Challenge for stoned Astronomy buffs

Im writing a science fiction story and want my characters home planet to have a really cool sky. So I’m trying to come up with astronomically plausible scenarios that would create spectacular skies.
One I’m playing with is having the sun be a planetary nebulae. But that might be problematic in explaining how the planet survived the red giant stage.

Maybe if I say that the sun was far enough away that it only was warm enough for life to evolve when the sun went red giant. Could that work? Would a planetary nebulae produce enough heat to keep alive a species that evolved during it’s red giant phase? Maybe if they made some adaptations? Or maybe you can think of another scenario that would be even trippier. I’d love to hear it. Maybe something that produces super crazy arora borealis or something.

 

How about there's an ice ring around the planet and when the sun shines through it displays a vast array of vibrant and beautiful colors?

 

What's the atmosphere made of?

 

Video of what rings around the earth might look like. They probably wouldn't be ice because the ice particles would vaporize quickly, unlike Saturn which is far from the sun and cold. But they could be dust particles leftover from a collision between an object and the moon.