View Single Post
  #4  
Old 30-08-2009, 05:47 PM
Quark's Avatar
Quark (Trevor)
Registered User

Quark is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Broken Hill NSW Australia
Posts: 4,104
Hi Terry,

It is possible to observe stars in the middle of the day naked eye.
About 10 years ago, on route to the SPSP we stopped off for a few days in Canberra and went to Mount Stromlo. In the visitors centre, among other things, they had a 8 or 10 inch Schmidt Cassegrain with a CCD camera on it. One of the Stromlo people that was present saw me looking at the screen of the monitor showing what the CCD was imaging, it was quite a bright binary star, Alpha Cent.

They also had a cardboard cylinder, about 2" diameter, taped to the tube of the scope. The operator told me to stand back and look through the cardboard tube, which I did, and there was Alpha Cent visible to the naked eye in the middle of the day. If I fixed my gaze on the star and moved away from the scope without blinking I could still see the star, if I blinked or turned away and then tried to find it again, it was impossible, until I went back to the cardboard tube to find it again.

Regards
Trevor
Reply With Quote