Stars Can't Be Seen from Outer Space

a reply to: GaryN
www.youtube.com...

This is a picture, unprocessed, of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft as it approached Saturn’s icy, geologically active moon Enceladus, for a fly by and through the icy plume in the picture.

i1.wp.com...

No atmosphere, unprocessed picture, how many stars can you see?

a reply to: GaryN
I simply countered your statements, which you seemed to have used specifically to support your "can't see anything in space" position. You claimed Apollo guys never saw or photographed Venus from the Moon or cislunar space; I refuted that claim. You claimed that there were no photos of the recent planet conjunction from the ISS, and I also refuted that claim.

Oh, and did the quoted Apollo 12 astronauts see Venus literally through the Earth's atmosphere? I don't think so. Perhaps someone with a planetarium software and a suitable bunch of data can calculate where Venus was with respect to Apollo CSM and Earth on Day 8 (when they were about 180,000 to 170,000 nautical miles, or 333,360 to 314,840 km from Earth), but something tells me they used the term "horizon" in a more technical way, as part of the star navigation system, especially when they talked about "splitting Venus with the horizon".

originally posted by: bigx001
This is a picture, unprocessed, of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft as it approached Saturn’s icy, geologically active moon Enceladus, for a fly by and through the icy plume in the picture.

i1.wp.com...

No atmosphere, unprocessed picture, how many stars can you see?

Stars in such long-exposure images appear as streaks rather than dots (which are in fact digital noise or cosmic particle strikes). You can see quite a few stars in this GIF made from that series of images: i.imgur.com...

But GaryN's excuse is that the camera sensor is also sensitive to UV and infrared, which is how it's able to detect those stars, and that they still wouldn't be visible in the optical part of the spectrum .

originally posted by: GaryN
The astronauts never claimed to have been able to see the planets, they were only noticed when the photos were 'enhanced'. When the Apollo 14 image of Earth was taken, he was looking pretty well straight up, from the shadow of the LM, no supposedly bright surface light in his field of view, Venus should have been blindingly bright, but he didn't see it. Not right.

You just quoted astronauts using Venus as a navigation aid, how is this astronauts not saying they can see a planet? Think before you type.

The Apollo 17 Preliminary Science Report has a diagram drawn during the mission of Jupiter in the solar corona done before the photographs were developed, and Jupiter was mentioned several times in Apollo 10 and 16 so your claim, as usual, is entirely fictitious.

It is my belief (though obviously it is speculation) that Apollo 14's images of Venus - both those taken outside the LM and those taken from inside the LM after the last EVA - were entirely deliberate. The fact that he didn't mention it does not mean that he couldn't see it. The fact is that a normal camera photographed Venus from the lunar surface, which you have claimed isn't possible.

Here, by the way, is Venus and Earth at the time of the quote you mis-used earlier from Apollo 12. The view is from the lunar surface, and Apollo 12 was 167,578 nautical miles out at the time.



and just for fun here is comet Kohoutek photographed by skylab:



Time and time again you make claims and time and time again you are shown to be wrong in both your facts and your assumptions: stars (including the sun) and planets can be seen in space, and have been discussed and photographed in space.

It's like in that movie The Truman Show. The stars are just drawn on the ceiling.

originally posted by: wildespace

originally posted by: bigx001
This is a picture, unprocessed, of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft as it approached Saturn’s icy, geologically active moon Enceladus, for a fly by and through the icy plume in the picture.

i1.wp.com...

No atmosphere, unprocessed picture, how many stars can you see?

Stars in such long-exposure images appear as streaks rather than dots (which are in fact digital noise or cosmic particle strikes).

no they don't. the the nasa images from the Apollo missions were on film not solid state sensors, look at the flickr account and. all film.

solid state sensors in the past were susceptible to cosmic radiation not today's generation.

originally posted by: bigx001

originally posted by: wildespace

originally posted by: bigx001
This is a picture, unprocessed, of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft as it approached Saturn’s icy, geologically active moon Enceladus, for a fly by and through the icy plume in the picture.

i1.wp.com...

No atmosphere, unprocessed picture, how many stars can you see?

Stars in such long-exposure images appear as streaks rather than dots (which are in fact digital noise or cosmic particle strikes).

no they don't. the the nasa images from the Apollo missions were on film not solid state sensors, look at the flickr account and. all film.

solid state sensors in the past were susceptible to cosmic radiation not today's generation.

Sorry that I didn't make it clear, I meant the stars in the Cassini image you posted, as well as in the GIF I posted. Stars in those images appear as horizontal streaks, due to the motion of the spacecraft that focused its camera on Enceladus.

In fact, this can be benefitial if you want to distinguish stars from digital noise, and identify them using star charts or planetarium software.

originally posted by: nOraKat
It's like in that movie The Truman Show. The stars are just drawn on the ceiling.

You are very nearly correct nOraKat, the stars are 'drawn' on Earths atmospheric layers by UV and up EM radiation, which when it interacts with the ionised atmospheric layers produces visible light. The planets/stars are in effect rear projected onto the atmosphere. The conjunction imaged from the ISS is utilising that effect, but because they are not looking through all the layers, as we do from Earths surface, Mars does not appear red in those images. As well as UV being produced by the planets ionospheres, Mars atmosphere also produces x-rays, and it is maybe the x-rays and their interaction with Earths atmosphere that makes it look red to us on Earth.
Only independently verified, repeatable. scientific experiments could prove this, NASA will not do, or allow the tests to be done.

@wildespace

Outstanding defense mechanisms

I am defending the integrity of all the astronauts, starting with Armstrong, who have told us that from the Moon, or cislunar space, or when looking AWAY from Earth, that the sky is black, the blackest black imaginable.
Most of the 200+ EVA astronauts just don't talk about it, the few who have agree that nothing is visible when looking away from Earth. Anyone who denies that is calling them liars, and I do not like that one bit.
NASA has never weighed in one way or the other, nowhere has NASA come out and said that stars are visible from cislunar space, or the Lunar surface, or when looking AWAY from Earth from LEO. Try E-Mailing Bolden with the simple, straight forward question and see if you get an answer.

originally posted by: GaryN
I am defending the integrity of all the astronauts, starting with Armstrong, who have told us that from the Moon, or cislunar space, or when looking AWAY from Earth, that the sky is black, the blackest black imaginable.

No one's arguing that. Space can be black AND be filled with visible stars. How about the integrity of all the astronauts who reported or mentioned seeing stars in cislunar space?

Collins reports: "Houston, it's been a real change for us. Now we are able to see stars again and recognize constellations for the first time on the trip. The sky is full of stars, just like the nights on Earth. But all the way [4] here we have just been able to see stars occasionally and perhaps through monoculars, but not recognize any star pattern."

history.nasa.gov...
How about the integrity of Bill Anders (Apollo 8), who looked out of his window when over the night side of the Moon and "saw all these stars, more stars than you could pick out constellations from"? www.nasa.gov...

Most of the 200+ EVA astronauts just don't talk about it, the few who have agree that nothing is visible when looking away from Earth.

Space walkers have little time to look around and appreciate the vistas; their EVA schedules are very tight. And when you're over the day side of Earth, looking out into space you will indeed see only blackness, as there's just too much light around to be able to see the faint stars. However, over the night side, and with ISS external lights turned off, you'd see the stars.

a reply to: wildespace

Collins reports: "Houston, it's been a real change for us. Now we are able to see stars again and recognize constellations for the first time on the trip. The sky is full of stars, just like the nights on Earth. But all the way [4] here we have just been able to see stars occasionally and perhaps through monoculars, but not recognize any star pattern."

"Now we are able to see stars again", meaning that for some reason they couldn't see them all the time. Why would that be.

How about the integrity of all the astronauts who reported or mentioned seeing stars in cislunar space?

Who's the all? And stars could be seen from cislunar space if they were looking through the sextant, it incorporated the view of what the Star Tracker was seeing, though we know that waste dumps made the sextant useless for a while after the waste dump. Solar UV will make the water in the waste glow.

Space can be black AND be filled with visible stars.

I don't question that stars can be seen, from the ISS cupola for example, but that is because of the atmosphere, but on EVA, you could look out away from Earth (if not just too damned busy), and that is what the astronauts are doing when they say it is black.

Space can be black AND be filled with visible stars.

There are NO stars when looking outward, but only an experiment could confirm that, (though nobody here would believe it even if it was proven experimentally!) or maybe get the astronauts who have told of the blackness together and let them discuss the situation openly. NASA wouldn't go for that.

originally posted by: GaryN
a reply to: onebigmonkey

You're moving the goalposts. You claimed there are no images of the sun from space (despite there being dedicated solar observatories in space).

Why has no scientific test of the visibility of the Sun, from deep space, ever been done? Somehow it is a taboo subject, it is grandfathered-in that the Sun is visible in space beecause we can see it from Earth. A scientific test has to begin with known conditions, equipment used, time, location, and direction of view. This has never been done, and NASA is supposed to be a scientific outfit. Starting with an assumption is not science.

The dedicated solar observatories do not look at visible light, it's all UV and up, they detect things your eyes could never see. And we know how to get good photos of the Sun from Earth, why not do the same in space? The ND filter is the answer, but they never take one with them to space.
Or not since Gemini 12 anyway.

That doesn't seem to be true.

SECCHI is a suite of remote sensing instruments consisting of two white light coronagraphs (COR1 and COR2) and an EUV imager (EUVI), collectively referred to as the Sun Centered Imaging Package (SCIP), and a Heliospheric Imager (HI).

secchi.nrl.navy.mil...

a reply to: DenyObfuscation

That doesn't seem to be true.
SECCHI is a suite of remote sensing instruments consisting of two white light coronagraphs (COR1 and COR2) and an EUV imager (EUVI), collectively referred to as the Sun Centered Imaging Package (SCIP), and a Heliospheric Imager (HI).
secchi.nrl.navy.mil...

The images from space based white light coronagraphs I have looked at can be shown to be taken while looking through Earths atmosphere. EUV images can be taken while looking into deep space, but your eyes can not see EUV. I don't deny the Sun puts out a lot of radiation, but it is not in the visible wavelengths, or white light as they refer to it. That is created by atmospheres of planets or moons.
I don't have enough info on the secchi COR1 and 2 images to know where they were looking when the images were taken.

a reply to: GaryN
Why on earth would the Sun put out infrared and UV with a gap in-between?

Also, how far does the visible-light-making property of the Earth's atmosphere extend out into space? In day-time photos from the ISS, you can see the atmosphere wrapping the Earth very tightly. In the night-time photos, you can see the greenish airglow in the upper part of the atmosphere, and there's a faint reddish glow even higher up (but still farily close to the limb of the Earth). However, stars and other space objects have been photographed much higher up above any airglow. And they don't seem to get any dimmer the further away from the limb they are.





Another question that crossed my mind is how is it that stars, which shine their invisible EM spectrum at the whole of the Earth hemisphere that's facing them, create pin-points of light instead of just exciting the whole of the night sky? How is it that their light creates focused images of themselves in our eyes or camera sensors (minus the twinkling and blurring from atmospheric disturbances)?

a reply to: GaryN

The images from space based white light coronagraphs I have looked at can be shown to be taken while looking through Earths atmosphere.

The SECCHI instruments are on the STEREO craft. Nowhere near Earth for many years now.

stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov...

See COR1 and COR2 from each of the two craft stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov...

View their positions since launch here stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov...

This short video clip from ESOcast 78 shows the altitudes at which the distinct green and red tinges of airglow can be seen, in relation to the height of the International Space Station.


www.youtube.com...

If we take the upper edge of the red airglow (around 250 km up) as the upmost level of the atmosphere, the ISS is still orbiting much higher than that. So, sideways photos from the ISS aren't looking through the Earth's atmosphere.

Here's the full ESOcast about airglow: www.youtube.com...

Another thing that just crossed my mind, is that if it were our atmosphere that made space objects visible, those nearer the horizon would look brighter, and those near zenith would look dimmer - because of the amount of the atmosphere their EM radiation has to go through before it reaches us. But that's not what we're observing; objects near zenith are the brightest and clearest.

a reply to: wildespace

That second image is a stunner for sure. the "more stars than you could ever see from Earth" statement would seem to fit that shot, but how could you match that with the "blackest black you could imagine" statement?
Anyway, you ask some interesting questions, but I will be busy for a while. will give you my take on it all when I get time.

DenyObfuscation, I am not familiar with SECCH, will look at the instrument when I get chance. It's location though does not mean it can not view the Sun through Earths atmosphere from there.

a reply to: GaryN

DenyObfuscation, I am not familiar with SECCH, will look at the instrument when I get chance. It's location though does not mean it can not view the Sun through Earths atmosphere from there.

Please do check out the links I gave and you'll see why Earth's atmosphere isn't a player in this game.

originally posted by: GaryN
a reply to: wildespace

That second image is a stunner for sure. the "more stars than you could ever see from Earth" statement would seem to fit that shot, but how could you match that with the "blackest black you could imagine" statement?

This being a long-exposure photo over night side of Earth seems to be the reason. A human eye, even when dark-adapted, would see a lot less than that, even though it would still see a great multitude of stars.

...and has been repeatedly pointed out, there is absolutely no inconsistency whatsoever in describing the night sky as black and there being stars in it.