Glaring Error in d20 Future...

[jeffers]

There are no such things as Green Stars.

I tried so hard to find such things, but no green stars.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

There are no such things as Green Stars.

I tried so hard to find such things, but no green stars.

Sure, that may or may not be an error... but a glaring error?

:\




Eric Anondson

 

[Olive]

Excuse me?

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970408e.html

Our own sun is a green star!

 

[d4]

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970408e.html

yep, that's a good explanation for it.

Spectral Class F stars are usually described as white or yellow-white, but they fall on the spectrum at the place where green is normally located.

 

[jeffers]

but...

They don't look green. F-classed stars are yellow-white visually. If a GM ever said the words "Green Star" I'd leave the table.

Fortunately, I'm the GM. So even though we have magic and cyborgs and rampaging million-year old androids in Exodus, we don't have green stars.

 

[Liquidsabre]

They don't look green. F-classed stars are yellow-white visually. If a GM ever said the words "Green Star" I'd leave the table.

Fortunately, I'm the GM. So even though we have magic and cyborgs and rampaging million-year old androids in Exodus, we don't have green stars.

Though, funnily enough, the androids would be able to view green stars, where as humans would not:

The Color Green
There actually are green stars in the sky, but you can't see them
By Brian Tung
10 May 2004


In the Sun's case, the peak, depending on how it's defined, is somewhere near the green portion of the visible spectrum, but the curve doesn't fall away equally in both directions. The falloff is steeper toward the high-energy shorter wavelengths than it is toward the low-energy longer wavelengths. Thus, even though the peak of the Sun's emission is in the green portion, there is only a little less red and yellow light, and considerably less blue light.

This still makes it seem as though the Sun should look, perhaps, yellowish-green, along with many other stars that are the same color. One reason it doesn't do that is that the human eye is not equally sensitive to all colors. Its color detectors are three chemicals that react to light of a range of wavelengths, and these chemicals have their own peak wavelengths, to which they are most sensitive. These chemicals are typically considered to be sensitive to red, green, and blue light, but the fact is that the "red" and "green" chemicals have very similar sensitivity curves. Their peaks aren't separated very far, whereas the "blue" chemical has a peak well into the blue.

What this means is that any light that stimulates the green chemical is likely to stimulate the red chemical to a similar degree. There is enough of a difference between them to distinguish between colors of everyday saturation, but the Sun is too bright, and the black body spectrum too flat over most of the visible range, for the Sun to appear as anything than a very faintly yellowish white, at best. This is true of any star whose peak emission lies in the green.

Here is the article in it's entirety: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20040510/green.shtml

When using sensors and spectrometers and such as part of the tech on starships, stars would be classified according to their color of peak emmission I imagine. The peak emission for the Sun is green, so it is a green star. Just not to our eyes is all.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I love when science kicks down the door of your rational mind and holds the joint up.

MY future game will have green stars.

Just so somebody can get all huffed up about there being no such thing.

And I can haul that article out, then we'll ask the android what HE sees.

--fje

 

[Psion]

I'll go with him on this.

For some of us, part of being in an SF game is the notion that it could happen. Classifying "Green Stars" is, well, bent. (Right along with planet generation systems that make no sense, like Dragonstar's).

In fact, I am so annoyed by this lack in d20 books that I am seriously considering writing a d20 supplement specifically dealing with realistic star system generation.

 

[tjoneslo]

I'll go with him on this.

For some of us, part of being in an SF game is the notion that it could happen. Classifying "Green Stars" is, well, bent. (Right along with planet generation systems that make no sense, like Dragonstar's).

In fact, I am so annoyed by this lack in d20 books that I am seriously considering writing a d20 supplement specifically dealing with realistic star system generation.

If you are serious, go bring this up with Malenfant on the COTI boards. He's frequently ranted about poor world generation systems and his web site has a whole bunch of really good information.