Thread: The sky

I just noticed something. If you are in the right place on earth and you look up at the sky, you can see the universe, right? (something Ive only seen in pictures since I live in a big city )

But when you look at pictures taken from the space shuttle you do not see any stars, at least in the ones that I've seen. Why is this?

(Sorry if this is a stupid question)

The pictures from the space shuttle will feature either part of the space shuttle (very large bright object), the Earth (very large bright object), the ISS (very large bright object), etc. The camera lens is stopped down to such an extent that the comparatively faint stars are not viisble.

Or in tech-lingo: the dynamic range of the cameras is not big enough to catch both the Sun/ISS/Earth and the faint stars at the samew time. Hoax Believers see pictures like this as "proof" that man was NOT on the moon

Originally Posted by Cold Fusion

If you are in the right place on earth and you look up at the sky, you can see the universe, right?

Not the universe...I believe what you can see is the Milky Way.

Yeah, Milky way, thats what I meant.

I never thought of that...is the earth really that bright form space? And I guess that if they took a picture of the dark side of the earth(night) then the sun would be in the picture, unless, you used the earth the block the suns light, then you could possibly see the stars? What about a pic while the shuttle has the sun at its back, and is just on the line of sunlight across the earth, so that it catches a piece of the night side of earth, while facing the rest of the sky away from the sun?

Even better....have they ever bothered to try to take a picture while the sun was being eclipsed by say, Saturn?

So the only deficiency is in the camera; which means that an astronaut can see the sun and the rest of the sky? That must be an amazing sight, and more so since very few (200?) people have ever, and will ever (for a while) see from that perspective.

well.. our atmosphere is certainly bright enough to cancel out the light of the stars completely during daytime.
keep in mind cameras usually have a pretty shitty light sensitivity.
just take your camera out at night, and try and take pictures. they'll come out a lot darker than the real deal.
now you can sit back, and wonder what REAL space is going to look like...

all those stars like you've never seen them before, brighter than ever.. sigh.

If you get the chance you should go camping somewhere away from the city's. The number of stars that suddenly appear is truly inspiring, one of those things everybody should do before they die.

Where I live theres a allot of after glow in the sky; in fact, its to such an extent that I actually have to draw my curtains in. (And the array of Hollywood/ party spot lights doesn't help)

I need the go to the eastern Californian desert I guess; and bring a good camera.

Originally Posted by Cold Fusion

Where I live theres a allot of after glow in the sky; in fact, its to such an extent that I actually have to draw my curtains in. (And the array of Hollywood/ party spot lights doesn't help)

I need the go to the eastern Californian desert I guess; and bring a good camera.

Desert's a good idea as there's not only little light (most of the time) but also the low humidity helps when you wanna stare up in disbelief and think: WHOOA, thaaath's what 7000 Stars look like!!

Originally Posted by Cat1981(England)

The amount of stars that suddenly appear is truly inspiring, one of those things everybody should be before they die.

Sorry Cat, but I'm drunk, jet lagged and in KL. You cannot say the amount of stars. you should say the number of stars. Number refers to discrete quantities, amount refers to continuous quantities. e.g. There were a large number of posters on line that evening versus Most of the posters showed a limited amount of intelligence.
This confusion between continuous and discrete quantities is one of my personal bug bears.

Cold Fusion, is the fact that you haven't seen any stars in pictures taken from the space shuttle really so surprising?

Have you ever tried taking a decent picture of the full moon (from Earth)? How many stars do you see in that picture? Even simpler: Focus your bare eyes on the full moon, and then try to make out any stars in your peripheral vision (without directly looking at them!). How many do you count? I haven't tried that, but I'd be surprised to see a lot of stars. Human eyes don't have an infinite dynamic range, either. They're just very good at fooling us, by immediate adjustments of aperture and focus.

I suppose an astronaut could take a picture of stars if he wanted to, but think about it: If you were up there what kind of pictures would you take? Certainly not the ones you could just as well take from Earth.

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

Sorry Cat, but I'm drunk, jet lagged and in KL. You cannot say the amount of stars. you should say the number of stars. Number refers to discrete quantities, amount refers to continuous quantities. e.g. There were a large number of posters on line that evening versus Most of the posters showed a limited amount of intelligence.
This confusion between continuous and discrete quantities is one of my personal bug bears.

One more thing learnt. I have also noticed that i have written "be" rather then 'do'. :?

I visit the Hubble web site every once in a while when I want to ponder the amazing forces of the universe. It has some amazing pictures.

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/

But truely, everyone should experience the humbling site of thousands of stars, northern lights, and shooting stars that you experience in a northern camping trip far far away from any city. I took a trip this last summer with some amateur musician friends, and wasn't even thinking much about the sky-canvas until it seemed to appear suddenly during our music session. Fire, music, stars... great combonation.

Those are amazing pictures....but it just makes we want to go there; which I think is possible, but will take another 100 years for us to discover how to do so.

Couple of pictures I took in my back yard in my very light polluted down town Phoenix. I've moved since.

Wow, that's cool. What are those? Magellanic Clouds or Andromeda?

Edit: Oh sorry, I'm not sure you can see the Magellanic Clouds from the northern hemisphere.

You can see them from the Northern Hemisphere, but not all that far North. I am pretty sure I used to see them from Malaysia. Anyway they are amorphous, so its not them. And Andromeda is more edge on than face on. This looks like Messier 51, but that's just dredged up from some subconscious memory.

Originally Posted by KALSTER

Wow, that's cool. What are those? Magellanic Clouds or Andromeda?

Edit: Oh sorry, I'm not sure you can see the Magellanic Clouds from the northern hemisphere.

Galaxy M51

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

This looks like Messier 51, but that's just dredged up from some subconscious memory.

Originally Posted by (In)Sanity

Galaxy M51

When I'm hot, I'm hot. 8)

How do you set something up to take pictures like that? What does it cost? (I know, probably tens of thousands)

Those are awesome pics, I didn't even know that you could see things like that from earth.

Apparently your light pollution was much less than mine. I can (on a good night) only see about 4 stars, maybe the "big dipper" if I'm lucky.