How the Blind See the Stars | Hacker News Reader

How the Blind See the Stars

nautil.us

45 pointsdnetesn13 comments

Slightly off-topic but at first I was going to complain that someone who can see some light and shadow isn't "really" blind. But this is actually a good reminder that impairments aren't always binary. He was blind for all intents and purposes, even if he can see some brightness contrasts some of the time.

This is especially important to remember when dealing with accessibility: even if it may not be possible to offer 100% of the experience to everyone, making things a bit more accessible can still be a huge win already.

Not to mention that some forms of disability can be situational. There is little practical difference whether you can for example only use one hand because you only have one arm, because one of your arms is broken and bandaged, or because you're carrying your groceries.

I'm blind (at night). I would dearly love to the stars. In fact, this is pretty close to my #1 on my bucket list.

I'm humbled. There are those of us who can see well, and don't ever look up (though even if we do, the sky is already lit up with the city lights).

I wish for you that your wish be granted.

Beautifully put. Watching stars is underrated.

The historical significance of looking up and seeing light patterns slowly move across the dark sky is enormous: it was where the first human civilizations made their first discoveries.

The night sky is the origin of mankind's first concepts of time, cosmology and theology (Egyptians associated the afterlife with the night sky). The very earliest known long-form writings such as the Pyramid Texts [1] are fundamentally rooted in astronomical observations.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_Texts

I remember a mostly deaf person I knew for a while. It was pretty amazing-- she could mostly understand what I said through reading my lips and what little hearing she had. She could also speak pretty well.

She told me that she could feel the beat of music -- literally the vibrations. When I asked her about bird songs, she said she had never heard them. I was momentarily dumbstruck. Day-to-day, I take bird songs for granted, but when I stop and think about it, they are some of the most beautiful, mysterious, transcendent things I've ever heard. And she'll never know...

Makes you wonder what other sensory experiences we humans are missing out on.

Do you have RP or something similar?

What else is on your bucket list? Apologies if the questions are too personal, I find what we miss when we lose sight very interesting.

Hope you get to see them again.

Yes, it is RP. I have no recollection of ever seeing in the dark.

That is a bummer. I also have RP but I'm only down to about 10% of night vision (i remember being able to see much better at night). How's your day vision?

Much luck (and peace) to you.

Can you see them on a bright TV? Maybe some night vision apparatus will do the trick or the next generation of cameras + an oculus. Or maybe even hololens nightvision.

Perhaps with a telescope pointed at some particularly bright stars? If that's enough light to register.

> His surgically enlarged iris allows the telescope to focus images directly onto his retina, sensitive to ultraviolet and infrared frequencies that normal lenses would filter out.

If a telescope can do that, then perhaps there are other devices that can do the same for images of different origin (?)

This makes me wonder, what is the percentage of blind people with a functioning retina?

Too large yet.

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