But you forgot about when he looked through the Nikon and found the image so dark he catapulted it into the sky...
Justin
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Looking at eclipse??? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter chill6x6
- Start date
Justin
Hi peatmoss
I am not sure about Galileo, but I think that Newton had at least one damaged eye from solar observation.
I think that many early astronomers had eye damage from the Sun.
My colleague, who passed away a couple of years ago at an early age, had instant eye damage using a 25mm aperture scope with either 4 or 8 stacked sunglasses lenses that he though would make a good solar filter.
He was eleven years old when he did this and never told anybody for years.
He became a world class lunar observer and lunar artist using his good eye.
Sir Roger Moore, I think, damaged his eyesight permanently from the idiotic advice given to actors to stare at the Sun to prevent them blinking on camera. He wore strong glasses as a result of this.
Some U.S. soldiers got sent home from Vietnam because of deliberate permanent eye damage. 30 seconds was the recommended exposure. However, doctors easily saw that it was deliberate as the shooting eye was damaged, not both.
Staring at the Sun even without optical aid is bad news.
I am not sure about Galileo, but I think that Newton had at least one damaged eye from solar observation.
I think that many early astronomers had eye damage from the Sun.
My colleague, who passed away a couple of years ago at an early age, had instant eye damage using a 25mm aperture scope with either 4 or 8 stacked sunglasses lenses that he though would make a good solar filter.
He was eleven years old when he did this and never told anybody for years.
He became a world class lunar observer and lunar artist using his good eye.
Sir Roger Moore, I think, damaged his eyesight permanently from the idiotic advice given to actors to stare at the Sun to prevent them blinking on camera. He wore strong glasses as a result of this.
Some U.S. soldiers got sent home from Vietnam because of deliberate permanent eye damage. 30 seconds was the recommended exposure. However, doctors easily saw that it was deliberate as the shooting eye was damaged, not both.
Staring at the Sun even without optical aid is bad news.
wdc
Well-known member
Well done Gigi and Justin! Made me laugh and smile. Thanks for that.
As for the eclipse, we went to bed in a rainstorm. It shortly began to hail loudly, then I slept soundly til morning.
My most memorable view of a lunar eclipse was on a backpacking trip in the Easter Sierra in 2007 to Garnet Lake, at 9700 ft. I had a pair of Canon 15x50 IS, and some Carton 7x50 'Adlerblicks' with me. Here's some notes from that eclipse:
.....I was quite interested in watching the lunar eclipse, and set my alarm for 3 am. It wasn't hard to get up, as sleep was erratic, due to regular visits by a bear who kept nosing around my neighbor's tent, like a curious dog. I could never hear him approach, but the sound of my neighbor yelling at the bear woke me up every time. By 3:00, the total eclipse was on, and the night sky had changed dramatically. Suddenly it looked like a good night at Mt. Lassen, with no light domes. An unexpected bonus! You could see the milky way right down to the horizon. My tent was in the trees, so I grabbed my observing gear and walked down to an open area near the lake.
There was a full moon, but it was if a dimmer switch had toned it down to tolerable levels. The moon was a copper colored ball with a brighter edge, almost annular in character. The winter sky was rising, Orion's 3 belt stars standing vertically above a polished granite slab between the pines. During totality 2 of my companions and I looked at quite a few objects: M37, M36, M42, M35, M31 w/ companions, and M33. What surprised me was that M36 and M37 were easily seen naked eye. M33, or stars near it, produced a naked eye patch, which I was very skeptical of, yet I discussed it with my companions, and even traded laser and binocular between us, so we could take turns pointing the laser to the spot. It was dark. Not too bad for a full moon.
We kept checking the moon, as its color was a beautiful warm, deep, glow. What made it even more interesting was that several faint stars were visible right next to it. It resembled more a decorative science fiction book cover illustration than the glaring, grey face it presents when not shadowed.
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ah, the wonders we miss when we sleep. Thanks everyone for sharing their observations.
-B.
Hi wdc,
I have seen M33 repeatedly near sea level, standing under a lit street light in Margate.
Unaided eyes.
I probably saw it a hundred times in half an hour until I got fed up trying.
So at 9700 feet with an eclipsed Moon I would think that M33 is quite easy for someone with good faint vision.
On La Palma at 7,800 feet I saw M33 rather easily with direct vision unaided eyes.
It was apparently not a particularly good night because of Saharan sand in the air.
The Zodiacal light was bright.
M81 is a challenge with unaided eyes. I never saw it, but it I never thought of trying.
Some see it quite well.
It depends on how dark the observing site is.
About magnitude 6.8.
Regards,
B
I have seen M33 repeatedly near sea level, standing under a lit street light in Margate.
Unaided eyes.
I probably saw it a hundred times in half an hour until I got fed up trying.
So at 9700 feet with an eclipsed Moon I would think that M33 is quite easy for someone with good faint vision.
On La Palma at 7,800 feet I saw M33 rather easily with direct vision unaided eyes.
It was apparently not a particularly good night because of Saharan sand in the air.
The Zodiacal light was bright.
M81 is a challenge with unaided eyes. I never saw it, but it I never thought of trying.
Some see it quite well.
It depends on how dark the observing site is.
About magnitude 6.8.
Regards,
B
Last edited:
wdc
Well-known member
I never thought of going after M81 naked eye, either. It and M82 surely pop up in a small finderscope when you're on target. I think with M33 one has to square the symbolic expectations of a 'galaxy' with the visual result naked eye, which is a diffuse, low contrast glow in a patch of the sky. M31 will deliver a lozenge shape, due to its orientation.
I remember spending a few evenings going through the HII regions of M33 with a large scope. The amount of detail was amazing, when it is dark and transparent, and one has enough aperture.
-Bill
tenex
reality-based
His own making anyway (and a very recent invention). Considering the novelty and likely quality of that scope, you can imagine that it took a while for him even to decide what he was seeing, much less interpret it, and longer still to convince anyone else. Likewise for the "terrain" of the Moon. It would have taken a certain willingness to believe.
... What struck me during the eclipse was how very much smaller the Moon (and Sun) are in the sky than the impression caused by their normal brightness. Few people instructed to draw a scene from memory would get that right.
