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Old 20-09-2011, 10:49 PM
Rob_K
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Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Bright, Vic, Australia
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Great report Patrick, and good discussion Robert!

Quote:
Originally Posted by madbadgalaxyman View Post
So what I do is to try to negate this obvious bias of "really wanting to see something" which then causes me to "see" something which does not exist in the real universe;
I try to convince myself that I am not seeing the apparent object which is "seen" at the extreme limit of detectablity (thereby setting up a bias in the opposite direction), and if I still see an object or a feature, despite trying hard to convince myself that it is not there, the observation is much more likely to be an actual detection of light from the object than merely my imagination playing tricks.
Quite hard to do (consciously tricking yourself) but still useful no doubt. For really faint objects on the limits of detectability (rather than faint details in galaxies) where I might get odd flickerings of something in the position, I usually repeat the process in another or even several parts of the field. You quite often get a similar response. Sometimes when you move your eyes back to the target position you get a much stronger response that can be held in averted vision even if intermittently, almost like the exercise sharpened your vision. But if I get the same flickerings of something (all too often!), I'm fairly satisfied that I'm not seeing anything other than a trick of the eye. You really have to hold it, even briefly.

Spending time is essential, and movement helps greatly. Provided your eyes are fully light-adapted, I find that coming back to the field later on in the observing session doesn't help all that much unless there is a change in transparency, because you have to pretty much repeat the teasing-out process all over again. May as well spend quality time first-up.

Cheers -
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