Tell us something we don’t know.

[Rockbadchild]

Not to be discrediting all the efforts that have gone into space exploration, but I've wondered .....thinking.......

If one is on the sunny side of the moon, on the space station, are stars visible?

From what I gather from the wild wyrld of interwebs, the jury is not out.....
I know from experience, that if you stand on the floor of a grain silo in mid day, and look up through the auger hole, stars are visible. (Not sure if that means anything, but I was impressed );-)

 

[CalG]

If you study multipaction breakdown, I may have some consulting work for you, in the future. Mostly an ionization guy, here, as most of my work is at lower altitudes.

The vacuum system in my lab is set up for DC gas plasma generation.
I've always wanted an RF plasma source, but it hasn't happened yet. There are all sorts of puzzles to solve....

 

[CalG]

View attachment 831982

"through the optics" is a rather cryptic turn of phrase. ??

 

[Rockbadchild]

"through the optics" is a rather cryptic turn of phrase. ??

ok I see now my bad, so the answer is yes you can see stars on the bright side of the moon because there is no atmosphere but during Apollo 11 the circumstance made it that they couldn't.

 

[ning]

View attachment 831982

The surface of the moon was so bright that the space suits had visors to significantly cut down on glare as well as protect from the unfiltered rays of the sun (there's no ozone and no 14.7psi column of air that light has to travel through to get to the moon!).

If you consider pictures on the moon,

you don't see stars here because it's so bright that the camera settings are chosen to handle what they're looking at - the moonscape & lander - the goal here wasn't looking at the stars, so the iris was stopped down and likely a very slow film was used. Comparatively speaking, the stars are extremely dim (vs the landscape) so even their unfiltered light fails to show up here.

I'm sure if looking up away from the surface he retracted the visor, he could've seen the stars with ease. hold your breath, neil!

 

[CalG]

ok I see now my bad, so the answer is yes you can see stars on the bright side of the moon because there is no atmosphere but during Apollo 11 the circumstance made it that they couldn't.

View attachment 832063

The words
"Could

might have

May have

And again,

may have"

Make this bit of publication no more material than if I had written it myself. ;-)

It was some years ago, was it not?

 

[Rockbadchild]

The words
"Could

might have

May have

And again,

may have"

Make this bit of publication no more material than if I had written it myself. ;-)

It was some years ago, was it not?

not a official article, subjective possible explanation of the matter is what that was.

 

[CalG]

not a official article, subjective possible explanation of the matter is what that was.

yes.

 

[Oaktree]

I know from experience, that if you stand on the floor of a grain silo in mid day, and look up through the auger hole, stars are visible. (Not sure if that means anything, but I was impressed );-)

I've heard that before, but am skeptical. Never been in a grain silo, but I have looked up a 2 story chimney, and just saw sky. How tall does this structure have to be to have that effect?

 

[orezok]

Years ago when we were visiting Bryce Canyon National Park we were walking down on the desert floor between the Hoodoos. The Hoodoos are bright orange as you can see in this picture. When you looked up at the sky in the narrower passages the sky was black!

I thought that my brain might have changed the perceived color of the sky. I took a number of pictures and they also showed a black sky.

Strange