Why do we see distant stars?

Originally posted by roadgravel

Originally posted by Im a Marty
I think I read that the stars light is amplified by the atmosphere, When in space - or on the moon, you cannot see the stars that we see here.

Also - those stars are long gone!

Is this stuff really out in the world of supposed knowledge for people to read and believe.

yeah a little perplexed myself on this one because the natural conclusion would be the earth in eternal darkness since light from the sun would never make it to earth. Im hoping he meant that light acts differently in an atmosphere because that would be true. But thats not what im reading?? Its actually just the opposite the atmosphere hinders our ability to see stars in fact with a telescope and no atmosphere you could see stars during the day. Our eyes wouldnt be able to however due to small amount of light would be overwhelmed by our local star.The reason we can see stars at night is thats the brightest light source there is but dont try star gazing at a ball game.

Nobody as of yet knows what light is. We know how it behaves under certain circumstances, and have used that knowledge to create some amazing devices. My view of how light travels in the vacuum is leaning strongly to the soliton, a self focusing packet of energy with one of a number of wavefront shapes.

Optical spatial solitons: historical overview and recent advances.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

But, for my rough model of how light travels in the Vacuum, the vacuum would need to be a nonlinear medium. Yes, even I though that a bit 'out there', but it turns out I am not the only one to consider this:

"Spin space: the vacuum as a nonlinear medium"
www.researchgate.net...

If this were indeed to be the case, than gross matter would be required to turn these solitons into visible light, the type our eyes or a regular camera can see. Just recently, the release for licensing of some advanced optics was announced by the Goddard folks, which involves solitons, and uses science based on the Scack-Hartmann principles, which is all about wavefronts. The technology has been held back since it was developed, as it gave much greater ability for certain military uses, one of them being the Star Tracker units for the ICBM programs.

They have a program called "Can you see it now?"
NASA Goddard Wavefront Sensing
techtransfer.gsfc.nasa.gov...‎

Now, just 2 years after the info from Goddard, there are suddenly available things like ARKYD and ILO-X, made possible by both some amazing hardware and software. These instruments are able to see in much the same way as Hubble does, but the wavefronts being detected can not be seen by eye, or with a simple camera lens, which has been my point all along. I've never said there is nothing out there, the instruments are amazing, but out eyes, in space, will detect nothing of it. This is where gross matter is needed, and why we can see stars from the Surface of the Earth. They can also be seen by astronauts under certain conditions, which means along a line of site that passes through a region of atmosphere, or through clouds of matter (electrons will do). This is why pictures of an odd white jagged Sun were captured on the Moon, as the Moon has an electron shell, and a hydrogen corona which will convert SOME solitons to visible light. Being in Earths ion tail when the Moon passes through it will probably allow for better viewing of the stars, but that hasn't been tried as you'd probably get zapped by nasty energetic thingies in the ion tail.

Anyway, I rant, as usual, but the model of what light is, is being refined, maybe completely changed one day, and I think it will have to be admitted one day that poor old humans eyes are not going to be of any use in deep space, unless the Goddard tech can be miniturised to the point where goggles or glasses, or maybe even an implant, will allow us to see the Light.

Originally posted by GaryN
Nobody as of yet knows what light is. We know how it behaves under certain circumstances, and have used that knowledge to create some amazing devices. My view of how light travels in the vacuum is leaning strongly to the soliton, a self focusing packet of energy with one of a number of wavefront shapes.

Optical spatial solitons: historical overview and recent advances.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

But, for my rough model of how light travels in the Vacuum, the vacuum would need to be a nonlinear medium. Yes, even I though that a bit 'out there', but it turns out I am not the only one to consider this:

"Spin space: the vacuum as a nonlinear medium"
www.researchgate.net...

If this were indeed to be the case, than gross matter would be required to turn these solitons into visible light, the type our eyes or a regular camera can see. Just recently, the release for licensing of some advanced optics was announced by the Goddard folks, which involves solitons, and uses science based on the Scack-Hartmann principles, which is all about wavefronts. The technology has been held back since it was developed, as it gave much greater ability for certain military uses, one of them being the Star Tracker units for the ICBM programs.

They have a program called "Can you see it now?"
NASA Goddard Wavefront Sensing
techtransfer.gsfc.nasa.gov...‎

Now, just 2 years after the info from Goddard, there are suddenly available things like ARKYD and ILO-X, made possible by both some amazing hardware and software. These instruments are able to see in much the same way as Hubble does, but the wavefronts being detected can not be seen by eye, or with a simple camera lens, which has been my point all along. I've never said there is nothing out there, the instruments are amazing, but out eyes, in space, will detect nothing of it. This is where gross matter is needed, and why we can see stars from the Surface of the Earth. They can also be seen by astronauts under certain conditions, which means along a line of site that passes through a region of atmosphere, or through clouds of matter (electrons will do). This is why pictures of an odd white jagged Sun were captured on the Moon, as the Moon has an electron shell, and a hydrogen corona which will convert SOME solitons to visible light. Being in Earths ion tail when the Moon passes through it will probably allow for better viewing of the stars, but that hasn't been tried as you'd probably get zapped by nasty energetic thingies in the ion tail.

Anyway, I rant, as usual, but the model of what light is, is being refined, maybe completely changed one day, and I think it will have to be admitted one day that poor old humans eyes are not going to be of any use in deep space, unless the Goddard tech can be miniturised to the point where goggles or glasses, or maybe even an implant, will allow us to see the Light.

We do indded know what light is Its a quantum of electromagnetic energy. What we dont understand is how can it be both a particle and a wave function and seems to be determined by observation. I also think your misunderstanding a soliton its a type of wave function. So lets say we take a photon and we hit the right frequency to turn it in to a soliton wave. This means distance no longer effects the photon. Consider it away to get around the inverse square law which basically states that intensity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from its source. This is why the red shift occurs when we observe distant stars. Now matter is not required to see a soliton wave unless of course it was a frequency we couldnt see anyway.

The basic model of the photon isnt changing we are just learning some new thing we can do with it. As far as what we see in space will be anything withing the frequency of visible light about 430 to 790 THz. There is just alot more out there in the universe to see.

reply to post by GaryN


Shouldn't this be testable with little more than and old tube tv, some cardboard, and a roll of duct tape then?


If I place a decent vacuum between me and my observation point, shouldn't I be able to detect a noticeable change in my field of view?

Also do you go by garyn on other forums?

reply to post by dragonridr

We do indded know what light is Its a quantum of electromagnetic energy. What we dont understand is how can it be both a particle and a wave function and seems to be determined by observation.

But what is electricity, what is magnetism?
Maybe this is why I got started on all this:
Abolishing the wave-particle duality nonsense by X Borg - Blazelabs
www.blazelabs.com...

He admits there are still some gaps, but I think the vacuum as a nonlinear medium may be the answer, so why don't we just call it an Aether, and all fields and forces just manifestations of an Aether motion or state or condition. Maxwells or Einsteins Aether? The further down the rabbit hole you go, the more it all seems like it must be a Matrix, an information lattice, but were getting a little philosophical here.

This is why the red shift occurs when we observe distant stars. Now matter is not required to see a soliton wave unless of course it was a frequency we couldnt see anyway.

Self focusing soliton beams in space will be me at a minimum of the Vacuum UV energies, and at quantised energies in the EUV, X and Gamma ranges I'd think, so we could not see them, but our perception mechanisms could not reconstruct a complex, visible light wavefront either, we aren't programmed for it. The software these newer instruments use is also needed to make the wavefronts visible. You need some very complex lens assemblies and gratings, phase plates, etc, all manufactured to precisions that are only now becoming available, to the public anyway, through micro and nano fabrication. Hence the mini-Hubble and lunar observatory cameras. A Nikon D2x and big lens was never good enough to have been put in orbit?

Until I am shown the results of some very simple tests, which I challenge NASA to perform, then it is only an opinion that the stars, planets, moons, or even the Sun are visible from even a 400 mile orbit, let alone from further out. Think of the things NASA has NOT shown us and ask why? Yes, it is only my opinion that they can not be seen, versus the opinion of nearly everyone else that they can.

“There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.”

― Hippocrates
Well the science is simple, the equipment needed already in place, the time and expense should be minumal, so let's do it.

The colour video cameras on the Canadarm2, lets see the Moon. Upgrade those cameras and we should be able to see planets and conjunctions. I've seen it done with a very sensitive video camera from Earth, the planets were very fuzzy and dim, but I'm sure NASA has better cameras and a clearer view. The arm could no doubt be easily programmed to track, so lets see a full 'night' of video. I'd think it easy to put a still camera on the arm to do some long exposures, but that's not what the ISS is there for, is it?. No fun at all those guys.

And what about a BIPH night vision camera. Does it work from orbit or in deep space? If it doesn't then the photons must be being created in our atmosphere/ionosphere/coronasphere. Where's the spirit of enquiry in these people? I'll spring for the BIPH if NASA will try it out, at the time and in the direction of my choosing.
@vind21
No, the type of light our eyes see will fall off at the inverse square rate in a vacuum. This means though that Mars should not be visible by eye from EArth. Firstly it has too small an angular diameter, theoretically it needs to be 4 times bigger to meet visibility level. It is also about as reflective as the Moon, but only receives about half the intensity of Sunlight that the Moon does. No scientist or mathematician or smart-ass has been able to make the figures even remotely work, and most will not even try. Mars should not be visible even at its nearest approach, but it is. How? The soliton could explain it, but we need the atmosphere to get the light back the way we need, or the advanced optics of the space based instruments. The first space based attempt with space based telescopes, by the military, used vacuum tube type cameras and high speed lenses, what a joke. That's why you never heard the results of their tests. Didn't work. They did put up some UV/EUV/X-Ray detectors, but visible light telescopes took almost 40 years, Hubble. Why so long? It required the classified knowledge of how to see visible 'light' in space.

Also do you go by garyn on other forums?

Yes, mainly on the thunderbolts forum, where I post even more anti-establishment rhetoric!

reply to post by GaryN


Im going to book mark this and respond when i have more time but ill just quickly say we know what light does in a vacuum we have proved it experimentally in labs all over the world. In fact if you want to slow light down having it travel thru something works every time, but as promised i will come back and discuss each of your points i just have to go for now.