual glance with my eye before that wasn't a planes hazard lights.

First thought is pollution of some sort tinting it of course, wondering if anyone has a solid answer rather than conjecture though.

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    $\begingroup$ It's Mars...... $\endgroup$
    – Greg Miller
    Commented Nov 25, 2022 at 0:07
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    $\begingroup$ Mars makes a close approach in a few days. i.sstatic.net/TOXGB.png i.sstatic.net/2iakk.png $\endgroup$
    – PM 2Ring
    Commented Nov 25, 2022 at 1:02
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    $\begingroup$ Congrats on finally experiencing a sky in the UK clear enough to see the colour of Mars. :) Also, congrats on being a time traveller. As I write this, 11:20pm on Friday, 25th of November 2022 HASN'T HAPPENED YET. $\endgroup$
    – Wyck
    Commented Nov 25, 2022 at 4:20
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    $\begingroup$ Nitpick: there is a lot of overlap, but this site is about space exploration; astronomy.stackexchange.com is about space objects (stars, planets, etc.) and other space phenomena. $\endgroup$
    – Jacob Krall
    Commented Nov 25, 2022 at 19:31
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    $\begingroup$ There are phone apps such as Sky Guide which are terrific for answering this kind of question -- hold your phone up toward Orion and it'll show you what you're looking at. $\endgroup$
    – Russell Borogove
    Commented Nov 27, 2022 at 17:29

4 Answers 4

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Here's a Stellarium view from Chelmsford in Essex at 11:20pm Thursday, 24th of November, 2022 looking roughly southeast, centered on Alnilam (middle star of Orion's belt).

Stellarium screenshot of Mars above Orion

Based on your description, it's very likely Mars that you saw "Directly above the left shoulder of Orion" (the left shoulder of Orion being the star Betelgeuse).

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  • $\begingroup$ Was already sure it was Mars, this leaves no doubt though, was a little further left (it really was 'directly' above Orion's left shoulder) but the time given was when I got in and posted so when I was looking at it was a bit before that time, and moved to be directly over the right shoulder and further from Orion an hour or so later .. was way over to the left and much much lower in the sky tonight sometime between five and six. $\endgroup$
    – Pelinore
    Commented Nov 25, 2022 at 19:51
  • $\begingroup$ I think this one deserves the best answer out of the three for the screen shot, leaves absolutely no room for any doubt about what I was looking at 👍 ta. $\endgroup$
    – Pelinore
    Commented Nov 25, 2022 at 20:03
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    $\begingroup$ @Pelinore It is pretty close to being directly over Betelgeuse. Perhaps some azimuthal (vertical) gridlines would have helped. You can compare a view with gridlines centered on Betelgeuse to one centered on Alnilam here. $\endgroup$
    – Wyck
    Commented Nov 25, 2022 at 21:22
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If you have a look at something like Heavens Above, Interactive star chart option, you'll see that it's Mars. Currently, Mars is in the constellation Taurus.

By chance, currently there are three reddish cosmological objects in close proximity: Betelgeuse in Orion, Aldebaran in Taurus and Mars. Mars will be the most prominent of the three. It will be slightly closer to Aldebaran than to Betelgeuse.

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  • $\begingroup$ Yep, it's definately Mars, thanks for the extra 'red' star, though l must say, it (Mars) is more a kind of orange to my eye and the others have even less of a tint than it does (one I only seem to have even noticed for the first time in relation to other stars because of Mars's presence near them) .. maybe they're red like a white horses are grey 😁 $\endgroup$
    – Pelinore
    Commented Nov 25, 2022 at 19:45
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Betelgeuse (red giant star) is the left shoulder of Orion. Mars is in the same area, but higher in the sky.

If your object twinkles, it is Betelguese. If it doesn't, it is Mars. Stars twinkle because they are effectively point sources of light so they are magnified and minified by turbulence in the atmosphere. Planets are "discs" so their light is spread over a large enough area of turbulence that this effect is averaged out.

Dim stars all appear colorless because we can only see them using the rod receptors in our retinas. The rods do not sense red light and cannot distinguish other colors. The brightest stars can stimulate our cone receptors, and we are able to distinguish their color. For more on this, see Outer space and dark-adapted vision

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  • $\begingroup$ So that's Zaphods home star, and it is red, can't say I ever noticed any substantial difference in hue to other stars before, maybe it wasn't just my imagination making it look a little orange earlier but rather the proximity of Mars prompting me to notice a subtle difference in its hue to others around it I hadn't before // but see the comments below my question, we've established it is Mars I'm seeing yes. $\endgroup$
    – Pelinore
    Commented Nov 25, 2022 at 1:11
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    $\begingroup$ @Pelinore Dim stars look white, but it's possible to see the colours of bright stars and planets, although it can be hard for some people to see the colour of stars with the naked eye. Binoculars or a telescope can help (unless the problem is due to colour blindness). There's some info here: physics.stackexchange.com/q/433017/123208 $\endgroup$
    – PM 2Ring
    Commented Nov 25, 2022 at 3:20
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There are four (redish) lights! in the same general area. I took this snapshot with my phone a few nights ago.

Upper left is Mars - the brightest. Center is Betelgeuse1, made recently famous because it's been changing brightness and some folks hoped it would go supernova. The surprising thing about this star is that we don't know how far it is! We can't use parallax because the disk of the star is so inhomogeneous that it's apparent centroid (photocenter) wobbles! Perhaps the spacecraft New Horizons can help here?

See also

screenshot of printout of image of the disk of Betelgeuse (from "Betelgeuse might explode (in the next 150,000 years) - Sixty Symbols" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpLCu145-Zk&list=PLcUY9vudNKBNGAgplgACrGL9UlxyDHq7k&index=17) click for full size

Top is redish Aldebaran and Center-right is the Orion nebula which glows redish due to hydrogen. For more on that see answers to

1but whatever you do, don't say it three times in a row!

snapshot of Mars (upper left) and Orion & Aldebaran

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