The Boring Sky (Sun)

[GaryN]

Cargo:

Truly, for Humans, it's completely Black out there. The sun is just a pin prick, that will still burn your retinas off though.

That is not how it works. If you knew exactly where to look when you were in deep space it would not hurt your eyes to look directly at the Sun. You need to understand how a deep space Sun sensor works, and why the less dense the interstellar medium the more difficult it is to be able to 'decode' the EM radiation emanating from distant sources. Similarly, the star trackers needed for space navigation become more expensive the further out you want to go, but you could only buy a star tracker capable of deep space navigation (if you could even afford one, and you need at least 3) from companies who are corporate arms of the military industrial complex. And they would want to know a great deal about you and your intentions, and then still might not sell to you.

In trying to find any information about surface light levels on Mars I found this pdf, and though there are still no actual numbers, the effects of the light on surface observations are interesting.

The Martian Sky and Its Illumination of the Martian Surface
https://mars.nasa.gov/mgs/sci/fifthconf99/6127.pdf

Nothing much has been done to examine the lunar sky since 1973
The measurements of sky brightness on Lunokhod-2
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1975Moon...14..123S

The unexpected brightness of the lunar sky was attributed to the scattering of sunlight by the fine lunar dust, but as there is no proof that the sun emits any visible light then the light must have been created by the atmospheric dust, and fluorescence of silica particles is an accepted and well utilised phenomena.
I believe The reason that NASA does not have a rover on the surface is that detailed observations of the true nature of the lunar lighting would destroy the solar constant model for one thing, and if a direct measurement of solar heat by a Pyrheliometer were to be performed it would be found to be very cool in comparison to expected levels. No good for solar concentrators to smelt lunar ore.
Interesting that the Russian rover was driven by remote control from Earth, the signal time delay is insignificant. So I'm wondering if Elon Musk would be game for putting a sensor loaded remote controlled Cybertruck on the surface. Wouldn't that be a hoot!

[Cargo]

Yes, I think when I wrote that, I was thinking of the near Earth-Moon area. Where gold-visors are required when in Space looking towards the Sun.

[GaryN]

Hubble's Best Image of Alpha Centauri A and B
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/godd ... ri-a-and-b

Even to the Hubble space 'telescope' the closest stars to Earth will be much less than 1 pixel in diameter. How do they produce such an image from less than 1 pixel?

[GaryN]

Supergiant star Betelgeuse smaller, closer than first thought

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-supergian ... loser.html

Again we are shown an image of a red/orange blob that is not an actual photograph and expected to believe this is a star, a really big one, a red giant.

This Hubble image from 1996 is claimed to be the first direct picture of the suface of a star other than our Sun.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/hst_betelg.gif
From:https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap960122.html

An image from Earth, using a Pomenis Astrograph:
https://www.adamblockphotos.com/betelgeuse.html

Even though Betelgeuse would still only be less than 1 pixel in diameter, from Earth we are told that it is so bright that Earths atmosphere and inherent telescope blurriness has have spread the image. If so, why does the Hubble image look spread, even with no atmosphere in the way?

Even though they now think the supposed star is only 530 light years away, it is possible that it is not a star, and maybe MUCH closer still. Hubble was perhaps 30 years ahead of its time, and the reason Lyman Spitzer had to wait almost 40 years to get his visible light telescope is that it took that long to develop the technology for the sensors. Even back then, they had developed the active pixel sensor, and by fabricating the pixel dimensions precisely they could use software to perform sub-pixel spatial resolution interferometry. The software is the classified part here, so even if Russia or China could reproduce the hardware, the devices would be all but useless.

[GaryN]

Sauron, is that you? World’s largest solar observatory releases incredible, if ominous, close-up of sunspot.

https://www.rt.com/news/508993-solar-ob ... t-closeup/
Awesome image, but it seems it was from the VBI H-Beta filter at 486.139 nm, and that is a blue wavelength. Why do they keep insisting that the Sun is orange?
https://nso.edu/press-release/first-hig ... lar-image/

[paladin17]

https://nso.edu/press-release/first-hig ... lar-image/

This is not the same image and not even the same telescope. Hell, even the year of publication is wrong.
The recently released DKT image was taken on January 28, 2020 at the wavelength of 530 nm.

[GaryN]

This is not the same image and not even the same telescope.

Oops, my bad.

..at the wavelength of 530 nm.

So it should be green then.

[perpetual motion]

Hmmmmm. Speak to me Gary, is this for real or fake. This is from Parker probe from last
year. They are saying that this is 150,000,000 away in its loopy around Venus or there
abouts. This can not be. I tried to get another upload in this same manner of a starry
(NASA pic) but it would not upload.
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/file ... -earth.jpg

[GaryN]

..is this for real or fake

Well, it's a real image but not unexpected from NASA. Skulduggery you might say. That the data was obtained when the probe was rounding Venus is a clue, the line of sight to Earth is through the upper atmosphere of Venus, and it is the UV of Earths hydrogen corona interacting with Venus' atmosphere that is creating the emissions the 'camera' is detecting. It MAY be possible that something would be visible to the eye, just as the Apollo astronauts saw stars from lunar orbit when their view was through the Moons atmosphere. There is no conventional camera on the probe though, so not possible to take a photo and examine the EXIF data and calculate if it would have been naked eye visible.

[perpetual motion]

Thanks Gary, I was guessing at my own thoughts on this image.
The atmosphere of Venus, DING. My bad on that.

[Brent72]

Four years after detecting it, it seems NASA are now reporting EM radiation from Uranus.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/technolo ... d=msedgntp

[GaryN]

This should be interesting:"Elon Musk unveils incredible new spacecraft design with the most 'in space' view"

Tweeted with the caption “A new view for crew”, an image of the updated design shows a futuristic glass bubble canopy fitted to the spacecraft, allowing a unique 360º view of the stars.

https://i2-prod.dailystar.co.uk/incomin ... of-the.jpg
I think the flight will only be going to the 100 mile altitude so will be interesting to hear or see what the view of the stars is from there. Will they try the same outward view from ISS orbit? I say no, as British astronaut Tim Peake told us that when looking away from Earth from ISS orbit that it was totally black out there, which is why the ISS has no outward looking windows.

Hi Brent72, I don't think such news will come as as a surprise to EU proponents eh?

[antosarai]

Have you seen this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1R3dTdcpSU&t=96s

[GaryN]

Have you seen this?

Cool! Lots of stars visible when the line of sight is through the denser part of Earths atmosphere. Let's try pointing the camera away from Earth and have a look.

Here is a sequence of images from a LADEE camera showing stars and the Zodiacal light just before the Sun comes up. They don't say what filters they were using or exposure times but I suspect IR and long exposures.
https://www.planetary.org/space-images/ ... t-the-moon

In this 15 minute video Anton Petrov looks at the Zodiacal light phenomena. Scattered sunlight he says, I say there is no visible light from the Sun.
To Everyone's Surprise, Mars Seems to be Responsible for the Zodiacal Light
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhvhpXnwzlQ

Stars seen from Mars:
Moon Phobos in Mars’s night sky captured by Curiosity Rover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BZxLCucJsU

Again, no info on filters or exposures, but Phobos is washed out so a long exposure. I think the first Martian colonists are going to be very disappointed with their view of the night skies. But of course they would have spent a few months on their journey to Mars with no view of the stars at all! I really don't think anyone is going to Mars, ever, hope Elon proves me wrong though.

[antosarai]

From Wikipedia:

"the International Space Station, which orbits the Earth within the middle of the thermosphere, between 408 and 410 kilometres"

"The mass of the thermosphere above about 85 kilometres (53 mi) is only 0.002% of the total mass".


So, as in the final moments of the time-lapse video the rocket is orbiting toward the ISS, not climbing to it, how come "the line of sight is through the denser part of Earths atmosphere"?