Questions tagged [night-sky]
Questions regarding the visible night sky during nighttime from Earth.
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What were these lights in a line in the sky? [duplicate]
Hello dear astronomy community,
On September 7 at 8:00pm me and my friend were hiking towards the Hollywood sign. We noticed roughly 10-15 bright lights moving in a line on the sky. That was very ...
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What is the ring of light around the moon and which star seen near it?
In this amatuer photograph, the following are to be noted:
There is a faint ring of light around the moon. What is the distance we see this at. From the ground it looks like a hundred meters.
There ...
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How bright would an object need to be in order to block out stars at night?
I am wondering just how bright a star or other object would have to be before it starts blocking out the night sky. I'm looking for an answer in apparent magnitude.
I'll note the Full Moon gets to ...
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Bright out north Idaho
It is Oct 9th 10;30- 11:00 pm. I'm in Northern Idaho and it is as bright as it would be with a full moon (or brighter). The moon is going to be new in a few days and the sliver as it is won't be out ...
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Is there a star everywhere you look?
What % of the sky is occupied?
Intuitively, when you look up at night most of the sky is black "space". Of course, our eyes are not very sensitive, so that's a dubious measurement.
Imagine ...
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Can you see the stars when it is trickling?
I am writing a book with the following scene in one chapter: It is trickling and my protagonists are outside looking into the night sky, looking to the stars. Reviewing the scene I am wondering: Is ...
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How to find the constellation in which the sun is located using the night sky map?
The following sky map was given as part of practice problems in my Astronomy course
The moon is in its first quarter phase. I am supposed to find the approximate date and time of the year in which ...
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Identify the bright object to the left of the moon
I'm seeing the sky at 23:00 on September 29, 2023, from the east of Algeria's point of view. To the left of the moon, there is something very bright. I need to confirm if it's Jupiter?
(My camera ...
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Seen over 15 strange lights flying in a straight line [duplicate]
At about 9:30pm on 9/4/2023 in the Dayton Ohio area went out on the back porch and look in the sky and I noticed one light flying in a straight line across the sky and it was going at a fast speed and ...
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How much do the constellations change if the viewpoint moves within a solar system?
My question is pretty simple. How would the night sky change if you were in a different planet within the same solar system? Specifically the fixed stars. Would the constellations be essentially the ...
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What would the night sky look like after 200 years?
It is research for a book I am writing. The year is 2200. Assume the volume of items in orbit has increased dramatically from today’s numbers. We go to war and blowup all the satellites. Four hundred ...
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Sky surface brightness vs magnitude limit visibility
I am wondering how we can calculate the magnitude limit of the celestial object, which could be visible at the given sky surface brightness conditions.
We already know that Venus and Jupiter are ...
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If Earth's rotational speed is zero at the North Pole, why do stars still have apparent motion?
The apparent motion of stars (and other objects) results from Earth's spin on its axis, hence the rising and setting of some stars, and the circumpolar nature of others.
If the ground is not moving ...
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Sky density of milky-way stars vs external galaxies
I am interested to know if any particular slice of sky contains more galaxies or more stars (in the milky way, although would be interested to factor in extra-galactic stars, and even rogue planets)
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What was this "light" that looked like a star moving repeating from point A to B for about 5 mins [duplicate]
I was looking in the sky one night about 9:45. There was what looked to be a shooting star but much slower and brighter more like a satellite. It was moving (from standing on earth) it looked like a ...
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Mars night sky -- Phobos and Deimos?
I'm having a debate about how bright Martian nights would be, in terms of both the sky itself and ground illumination. This answer seems to indicate that the stars would be only dimly visible, and ...
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Why do I see rainbows around the moon?
Regularly, I see rainbows around the moon. Here is approximately what I see:
Right at the edge of the moon, I see a bright blue ring of light. Further out, I see an inner rainbow. This is not as ...
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Names of the galactic backdrop
I am wondering what are the various names given to the plane of the milky way. I am looking for a specific one I once heard, and will likely recognise when I see it.
If I can explain better with a ...
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How many planets can be seen by the naked eye? [closed]
I can see Venus and Mars, what about the others?
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Do planetary hours have any real astronomical basis? [closed]
Planetary hours are an ancient theory that each of the 24*7 hours of the week is "ruled" by a certain celestial object in the solar system. Among other consequences, this theory gave rise to ...
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How do I know that I’ve found Neptune?
So, recently I went out for a look at Neptune with my telescope and I found the general area of where Neptune was. However, when I took a see for myself, there were a ton of blue stars everywhere and ...
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What were the two bright dots that showed up near Jupiter and vanished after seconds? [closed]
I saw two bright lights near Jupiter and I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t just an airplane. It had almost the same level of brightness as Jupiter, and I was wondering what it could be. Can anyone ...
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Will the stars dim in the future because of the expansion of the universe?
We know that the universe is expanding, and that means everything is spreading apart. So does that mean in the future all the stars will dim and eventually disappear in our night sky because of the ...
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Events I cannot explain
In the last few days I experienced two events I cannot explain. I watch the sky since I was a child so I'm aware of most events like satellites, ISS, Iridium flares, etc...
First event
It was about 22:...
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How can we know if a star which is visible in our night sky goes supernova?
Let's say there is a star about 3000 light-years away from earth visible in our night sky. If this star were to go supernova tomorrow(not relative to earth's night sky), we would know about it 3000 ...
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What could be an explanation for a satellite-like moving light in the night sky that dims over time
Last night I saw a bright light moving across the sky. It was probably as bright (or even brighter) than some of the brightest visible stars like Vega and moving quite slowly (so no shooting star) at ...
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Why does the Milky Way appear to form an arch shape across the sky?
The Milky Way galaxy is disc-shaped and Earth is in its plane:
(source)
In the following image, the Milky Way appears form an arch shape across the sky:
(source)
This looks like an out of plane view ...
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How bright would the night sky be in the galactic center?
Given that the star density within a parsec of the center of the Milky Way is about 10 million stars per cubic parsec, how bright would the night sky be if you were on a rocky planet within that ...
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How am I supposed to locate the planets Uranus and Neptune with a 70 mm f/5.7 refractor?
I can locate all of the planets other than Uranus and Neptune. This is mainly because they are very dim and I live where there is just enough light pollution so that I can't spot them. I have a Gysker ...
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What would the night sky have looked like 12.9 billion years ago when galaxies first started to form?
If I stood on a theoretical earth at the time that galaxies were just starting to form, what would the sky have looked like?
Due to the smaller size of the universe would it have been densely packed ...
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How does the Moon move in the "night" sky as seen from the poles?
A photo in the NYTimes article Ice Surveys and Neckties at Dinner: Here’s Life at an Arctic Outpost has got me thinking.
During the winter months at either the north or south pole, when it is ...
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What is this, red, blue, white twinkling, star? [duplicate]
I am from Germany and at 11 PM I was outside and I saw a star, rapidly twinkling in blue, red and white. At first, I thought it was a plane, but it didn't move.
I took a picture of it, but you can ...
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How to get high-quality sky image for specific location & date
I'm working on an ink drawing album cover inspired by this Frank Hurley photo from the First World War, and want to put an accurate starry sky behind it in my album artwork.:
The tower in the image ...
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Making an application to draw the night sky of other planets
I'm making an application for drawing a night sky of planets other than Earth. Ultimately my app may be used to draw a night skies of a hypothetical planets in other solar systems. I'm doing it ...
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What is Canopus in this picture?
Picture is taken from 34.2N 126.6E Bogil-do, South Korea. I suppose the dot at up-right side is Rigel and the bright white dot is Sirius, and bright reddish dot at the bottom is light from some ...
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Star visibility above horizon map likewise day & light map or moonlight world map
I am looking for an option to present the given star visibility world map likewise day & night map or moonlight world map like below:
Question: Is it possible to generate a map like this for some ...
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looking for a plugin or API for Moon-phases and sky-map
I want to create a website that contains star maps and moon phases like mapiful and thatverynight but couldn't find any helpful APIs or plugins.
Can anyone help?
thanks
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Why does light pollution make the night sky completely black without stars?
I have seens pics of the night sky in areas that naturally have little population like deserts, cold regions and forests and the night sky is slighly bright and colored by shades of blue, red, purple ...
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Will Starlink deface the night sky?
There is some discussion (and there are some questions on this site) about the impact of Starlink on observational astronomy. I am not an astronomer, but I am amazed by the beauty an immensity of the ...
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What is use of Greek Letters in Astronomy? [closed]
We see letters such as $\epsilon$ or $\alpha$ or $\beta$ or $\eta$ etc... (possibly all Greek letters)
Can Somebody state the use of all Greek letters in astronomy?
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How will planets behave in the night sky as seen by Mars colonists?
Certainly among the first colonists on Mars there will be a few people interested in Astronomy enough to enjoy the night sky.
For them, familliar Mars will be missing and there will be a new, ...
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What are the aspects does the moon differs between cities located on the same latitude?
What are the aspects does the moon (astronomical position and other astronomical aspects) differs between cities located in the same latitude? - For example: Seattle, Munich, Vienna, and Ulaanbaator ...
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Are the stars distributed in uniform distribution, on the celestial dome, with respect to brightness?
Has there ever been a statistical analysis of the distribution of stars in the sky (on the surface of the celestial dome), by brightness? I want to know if they are uniformly distributed.
For example, ...
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Did the night sky ever change in recorded history?
I wonder whether there has ever been a major change of the firmament in recorded history, like changes in the positions of stars, changes in constellations, or stars disappearing after going supernova....
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Density of stars on celestial sphere
The pattern of stars on the surface of the celestial sphere seems perceptually to have an universally looking structure. If you pick a region of the sky at random, for instance by using the (excellent)...
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Naked-eye limiting magnitude: mismatch between Wikipedia, online converter and Shaefer's formula
I'm trying to make sense of the difference between the reference Sky Quality Meter (SQM) readings given in the Wikipedia article on Bortle scale, online converters like [1] that are based on Shaefer's ...
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When I see Mars, I see only red light
I have a 700 mm focal and 76 mm aperture telescope. I bought it a few days ago. I tried to spot Mars for 3 days but I only see red light. I use an 20 mm eyepiece for finding it and 4 mm eyepiece for ...
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What would go into the design of a simple sky quality meter, used to measure night sky brightness?
@MCG's answer mentions several methods to classify night sky quality or brightness, and goes on to say:
Additionally, you could always purchase a SQM (Sky quality meter) which is a small, portable ...
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Will the night sky ever be more stars than darkness? [duplicate]
Given enough time, will enough light from distant stars reach Earth so that our night sky will be more than 50% stars?
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Star Map Vs Star Catalogue vs Planetarium Software
What is the difference between a star map, star catalogue and the sky provided by planetarium software? I have read the wiki but was having a hard time understanding how the data, accuracy and detail ...
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