Sky blue

Sky blue is a shade of light blue comparable to that of a clear daytime sky. The term (as "sky blew") is attested from 1681. A 1585 translation of Nicolas de Nicolay's 1576 includes "the tulbant [turban] of the merchant must be skie coloured".
Displayed at right is the web colour sky blue.
Variations
Celeste
Celeste is the colloquial name for the pale turquoise blue colour. The same word, meaning "of the sky", is used in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian for the colour. In English, this colour may also be referred to as Italian sky blue. The Japanese equivalent is known as or , referring to the colour of the sky or its reflection on the sea.
Celeste, that is, the pure Celeste strictly speaking (RGB 178,255,255; HEX #B2FFFF) is the colour of the sky with optimal visibility, when it is clear and sunny with an optimal quantity of humidity, absence of atmospheric dust, mist, haze, resulting in a good diffusion of light blue without saturation, which causes the prevalence of the white or of the warm colours of sunrise and sunset; in these excellent conditions, it's possible to see Celeste and its variations perpendicularly to the sun and toward the horizon, where the sky is illuminated directly and these shades merge with the golden light of solar rays and the white of the horizon, both in the morning and afternoon, when the star is high, approximately at an intermediate height between the latter and the zenith, sometimes even until noon, depending by meteorological factors; alternatively, other variants, like Celeste polvere, Pallido and Velato, are visible towards the horizon when the sun is near to the zenith, always with discrete or better conditions of visibility. In the afternoon, with good conditions, softer and less bright shades of celeste are visible at straight angle from north to south, until around sunset. In reality, it can be difficult to observe the pure celeste, being the color of a clear day with optimal meteorological factories; other shades of blue are often visible in the sky, as Light Sky Blue and similar gradations. The pure celeste is known as Bianchi Green, referring to Bianchi, the famous italian company for bikes, the first in the history of vehicles, whose color is caracteristic.
Bleu celeste ("sky blue") is a rarely. occurring tincture in heraldry (not being one of the seven main colours or metals or the three "staynard colours"). This tincture is sometimes also called ciel or simply celeste. It is depicted in a lighter shade than the range of shades of the more traditional tincture azure, which is the standard blue used in heraldry.
Gradations
The Italian Wikipedia cites by S.Fantetti and C.Petracchi and describes multiple variants of celeste as shown below, plus details as defined in the infobox above.
Light sky blue
Displayed at right is the web colour light sky blue. It is close in shade to baby blue.
Medium sky blue
Displayed at right is the colour medium sky blue. This is the colour that is called sky blue in Crayola crayons. This colour was formulated by Crayola in 1958.
"Sky blue" appears in the 32, 48, 64, 96 and 120 packs of crayons.
Vivid sky blue
Displayed at right is the colour vivid sky blue.
Deep sky blue
Deep sky blue is an azure-cyan colour associated with deep shade of sky blue.
Deep sky blue is a web colour.
This is the colour on the colour wheel (RGB/HSV colour wheel) halfway between azure and cyan.
The colour name deep sky blue came into use with the formulization of the X11 colour names over 1985–1989.
The normalized colour coordinates for deep sky blue are identical to Capri, which first came into use as a colour name in English in 1920.
French sky blue
At right is displayed the colour French sky blue, which is the tone of sky blue that is called sky blue (bleu ciel) in the Pourpre.com colour list, a colour list widely popular in France.
Spanish sky blue
Spanish sky blue is the colour that is called celeste (the Spanish word for "sky blue") in the (Guide to colourations) by Rosa Gallego and
Juan Carlos Sanz, a colour dictionary published in 2005 that is widely popular in the Hispanophone realm.
Dark sky blue
Displayed at right is the colour dark sky blue.
This is the colour called sky blue in Pantone.
The source of this colour is the "Pantone Textile Paper eXtended (TPX)" colour list, color #14-4318 TPX—Sky Blue.
In culture
Sports
Argentina: Following the colours of the flag of Argentina, in which sky blue (celeste in Spanish) is the predominant colour, many Argentine sport teams feature the colour, including Racing Club de Avellaneda Racing de Córdoba, Club Atlético Temperley, Atlético de Rafaela, Villa San Carlos Gimnasia y Tiro de Salta, and Gimnasia y Esgrima de Concepción del Uruguay. In addition, the Argentina national football team is known as the due to the white-and-sky blue striping on their jerseys. This colour scheme is featured in other prominent national squads in popular sports such as rugby, field hockey, polo or volleyball.
Australia: Sky blue is the main colour of the Australian rugby league team, New South Wales Blues, as it is the official colour of the state they represent.
Formula One: The Benetton and its successor Renault team won the four drivers' and the constructors' World Championships of the squad with sky blue race cars, driven by Michael Schumacher at Benetton in and and Fernando Alonso at Renault in and .
Italy: Celeste is the main colour of the football teams Lazio of Rome and Napoli of Naples.
Sweden: Football club Malmö FF, the club with the most Swedish championships, adopted sky blue shirts in 1920, which have been used for more than a century.
United Kingdom: Two professional football clubs in England traditionally wear sky blue shirts. Manchester City adopted sky blue as the main colour of their home jersey in 1894 and have used that ever since then. Coventry City also have had sky blue as the primary colour since the 1960s.
Uruguay: The Uruguay national football team has worn a sky blue jersey since 1910, after Uruguayan club team River Plate F.C. wore sky blue while defeating contemporary Argentine powerhouse Alumni Athletic Club. The national team is nicknamed La Celeste. As in Argentina, a number of Uruguayan club teams use sky blue in their uniforms, such as C.A. Cerro, Montevideo City Torque, Club Oriental de Football, and Rocha F.C.
See also
Air Force blue
Azure
Bleu celeste (in heraldry)
List of colours
Marian blue
Shades of blue
RAL 5015 Sky blue
References
Shades of azure