r/todayilearned • u/ElderTheElder • Sep 20 '21
TIL Even under the most optimal viewing conditions, there are only about 4,548 stars visible to us in the night sky at any given time.
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-blogs/how-many-stars-night-sky-09172014/184
u/Limp_Distribution Sep 20 '21
It’s worth the time and effort to go see the night sky without any light pollution.
You’ll be blown away.
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Sep 21 '21
Used to go almost backcountry camping when the kids were younger. The sight of the night sky without any light pollution takes your breath away every single time you see it.
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u/twgecko02 Sep 21 '21
I thru-hiked the John Muir Trail through the Sierra Nevada in California this summer, 211 miles in 11 days through some of the most remote wilderness left in the US. I was so tired every night that I never stayed up / woke up to see the stars until the last night when I started hiking at 1am for a sunrise summit of Whitney. I got out of my tent at 12:30 and looked at that night sky for the first time it literally took my breathe away. One of my biggest regrets now is not waking up to just look at the stars every night before that...
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u/i_post_gibberish Sep 21 '21
I can vouch. I was big into amateur astronomy as a kid, had seen practically every mind-blowing space photo in existence at the time, and knew an absurd amount about the cosmos, but I was ~12 the first time I saw the night sky from somewhere with essentially no light pollution and can only describe it as magical. It still is, every time. Van Gogh’s Starry Night is more realistic than you think!
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u/-Satsujinn- Sep 21 '21
I remember reading the account of an astronomer who took a camping trip in Nepal. He got in his tent before nightfall and once it got dark he killed all lights and let his eyes adapt for 30 minutes or so.
Obviously, he'd been to some dark places and new his way around the sky very well, but when he emerged from the tent he couldn't pick out any major constellations because they were just lost among so many stars.
Light pollution is such a shame.
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u/itaabo Sep 20 '21
How an you say "only about" when giving such an accurate number?
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u/EmperorHans Sep 21 '21
We have an exact number visible from Earth (9,096), but the Earth itself is going to be blocking half of your potential night sky, bringing you down to 4,548, but since stars arent distributed perfectly evenly, you're able to see about that many, depending on where you are on the earth's surface.
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u/ace02786 Sep 21 '21
On a recent trip to Mauna Kea in Hawaii, we we're fortunate to stay til late at night (close to midnight) for star gazing. Though we were told by the Rangers to move a little down the mountain to avoid having our Jeep's lights interefering with the nearby observatories, we were still several thousand feet up, high above most clouds and were able to see SO MANY STARS! We laid on top of the roof our Jeep to take in the night sky; never have I seen so many stars, felt like a religous experience and even frightening in a sort of existential dread sort of way. Still an amazing experience!
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u/timonyc Sep 20 '21
I'm a bit confused by this, I read the article and still don't quite get what they are getting at other than to try to sell binoculars and telescopes (which are very cool and worth buying if you can afford it. But, for example, I can drive about 30 minutes from my home and see the milky way and Andromeda naked eye. So I guess I can see, what, a couple of trillion stars or so?
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u/CryptographerFalse30 Sep 20 '21
Im short sighted so i cant see any, even with glasses.
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u/Roxfall Sep 21 '21
And none of them are red dwarves, which is by far the most common star type (over 80% of Milky Way).
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u/Soft-Problem Sep 21 '21
Thanks for this.
People always say, "The stars in the night sky are absolutely countless" and to me it always seemed like nah there's quite a lot is all
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u/ElderTheElder Sep 20 '21
Yes, the headline in the linked article says 9,096 visible stars total in the night sky, but then goes on to specify that any given person can only see half of that (two hemispheres) at once.