[AZ-Observing] Re: Capella at noon
- From: "Rick Tejera" <saguaroastro@xxxxxxx>
- To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:21:43 -0700
This also harkens back to the pyramids of Egypt. Supposedly there is a shaft
from the burial chamber in the great Pyramid that points at the celestial
pole. Myth has it that Thuban would be visible through this shaft during
daylight. This claim apparently gave rise to controversy in dating the
pyramids as Thuban would have been the pole star long before the generally
accepted dates of their construction.
Rick Tejera
President
Editor SACnews
Saguaro Astronomy Club
Phoenix, Arizona
saguaroastro@xxxxxxx
www.saguaroastro.org
-----Original Message-----
From: az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of sam@xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 5:11 PM
To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: Capella at noon
>I have read if you are at the
>bottom of a long smoke stack, like the one at Humboldt, you can see
>stars naked eye.
Philip Plait discusses this in his book, "Bad Astronomy". To summarize, he
deduces that there are only a half dozen objects of sufficient magnitude to
be discerned from the background sky during the daytime. However, only two
of those objects are stars: Sirius and Canopus. The odds of having one of
those objects pass directly over the opening of a smoke stack become more
remote. And this difficulty increases in an inverse proportion to the
diameter of the smoke stack because of amount of sky covered through a given
opening.
He goes on to describe an experiment by J. Allen Hynek published in Sky &
Telescope (no. 10 [1951]: 61) in which Hynek and several of his students in
his astronomy class attempted to see Vega pass through an abandoned smoke
stack near Ohio University. None of them were able to discern Vega naked
eye. Some even had binoculars and were still not able to see Vega in
daylight.
So it would appear that, while not impossible, it is high unlikely that
anyone would be able to see a star (other than the Sun) during the day time
with the naked eye.
Sam Rua
Tucson
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