What does a white dwarf look like?
A white dwarf looks more or less like any other star – a tiny point of light. Astronomers distinguish white dwarfs from other stars in two ways: (1) since they are faint stars, we can only see the nearby ones, and nearby stars appear to move relative to the background stars (2) they emit most of their light in the blue part of the spectrum. For a dramatic view of a white dwarf at the center of an ejected shell of gas, take a look at this.
