Naked Eye limiting magnitude in space

Just curious as to what th enaked eye limiting magnitude is in space, if
you were on a shuttle. Can you see deeper?

bob

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 15:57:28 GMT, bob wrote:

Just curious as to what th enaked eye limiting magnitude is in space, if
you were on a shuttle. Can you see deeper?

The atmospheric extinction at the zenith is about one magnitude. So in space you
theoretically get that back, and you don't have any angular dependence. But
unless you're planning on sucking vacuum, you have to view that through some
kind of window.

I've heard that the view from the Shuttle is good, but not any better than you
get at a dark site on the ground.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 15:57:28 GMT, bob wrote:

Just curious as to what th enaked eye limiting magnitude is in space, if
you were on a shuttle. Can you see deeper?

The atmospheric extinction at the zenith is about one magnitude. So in space you
theoretically get that back, and you don't have any angular dependence. But
unless you're planning on sucking vacuum, you have to view that through some
kind of window.

I've heard that the view from the Shuttle is good, but not any better than you
get at a dark site on the ground.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

bob wrote:

Just curious as to what th enaked eye limiting magnitude is in space, if
you were on a shuttle. Can you see deeper?

bob

The Earth's atmosphere is about 90% transparent at visible light
wavelengths.
http://reductionism.net.seanic.net/CCD_TE/2629_05.gif

bob wrote:

Just curious as to what th enaked eye limiting magnitude is in space, if
you were on a shuttle. Can you see deeper?

bob

The Earth's atmosphere is about 90% transparent at visible light
wavelengths.
http://reductionism.net.seanic.net/CCD_TE/2629_05.gif

If your in orbit......or on the moon.......you'd still get a "darker" view
looking through some glass/window than you would looking through our atmosphere
EXCEPT for one thing.....

Astronauts on the moon and most likely all astronauts in any space ship are NOT
even REMOTELY dark adapted.....so their night vision is terrible....

try this....go outback on a dark night.....note how many stars in the sky you
can see......make sure your dark adapted when you do this (ie...been in an
almost totally dark room for an hour)....now place a white sheet of paper 10
feet away give or take in your field of view.....put a 100 watt lightbulb a few
feet from the paper and let it shine on it.....

Your pupils will contract SOOO much and your night vision will be soooo ruined
you wont see a tenth of what you did before you put that white piece of paper
in your field of view.....

So, unless an astronuat on the shuttle has been in the pitch black for an hour,
ALLL the cabin lights are offf and they cant see ANY part of the shuttle out
the window then they could get a better view....but I'd bet that rarely to
almost never happens....

And the guys on the moon had it even worse....

take care

Blll

If your in orbit......or on the moon.......you'd still get a "darker" view
looking through some glass/window than you would looking through our atmosphere
EXCEPT for one thing.....

Astronauts on the moon and most likely all astronauts in any space ship are NOT
even REMOTELY dark adapted.....so their night vision is terrible....

try this....go outback on a dark night.....note how many stars in the sky you
can see......make sure your dark adapted when you do this (ie...been in an
almost totally dark room for an hour)....now place a white sheet of paper 10
feet away give or take in your field of view.....put a 100 watt lightbulb a few
feet from the paper and let it shine on it.....

Your pupils will contract SOOO much and your night vision will be soooo ruined
you wont see a tenth of what you did before you put that white piece of paper
in your field of view.....

So, unless an astronuat on the shuttle has been in the pitch black for an hour,
ALLL the cabin lights are offf and they cant see ANY part of the shuttle out
the window then they could get a better view....but I'd bet that rarely to
almost never happens....

And the guys on the moon had it even worse....

take care

Blll

"bob" wrote in message
s.com...
Just curious as to what th enaked eye limiting magnitude is in space, if
you were on a shuttle. Can you see deeper?

bob

I measured something like this one night. I didn't make it into space, but
I did get up to 50,000 ft. I estimated that my LNEM increased about 1-1.5
magnitudes at altitude vs on deck. If I could fit a telescope in the
cockpit, I would love to find out how much the seeing improved.

Most impressive is with the night vision goggles on up there. I can see
down to maybe 10.5 mag at 1x and a 40 deg TFOV. Orion looks like a big
nebula and M31 is galactic. M13 is naked eye and looks like it does in my
16x70 binoculars on deck. Very cool.

Clear skies,

Tom

"bob" wrote in message
s.com...
Just curious as to what th enaked eye limiting magnitude is in space, if
you were on a shuttle. Can you see deeper?

bob

I measured something like this one night. I didn't make it into space, but
I did get up to 50,000 ft. I estimated that my LNEM increased about 1-1.5
magnitudes at altitude vs on deck. If I could fit a telescope in the
cockpit, I would love to find out how much the seeing improved.

Most impressive is with the night vision goggles on up there. I can see
down to maybe 10.5 mag at 1x and a 40 deg TFOV. Orion looks like a big
nebula and M31 is galactic. M13 is naked eye and looks like it does in my
16x70 binoculars on deck. Very cool.

Clear skies,

Tom

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 15:57:28 GMT, bob wrote:

Just curious as to what th enaked eye limiting magnitude is in space, if
you were on a shuttle. Can you see deeper?

The atmosphere, ignoring clouds and haze, is basically completely
transparent to visible light.

To that end, I expect the view from outside the atmosphere (assuming
proper dark adaption and all that) to be comparable to the darkests view
from earth.


--
- Mike

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