Stars Can't Be Seen from Outer Space

a reply to: GaryN
You probably forgot, but in this very thread we discussed the Moon photos taken through the zenith porthole of Harmony module, as part of an experiment: www.abovetopsecret.com...

On a side note, just as spectacular as the stars seen in space is the zodiacal light - a faint roughly triangular band of light that is seen extending away from the Sun: eol.jsc.nasa.gov...

Zodiacal light is sunlight reflected from the countless dust particles in the plane of ecliptic. As mentioned previously in this thread, Apollo astronauts saw it when they were approaching the Moon and happened to be on the Moon's night side.

It's kinda cool to see the "stuff" of the Solar System other than its planets and moons.

Here's an ATS thread about zodiacal light.

a reply to: wildespace

You probably forgot,

Ah, the once in a blue moon shot? Haven't had an answer from NASA about that shot, and there is very little I can find out about it elsewhere. I did find this page:
www.nasa.gov...
and from there you can access this image:
www.nasa.gov...
Are those stars in the enlarged image?
The image is not available at the usual place:
eol.jsc.nasa.gov...
Maybe you can find more info?

a reply to: GaryN

From the article:

ISS Expedition Duration 1
September 2014 - September 2015

Expeditions Assigned
41/42,43/44

So those were "here and there" shots. nataylor pointed to one of those shots in this thread, and I was able to pull that series of images at eol.jsc.nasa.gov...

I don't think the dots in those images are stars, they are more likely digital noise or hot pixels. The exposure was 1/1000 or shorter.

a reply to: GaryN

The amount of arguments you have to support the "you can't see light in space" theory:

a reply to: Phage

The consensus would seem to be "can". With one in protest.

If we are going to do science by consensus, then for seeing stars from the Moon it's Cernan vs the other 11. Maybe he just had superior eyes, he said he saw stars even when not in the LM shadow. Didn't see him mention any planets though.

@wildespace

..and I was able to pull that series of images at eol.jsc.nasa.gov...

You conveniently forgot the squished one
eol.jsc.nasa.gov...
and the the blue one
eol.jsc.nasa.gov...
and the one where it begins to dim
eol.jsc.nasa.gov...
Do you understand what the progression is showing? Cherry picking at its finest there fella'.

originally posted by: GaryN
a reply to: Phage

The consensus would seem to be "can". With one in protest.

If we are going to do science by consensus, then for seeing stars from the Moon it's Cernan vs the other 11. Maybe he just had superior eyes, he said he saw stars even when not in the LM shadow. Didn't see him mention any planets though.

Theres a discussion on this topic here. Cernan seems to have had more bright stars above him than, say, Armstrong, so it's possible that he saw some stars while the rest didn't.

@wildespace

..and I was able to pull that series of images at eol.jsc.nasa.gov...

You conveniently forgot the squished one
eol.jsc.nasa.gov...
and the the blue one
eol.jsc.nasa.gov...
and the one where it begins to dim
eol.jsc.nasa.gov...
Do you understand what the progression is showing? Cherry picking at its finest there fella'.

Ah, but the Moon did progressively get further from (or closer to) the limb of the Earth. Shouldn't it have gotten dimmer and dimmer with distance from the limb, requiring longer and longer exposure or higher ISO? Besides, although we can't easily identify them, some of the shots were taken though the zenith porthole, as mentioned previously. But of course, by your logic, the fact that NASA hadn't posted and described such a photo equates to them hiding the "fact" that you can't see any light looking away from the atmosphere...

originally posted by: wildespace

Theres a discussion on this topic here. Cernan seems to have had more bright stars above him than, say, Armstrong, so it's possible that he saw some stars while the rest didn't.

I must be missing something, because I haven't found anything in the technical debrief where Cernan says that.

Schmitt definitely saw Jupiter in lunar orbit, as he drew an annotated diagram showing it in relation to the Solar Corona, and it was photographed many times.

a reply to: onebigmonkey

If this is the report being mentioned - www.ibiblio.org... - then you're right, there's nothing about seeing stars from the surface. However, plenty about seeing stars on the dark side of the Moon.

This sheds a new light on things, for me anyway:

The Original Lunar Observatories
(Lunokhod 2)

The conclusion from these observations was that sunlight scattering from dust suspended above the lunar surface was making the sky up to 13 to 15 times brighter than the Earth’s nighttime sky with a full Moon present. This glow would certainly hinder daytime observations in the visible and UV from the lunar surface casting some doubt on the idyllic view of using the Moon as an observatory site at these wavelengths. Data from the NASA’s LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer) mission completed in April 2014 should be able to shed more light on the role of lunar dust in brightening the lunar sky.

www.drewexmachina.com...

It is known that UV light will cause silicon/silica submicron particles, such as fumed silica, to glow at visible wavelenghts. The light they detected is not from scattered sunlight, there is none to scatter, but from solar UV excitation of the minute particles.

originally posted by: GaryN

It is known that UV light will cause silicon/silica submicron particles, such as fumed silica, to glow at visible wavelenghts. The light they detected is not from scattered sunlight, there is none to scatter, but from solar UV excitation of the minute particles.

You are drawing an erroneous conclusion by joining two different pieces of information together inappropriately.

You know full well that light travels through space in the visible spectrum, it has been photographed and described many times outside the atmosphere, and there are numerous space-based instruments that have taken photographs in the visible spectrum.

There is sunlight in the visible spectrum hitting the moon and being reflected back. It can be scattered in the sense that the irregular arrangement of reflecting surfaces at ground level will mean that not all light is reflected back in the direction of the source.

depends as an elderly person would say.
people see what happened to thought to be stars then.
what is seen is not the actual location but the direction at first. similar to seeing a vehicle in darkness before it comes around the bend except is leaving.
had there be no trick as it is people would see the planet is at the very end of a very long history.

a simple explanation really is some thought to be stars and planets are basically excrementing on us while listening from behind. the planet is like a toilet.

Conclusion: I'll meet you on the dark side of the moon.

But in all seriousness, can someone give a non-biased synopsis of the main evidence for both cases? or which scenarios allow you to see or not see the stars?

a reply to: onebigmonkey

You know full well that light travels through space in the visible spectrum,

There is no proof that I am willing to accept, it does not meet rigid scientific criteria. Technically pseudoscience.

You are drawing an erroneous conclusion by joining two different pieces of information together inappropriately.

How so? The process I propose offers a scientifically valid alternative for the visible light levels and observed spectra of all the planets and moons and even comets/asteroids. No visible light needs to come from the Sun, it CAN all be produced by processes occuring on and around the solar system bodies by the UV and higher energy solar radiation. Pluto was recently found to be brighter (in 2 out of 3 of the ALICE colour channels) than they had calculated using the visible light from the Sun, distance, inverse square model. Pluto has its own intrinsic light, not all at visible wavelengths. So as seen with the Moon, fine dust can create visible light, fluorescence of molecules in the atmospheres, or electron orbital shifts of atoms in the ionospheres can also produce photon emissions at many wavelengths. I need no new science here.

Anyway, what I was looking for now was opinion on if the panoramic cameras on the Chang'e 3 mission on the Moon would be capable of doing time exposures sufficient to be able to capture the stars and planets. Not suggestions about why they wouldn't want to. Some info is available by search, some paywalled, but it looks like they are about as close to a consumer level camera as you get, meaning we get pretty well what our eyes would see if we were there, including the light levels. They have colour corrected the images though. The images from the UV telescope are also computer processed to get the release images.

China’s Chang’e 3 Camera Still Snapping Photos From The Moon
astrobob.areavoices.com...
Note that the visible light image is from Hubble. No visible light telescope on the Moon? A missed opportunity I'd say. Or maybe there is just nothing to see, so why send a visible light telescope? Black is black.

@cooperton
But in all seriousness, can someone give a non-biased synopsis of the main evidence for both cases? or which scenarios allow you to see or not see the stars?

I'm biased of course, but I starred you for asking a good question.

Tim Peake: Life in space is 'absolutely spectacular'

We always talk about seeing the view of planet Earth and how beautiful it is and you come to expect that.
"But what people don't mention that much is when you look in the opposite direction and you see how dark space is.
"It is just the blackest black and that was a real surprise to me."

www.bbc.com...

Out of the mouths of babes? Maybe he isn't fully dark adapted yet.

originally posted by: GaryN
There is no proof that I am willing to accept

Says everything.

There is not enough floating dust to explain the brightness of the moon in your made up theory.

Chang'e always has a very bright object in the sky - either the sun or the Earth. Both of these will wash out a long exposure, as has been explained to you many times.

As for Tim Peake's quote, how many times do you need telling that a black sky is not inconsistent with seeing stars. The night sky on Earth is black and has stars in it. Peake does not say he can't see stars - he is describing the depth of the black he sees, not the absence of stars.

a reply to: onebigmonkey

There is not enough floating dust to explain the brightness of the moon in your made up theory.

An artist impression that I believe is very close to correct.
cdn.phys.org...
The illumination is not from light from the Sun, it is created by solar UV radiation causing the fine dust to emit visible light. You still have not found me an image of the Sun taken from cislunar space, and that's because they couldn't, not that they couldn't be bothered.
phys.org...

Chang'e always has a very bright object in the sky - either the sun or the Earth.

The Earth looks bright from Chang'e? Give your head a shake.

Both of these will wash out a long exposure, as has been explained to you many times.

Rubbish.

Peake does not say he can't see stars - he is describing the depth of the black he sees, not the absence of stars.

Does he say he can see stars? And if the sky is so black, the stars should be brighter, simple contrast. So you go to space and the sky is so black that the stars must be bright pinpoints of light, and the first thing you would say is "Gee, the sky is so dark!". Don't you think your first reaction would be "Gee, the stars are so bright!". You seem to have guzzled so much of NASAs snake oil that you have become blind to the big holes and inconsistencies in their bogus science stories.

A technical question about the Chang'e camera. Why can they not use a zoom lens, and make the Earth look as big and colourful as the composite images seen on the other thread? If you can't answer that, then I give up all hope for you ever understanding what NASA is up to.

The Cupola has been mentioned in this thread several times, with GaryN claiming that you can only see the Earth through it.

Here's an ESA video showing the Cupola side-on: www.esa.int...

As you can see from the video, a person inside can look not only down at Earth, but also sideways and even somewhat away from Earth. The video also shows the Moon gradually rising higher and higher above the horizon, and not getting any dimmer (which it would if the Earth's atmosphere were what made the Moon visible).

Because the sky on the moon is black, we tend to believe the viewing conditions are the same as night on earth. Not true. The sun shines just as brightly (slightly brighter, in fact) on the lunar surface, and so the astronauts' eyes (and camera apertures) were set for photographing in daylight conditions. The light from the sun on the moon is no different than being on Earth during daytime trying to find the stars, its just the moon doesn't have a blue sky so people can't tell that it's "daytime" when they go to the moon.

Actually, you know what? The moon has an orbit around the earth and we can see it at night because of the reflection of the sun’s rays and energy that bounce back to the earth. This is what gives the moon the brilliant white glow. It’s important to also remember that the earth has a rotation and an orbit around the sun. The moon sky is only black because there's no atmosphere to represent a blue/colored sky other than black like there is on Earth.

tl;dr

Moon seen from earth = Sunlight bouncing off moon to earth.
No stars seen from moon = Sunlight STILL bouncing off the moon. It's TECHNICALLY daytime on the moon, just like Earth, SO YOU CAN'T SEE THE STARS SOMETIMES.

a reply to: wildespace
I have explained the viewing geometry from the Cupola before, but you don't seem to understand. The only way to see deep space is from a topside EVA, which Tim Peake recently did, but I don't hear him raving about the view. And he was in the dark for 90 mins, lots of time to dark adapt.

@XendorFazem


Your explanation is pure assumption, the Lunar surface is only ever decently lit when the centre of the beam of light created by Solar UV/EUV radiation interacting with the fine lunar dust atmosphere is directly over the area where the images are taken. LADEE has confirmed this. Exposure meters were never used during Apollo missions on the Lunar surface, and there is no exposure information (I'd be glad if someone can prove me wrong) from the Chang'e 3 camera available, so we don't know the actual lumen values for different times during the Lunar day.

And here are 2 examples of just how NASAs mission is not to help us learn about space:
Testbed Paves Way for Amateur Space Telescope

"Telescope Alpha" is only the first step in a much more ambitious plan. The League hopes to convince NASA to attach a telescope 14 to 16 inches in aperture to the International Space Station sometime between 2008 and 2010. Controlled remotely by a team of amateurs on the ground, the envisioned telescope would concentrate on "taking pictures of the universe that interest the whole human race," notes imaging expert Richard Berry, who is coordinating efforts to gain NASA's approval. "All of the images and data from the ISS-AT would be available for use in the classroom and as a basis for observing proposals from educators and their classes."

www.skyandtelescope.com...
And

The Amateur Space Telescope project got its start in early 1979 when a handful of enthusiastic students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY realized that they could build their own space telescope using off-the-shelf hardware and launch it as a payload on the soon-to-be-introduced Space Shuttle. The AST would be the amateur (and much less expensive) equivalent of NASA’s Hubble Space telescope (HST) then under development.

www.drewexmachina.com...

NASA can not allow simple telescopes in space, they don't work. Like our eyes they can not focus the complex wavefront of the type of light that travels the vacuum. NASAs mission is not to help get humanity into space, but to prevent us doing so, and also to promote the completely wrong idea of just what is out there, as if stars are not visible from clear space by eye or with an off-the-shelf telescope, then all the standard astronomy models collapse.
NASA is not your friend, they are friends of the Military Industrial corporations who really run the world, and who likely have had space travel ability for decades.