What am I seeing?

This morning I was up @ 4:30 having a gander at Venus. I looked into the south east skies and saw a blue (what I'm just going to call) star. It appeared to be flashing. I turned the scope on it, figuring I wouldn't be able to see anything. I had the 9mm plossl, and figured whatever it was would be moving quickly. I found it, and saw that on top of the flashy blue color, there was a red blink (for lack of a better term) to it. It didn't seem to be moving, as when I was watching Venus, I'd have to move the scope every...oh..5-10 seconds to center it again.

Anyone have any idea what I saw?

Sarah,

The change in colors is a result of atmospheric dispersion. Here are some links on the phenomenon:

http://www.astrovid.com/padc%20corrector/avaplanetart%20atmos%20dispersion%20corrector.htm

http://www.astropix.com/HTML/L_STORY/VD.HTM

http://www.astro.lu.se/~dainis/HTML/COLOR.html

http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/explain/optics/disp.html

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/wxwise/class/optics.html

Dave Mitsky