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ssavrass t1_jc01mta wrote

Man it is so disappointing that Andromeda is so faint. If we could see it with the naked eye it’d look 5 times bigger than the moon.

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Toebean_Farmer t1_jc0dcv0 wrote

These photos are what churches were built upon. To look god in His eye and understand the there’s depth to them that can never be fathomed completely. That the vastness creates a beauty in its simplicity that can only be inferred.

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ZylonBane t1_jc0gy65 wrote

Describing any astrophotography as "bird's eye" is such a bizarre choice of words.

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ugajeremy t1_jc0m960 wrote

Oh no no, you can't post this beautiful picture without the interactive gigapixel zoom link!

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heshmigo t1_jc0vewi wrote

Why do the stars change on the photo when I hold my thumb on it?

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I-melted t1_jc1f425 wrote

Someone posted a close up earlier and I thought it was a really bad low res picture. Then I realized it wasn’t noise, but individual stars.

Hard to wrap my head around to be honest.

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TbonerT t1_jc2fhle wrote

Replying to ZylonBane (#2,218,440)

Yeah. Andromeda has an apparent size of 3.167 by 1 degrees and this is only a portion of that. I'm pretty sure birds known for their distance sight have a wider field of view than that.

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14domino t1_jc2nz0f wrote

Replying to pestapokalypse (#2,219,598)

Can someone who’s good at math tell me how big andromeda would have to be in the sky before it is this bright? (ie i assume in a few billion years as it gets closer it would get brighter and bigger)

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ElReptil t1_jc2qsbt wrote

Replying to 14domino (#2,221,165)

> i assume in a few billion years as it gets closer it would get brighter and bigger

Bigger yes, but the surface brightness would actually stay the same (until you start to resolve individual stars). You would probably still be able to see more than you do now because the eye is better at seeing dim, large objects.

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Bayonethics t1_jc2wzbg wrote

The people living close to the center of the galaxy must never get any sleep with how bright that region is

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Engelgrafik t1_jc34vs1 wrote

Replying to ssavrass (#2,217,822)

I have seen it with my naked eye while cutting through a frozen farm field on a very clear, cold and dark night in northern Germany. It was actually a bit of an emotional experience.

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Engelgrafik t1_jc38lrs wrote

I saw Andromeda once with my naked eye and the emotion it stirred in me is something I will never forget.

My parents lived in Wiepenkathen, a small village outside of Stade, Lower Saxony in Germany. Its's about 60km from the North Sea.

I had returned from a day in Hamburg (which is southeast of Stade) and took the bus from Stade and I think I took the wrong bus because for some reason I decided to get out in the middle of nowhere. I could see the village's lights across a very wide frozen farm field, so I thought "no big deal, I'll just cross through the field". As I'm crossing through the field I realize I've never seen so many stars. Our neighboring arm of the Milky Way was so incredibly bright, at some point I just stood there, freezing, and looking up into the sky. I even got the distinct sensation of depth and started feeling vertigo, as if I could fall into the sky and plunge deep into the starfield, so I had to look down towards the horizon again...

My heading was north or northwest, but when I scanned downward I noticed that in an otherwise completely clear and black sky, I could see this faint purple cloud in the northeast, not too close to the horizon, but not too high either. I thought that's weird, and wondered if maybe it was just steam or smoke that had come out of a power plant and maybe the lights of a village or city far away were lighting it up from below. This would explain this super small cloud... but this cloud must have been far away too because it wasn't really moving. I walked a bit more and the cloud was still there. So I stopped and really studied. It never moved at all. And it had a weird whirling spinning shape, with a bright center area. And that's when I realized what I was looking at. Andromeda. M31.

I immediately felt complete and utter awe. I realized that on this night I'm seeing thousands of stars, and most of those stars are relatively close to us. And then beyond those stars I can see clearly our neighboring arm of the Milky Way... which is even more stars further away all bunched together (comparatively). And then... even further than that... is an entirely separate galaxy with a trillion stars itself, and I'm seeing it right there with my own two eyes.

The sense of insignificance was incredible... and yet at the same time, paradoxically, the fact that I was there to witness it, to see it, made it so profound and important to me. It's hard to explain. It was not a religious experience, but it was definitely a humbling feeling. And I wish everybody could experience that.

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Which_Professor_7181 t1_jc3tzxq wrote

in the past 3 years so much has come to light about Nassau and I don't mean tin foil hat wearing stuff I just mean the way they will airbrush pictures and I just can't trust any images that Nassau I mean I'm interested in seeing the pictures from Mars and everything but I'm very reluctant to see any images from that song believe that I'm looking at exactly the original picture. Nassau it's full of crap

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Bobwindy t1_jc4bxco wrote

Replying to I-melted (#2,222,907)

They can understand it in terms of relative distance and sizes compared with other stellar objects i would imagine, but I think that humans only frame of reference in terms of understanding distance as we would imagine the distance to the next town or city is the size of our own planet, or for a lucky few the distance to the moon. To truly comprehend a distance and size I think you need to have seen a comparable reference first. We talk of light years and distance to other stars, but we have never experienced that distance first hand.

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I-melted t1_jc4dbfq wrote

Replying to Bobwindy (#2,223,692)

There’s a lovely bit in the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, in which a character is punished by being put into something called The Total Perspective Vortex. A machine that allows you to glimpse for a moment the real size of the universe, and yourself relative to it. Which drives you completely mad, obviously.

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