What was it that I saw in the sky last night ????? (Revised)?

Question

My husband woke me up at about 4:00 EST (Western New York) to look at something that he found with his telescope. With the naked eye it looked like a star that was flashing very quickly from one color to another color to another color. When I looked at it through the telescope it was shaped like a triangle and different color flashes of light were shooting out from it. It was the coolest thing I have ever seen. I can't even describe how beautiful and wonderful it was. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. But what was it?

I'm thinking perhaps a quasar or a pulsar. It was some sort of celestial body. Star, planet, nebula.

Answer 1

many explosions happen in space, but they are so far away that it takes hundreds of years for its light to reach earth. what you saw was propably an explosion of a few centuries ago.

Answer 2

Bright stars within 15 degrees of the horizon often twinkle much and flash different colors. I saw one of those the other night. They're pretty all right.

Answer 3

While it is nice to think you saw a quasar or variable star, you probably saw a really bright star being affected by our atmosphere and your husbands telescope. There are all types of telescopes. An APO type refractors is very expensive to keep colors accurate, other wise you see false colors. Collimation  of optics can also cause false colors.. The brighter the star the more this happens.

If the star moved with the rest of the stars, it wasn't like a UFO shooting out flashing lights. It is actually very common on bright stars and telescopes. Adaptive optics are now available to armatures so that their cameras no longer are effected by this.

the key is he got you to look. There are hundreds of beautiful space objects that can be seen with a good telescope.,

Answer 4

What you saw was probably a variable star like Arcturus.  It is really the atmosphere of the earth that is creating the illusion of the star flashing those colors.  

http://www.stellarium.org/

This is great freeware that you can download.  Just tell it where you are and it will tell you what you see.