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Originally Posted by stingc
Also, energy levels have nothing to do with this. Thermal radiation is a separate process. Energy levels only give miniscule corrections to an overall spectrum that is nearly continuous.
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Okay, now this confuses me... Well, maybe.
You say the color is a function of how hot the star is, but isn't the light produced still caused by electrons dropping energy states and releasing the energy as photons? I was of the opinion (and I don't know where I got this from) that stars are not comprised of many compounds - eg. the sun is made of primarily helium if I remember correctly. So the colors would be limited to the photons that could possibly be released from drops in the limited number of energy states of the primary element, or it's ionic form which I believe is also commonly the case.
If I have my facts straight, I don't know how energy levels could have nothing to do with a star's color (or only give "miniscule corrections"). I'm fairly certain that the only way to produce a photon is by changing the energy level of a subatomic particle, so the energy levels of the electrons in the atoms (and the frequency at which they are occupied and vacated) would have to directly determine the color.
. . . Someone who knows more about this than me, please set me straight.