What color do YOU think the Sun really is?

In astronomy, stellar classification is a classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. The spectral class of a star is a designated class of a star describing the ionization of its chromosphere, what atomic excitations are most prominent in the light, giving an objective measure of the temperature in this chromosphere. Light from the star is analyzed by splitting it up by a diffraction grating, subdividing the incoming photons into a spectrum exhibiting a rainbow of colors interspersed by absorption lines, each line indicating a certain ion of a certain chemical element. The presence of a certain chemical element in such an absorption spectrum primarily indicates that the temperature conditions are suitable for a certain excitation of this element. If the star temperature have been determined by a majority of absorption lines, unusual absences or strengths of lines for a certain element may indicate an unusual chemical composition of the chromosphere.

Most stars are currently classified using the letters O, B, A, F, G, K and M (usually memorized by astrophysicists as "O be a fine girl, kiss me"), where O stars are the hottest and the letter sequence indicates successively cooler stars up to the coolest M class. According to an informal tradition, O stars are "blue", B "blue-white", A stars "white", F stars "yellow-white", G stars "yellow", K stars "orange", and M stars "red", even though the actual star colors perceived by an observer may deviate from these colors depending on visual conditions and individual stars observed. This non-alphabetical scheme has been developed from an earlier scheme using all letters from A to O, but the star classes were reordered to the current one when the connection to the star's temperature became clarified, and a few star classes were omitted as duplicate of others.

In the current star classification system, the Morgan-Keenan system, the spectrum letter is enhanced by a number from 0 to 9 indicating tenths of the range between two star classes, so that A5 is five tenths between A0 and F0, but A2 is two tenths of the full range from A0 to F0. Another dimension that is included in the Morgan-Keenan system is the luminosity class expressed by the Roman numbers I, II, III, IV and V, expressing the width of certain absorption lines in the star's spectrum. It has been shown that this feature is a general measure of the size of the star, and thus of the total luminosity output from the star. Class I are generally called supergiants, class III simply giants and class V either dwarfs or more properly main sequence stars. For example our Sun has the spectral type G2V, which might be interpreted as "a 'yellow' two tenths towards 'orange' main sequence star". The apparently brightest star Sirius has type A1V.The conventional color descriptions are traditional in astronomy, and represent colors relative to the mean color of an A class star which is considered to be white. The Apparent color descriptions is what the observer would see if trying to describe the stars under a dark sky without aid to the eye, or with binoculars. The table colors used are D65 standard colors, which is what you would see if the star light would be intensely magnified and projected onto a white paper, then observed in ordinary daylight. Most stars in the sky, except the brightest ones, appear white or bluish white to the unaided eye because they are too dim for color vision to work.

Our Sun itself is white. It is sometimes called a yellow star (spectroscopically, relative to Vega), and may appear yellow or red (viewed through the atmosphere), or appear white (viewed when too bright for the eye to see any color). Astronomy images often use a variety of exaggerated colors (partially founded in faint light conditions observations, partially in conventions). But the Sun's own intrinsic color is white (aside from sunspots), with no trace of color, and closely approximates a black body of 5780 K. This is a natural consequence of the evolution of our optical senses: the response curve that maximizes the overall efficiency against solar illumination will by definition perceive the Sun as white. The sun is known as a G type star.

White

Yellow white

White with just a hint of cyan.

The reason is that our vision system has evolved to see full daylight as pure white light. However the atmosphere filters out a bit of blue so the sunlight we see is redder than the unfiltered light.The unfiltered light will therefore appear slightly tinted.

The sun is white. This is a result of the temperature and the composition of elements that make it up. The majority of the sun is made of Hydrogen which burns white at that temperature.

White with a teeny tiny touch of yellow.

I observe the Sun regularly with various telescopes and neutral filters, and see that the Sun is white, pure white.

Yellow or orange

Reddy orange

I don't think you can raise any material to 5500 degrees and not experience the full spectrum of light.

White.