BS: Visible stars in Orion?

Subject: BS: Visible stars in Orion?
From: DMcG
Date: 31 Jan 11 - 07:42 AM

Interesting survey underway here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12292852 checking the amount of pollution by counting the visible stars in the Orion constellation. It would also be interesting to compare the results with what people elsewhere can see.   Northern hemisphere only, I presume, unless you know better!

Subject: RE: BS: Visible stars in Orion?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 31 Jan 11 - 07:51 AM

How are they going to allow for the variation in observer eyesight?

One evening last summer my wife and I were sitting outside at dusk. As the sun set the the stars started to appear and at one point I could see 6 stars while she could see over 40. Apart from that she could tell what colour they were, and to me they were all just white!

Subject: RE: BS: Visible stars in Orion?
From: DMcG
Date: 31 Jan 11 - 07:59 AM

That occurred to me as well. The only answer I can come up with would be statistical, which would require quite a number of observers fairly near other observers. Then there are questions about certain areas of the country having a different age-profile and therefore, presumably, different quality of eyesight. Trying to allow for things like that would be a little bit of a nightmare (a 'nightfoal', perhaps?)

More likely, they won't bother and will just report the raw facts, however potentially misleading they are.

Subject: RE: BS: Visible stars in Orion?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 31 Jan 11 - 08:32 AM

This question is just a load of beetlejuice!

Subject: RE: BS: Visible stars in Orion?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 31 Jan 11 - 08:50 AM

It's not just a matter of visual acuity. As we all should have learned in school, the retinae in our eyes have two types of visual receptors: rods, which are strong light receptors, and cones, which are strong color receptors. The rods and cones are distributed in such a manner that when we look straight ahead at an object most of the light strikes color-sensitive cones. But most of the light entering through our peripheral vision strikes the more light-sensitive rods. You can see many more stars in a given constellation by looking at it around 30° askance instead of head-on. Avid stargazers know this trick and will, thusly, report more visible stars than someone who doesn't know it.

Subject: RE: BS: Visible stars in Orion?
From: Taconicus
Date: 31 Jan 11 - 08:54 AM

It's light pollution they're talking about. Not a scientific study of course, but probably for public awareness.

Subject: RE: BS: Visible stars in Orion?
From: Bill D
Date: 31 Jan 11 - 10:53 AM

Heck... I see about 42,000.

(Funny... I remember Alnitak, Alnilam & Mintaka from my days with a cardboard telescope when I was 12 years old.)

Subject: RE: BS: Visible stars in Orion?
From: Bill D
Date: 31 Jan 11 - 10:54 AM

(yes...some of those are galaxies)

Subject: RE: BS: Visible stars in Orion?
From: Penny S.
Date: 31 Jan 11 - 01:25 PM

Just checked on my planetarium software, and Orion is visible from Hobart, though upside down.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Visible stars in Orion?
From: Taconicus
Date: 31 Jan 11 - 01:52 PM

Hobart, Australia? Of course. Since Orion is right on the clestial equator, you can see parts of it from everywhere on Earth, and all of it (the area they're talking about) from just about every populated area on Earth.

Subject: RE: BS: Visible stars in Orion?
From: gnu
Date: 31 Jan 11 - 02:40 PM

Orion is my fav. I used to tell time at night when I was up in the woods by looking out the window beside my bunk.

Bill D... I see a grasshopper.

No, I don't smoke dope.

Subject: RE: BS: Visible stars in Orion?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 31 Jan 11 - 03:20 PM

Checking Orion out from the North Pennines I couldn't count the amount of stars in there; and the Milky Way too! Here on the Fylde, you're lucky if you get the belt, Rigel & Betelgeuse. WAV was asking about Orion a couple of weeks back HERE, by his diagram looks like his view's no better than ours!

Subject: RE: BS: Visible stars in Orion?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 31 Jan 11 - 03:24 PM

Orion is almost directly overhead in the predawn hours part of the year. Depending on how many street lights are illuminated (and within a semi-circle of 1 block diameter there can be five of them), and wheter my next door neighbor left her porch and garage lights on all night,I can sometimes even see the stars which make up his bow, other times I can barely make out his girdle (belt).