Sun Yellow
RAL 1037, an intense, warm yellow like the midday sun
#E99E00rgb(233, 158, 0)hsl(41, 100%, 46%)hsv(41, 100%, 91%)cmyk(0%, 32%, 100%, 9%)#E99E00FFrgba(233, 158, 0, 1)hsla(41, 100%, 46%, 1)oklch(86%, 0.177, 95)lch(83.8%, 82.5, 96)🎨 Color Palettes
♿ WCAG Contrast Colors
Learn More →📊 Color Scales
💡 Use Cases
Photovoltaic Testing
A solar energy laboratory uses a Sun Yellow standard light source to test photovoltaic panel efficiency. The color Turner chased on a canvas is now used to calibrate humanity's future of breaking free from fossil fuels.
Turner Copying
A Turner study course at an art academy uses Sun Yellow oil paint to copy 'Rain, Steam, and Speed.' As students pile on the thick pigment, they seem to feel Turner squinting as he chased the train through the storm.
Museum Lighting
The Sun Yellow color-temperature spotlights in an Egyptian exhibit recreate the midday light of the Nile. The bust of Nefertiti, under the simulated sunlight, regains the gold leaf luster it held in the pharaonic court three thousand years ago.
Mood Lighting
The light therapy lamp for a Seasonal Affective Disorder patient uses Sun Yellow color-temperature bulbs. Half an hour of Sun Yellow exposure daily replaces the missing midday winter sun. Color can also be a prescription.
📜 Origin & History
Sun Yellow was cataloged as 1037 by the RAL Institute, the standard color in the yellow family whose color temperature is closest to direct midday sunlight. In the 1930s, German optical engineers used a spectroradiometer to measure the average color temperature of midday sunlight filtered through the atmosphere in Central Europe, solidifying this most intense warm yellow of the natural world into a single color value on an industrial color chart.
In ancient Greek mythology, Sun Yellow was the color of the flames spewed by the chariot of the sun god Helios. The bronze surface of the Colossus of Rhodes, under the midday sun, glowed with a scorching Sun Yellow hue. Ancient sailors, spotting this one of the Seven Wonders of the World from afar, first saw a burning yellow point of light on the horizon.
When Pharaoh Akhenaten of ancient Egypt promoted the monotheistic worship of the sun god Aten, Sun Yellow became the signature color of Amarna period art. The crown of the bust of Queen Nefertiti was originally covered with gold leaf, and the Sun Yellow light reflected by the gold leaf under Thebes' fierce midday sun was believed to connect the human world with the divine realm of Aten.
The 19th-century British landscape painter J.M.W. Turner was obsessed with painting sunlight in his later years. In 'Rain, Steam, and Speed,' he swept Sun Yellow across the center of the canvas, the pigment piled thickly like mud. Contemporary critics mocked him for painting 'yellow jam.' Now the painting hangs in the National Gallery in London, and viewers standing before it can feel the scorching heat of the midday sun Turner tried to capture.
The modern photovoltaic industry uses Sun Yellow as the standard color temperature reference for solar panel efficiency tests. Photovoltaic laboratories use light sources with a color temperature close to RAL 1037 to simulate standard sunlight conditions and test the conversion efficiency of panels. A color once chased by Turner on a canvas is now used to calibrate humanity's equipment for harvesting renewable energy.