- #1
Albertgauss
Gold Member
- 294
- 37
From the first few hits I found on the internet, here's what I gather:
They are the same as they appear from Earth, except they do not twinkle (no atmosphere). They are like small points of light. The contrast between stars and black background sky is also greater than on Earth.
They can be different colors: red, blue, etc, though I'm not sure if this detail can be ascertained easily (i.e, do a lot of them show their natural color or only a handful? Are a lot of the stars different colors, or would most of them appear white?).
I've also heard that 3000 stars or so are visible with the naked eye from the ground (in clearest weather). Would this number go up dramatically if I remove the atmosphere? I presume here that the atmosphere blocks out lots of faint stars. Or would the atmosphere not filter out that many faint stars, and the density of stars would appear essentially the same as it as from viewed from the ground?
OR:
I saw this opinion:
you can't see the stars from space because the sun washes them out, so space appears black. (Not sure how much I believe this one) The sun is bright enough to wash out stars in the daytime, but a lot of that is scattering by the atmosphere. I would imagine that in space, the sun would still have its prominent brightness, but looking in a direction opposite the sun you should see lots of stars.
Anyway, which of these correct (if any), and if anyone has a good website (or even software program) to show what stars look like in space with a naked eye, that would be great. I failed to find one. I understand that camera flashes in space wash out lots of stars or are used to emphasize astros and shuttles and such.
They are the same as they appear from Earth, except they do not twinkle (no atmosphere). They are like small points of light. The contrast between stars and black background sky is also greater than on Earth.
They can be different colors: red, blue, etc, though I'm not sure if this detail can be ascertained easily (i.e, do a lot of them show their natural color or only a handful? Are a lot of the stars different colors, or would most of them appear white?).
I've also heard that 3000 stars or so are visible with the naked eye from the ground (in clearest weather). Would this number go up dramatically if I remove the atmosphere? I presume here that the atmosphere blocks out lots of faint stars. Or would the atmosphere not filter out that many faint stars, and the density of stars would appear essentially the same as it as from viewed from the ground?
OR:
I saw this opinion:
you can't see the stars from space because the sun washes them out, so space appears black. (Not sure how much I believe this one) The sun is bright enough to wash out stars in the daytime, but a lot of that is scattering by the atmosphere. I would imagine that in space, the sun would still have its prominent brightness, but looking in a direction opposite the sun you should see lots of stars.
Anyway, which of these correct (if any), and if anyone has a good website (or even software program) to show what stars look like in space with a naked eye, that would be great. I failed to find one. I understand that camera flashes in space wash out lots of stars or are used to emphasize astros and shuttles and such.