Pulsing Cygnus Turquoise

The progressive participle of pulse, to throb. Used as a color modifier for hues that read as if they were alternating between two states of luminance — the vibration of a high-saturation color against a contrasting background. Sits in the bright-bucket center alongside electric, with the implication of optical motion rather than static luminance.

Latin cygnus, swan. As a color modifier, cygnus implies a swan-flying-and-Northern-Cross quality, the visual register of Cygnus-Swan-and-Northern-Cross hand-swan-flying-and-Northern-Cross Cygnus-Swan-and-Northern-Cross-and-Bortle-1-sky cygnus-and-swan-flying-and-Northern-Cross surfaces under Cygnus-Swan-and-Northern-Cross-and-Bortle-1-sky August-and-September-late-summer-zenith Milky-Way-stellar-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to deneb and lyra in usage.

The hydrated copper-aluminum phosphate mined in Persia and the American Southwest for thousands of years — the firuze of Iran, the chalchihuitl of Mesoamerica, the heart of Pueblo and Navajo silverwork. The color refers to a fine Sleeping Beauty turquoise from Arizona: a saturated, slightly green-shifted blue with the slight matrix of host-rock veining. Brighter than persian, lighter than cerulean.