9,096 Stars in the Sky – Is That All?
skyandtelescope.com
skyandtelescope.com
Here I've compiled a distilled version of the cited tables...
Mag Visual_Device Stars Example
-26 naked eye (daylight) 1 Sun
-13 naked eye (twilight) 1 full Moon
-06 naked eye (dusk) 1 cres Moon
-04 naked eye (metro) 2 Venus
-02 naked eye (metro) 2 Jupiter
-01 naked eye (metro) 2 Sirius
+00 naked eye (city) 8 Vega
+01 naked eye (suburb) 22 Saturn
+02 naked eye (suburb) 93 Big Dipper
+05 naked eye (rural) 2822 Jupiter moons
+06 binocular (rural) 8768 Uranus
+08 binocular (wild) 77627 Neptune
## Notes ##
Each magnitude is 2.5x brighter than the next:
> Mag+01 is 2.5 times brighter than Mag+02
> Mag+01 is 2.5*2.5 times brighter than Mag+03
Mag Scale: http://www.icq.eps.harvard.edu/MagScale.html
Star Count: http://www.stargazing.net/david/constel/howmanystars.html
Very few experiences as humbling as stepping outside and seeing it streak across the sky.
It's not bright by any means, but yes it's the milky way. (and I live in Melbourne, Australia; not north in any sense :P) It would be very rare to see Aurora Australis from here; I don't anyone that has seen that in this area without driving out of the city and using a long exposure.
Can see the milky way much better when we drive 2 hours out of the city to the family farm.
But it's still a world of difference to go out somewhere rural, and preferably high up (eg northern NSW Tablelands) to camp under clear skies.
Even without drugs, spending too long staring out at those enormously bright stars can be a very trippy experience.
You can almost convince yourself that at any moment you could fall off the planet and into those stars.
By German standards, that is not very "inner city". Street lights are on all night, and I cannot see any but the brightest stars even on a clear night. Jupiter and Saturn are easily visible, Orion's belt, too, but Orion's, eh, "sword" is very hard to see. No trace of the Milky Way at any rate.
When I was in a rural area at night for the first time, I was floored to actually see a bright band spreading across the night sky. I had always thought one needs a telescope + CCD to get a view of that.
Generally if I can make out 6+ of the stars in pleiades I've got a good shot of seeing the milky way.
Neptune is theoretically a naked eye object, barely, against a perfectly black background. In reality the sky isn't perfectly black, even with no man-made light sources. (See e.g. the Zodiacal Light.) So your chances of seeing +08 objects without binos or a telescope are basically zero.
I lived in a very rural area for a while with limited light sources. On a clear night, the sky was absolutely glorious, and going for night time walks under it was a favourite hobby.
But even on the darkest and clearest nights, with half an hour of dark adaptation, +04/5 was as good as the view ever got without binos.
> you can probably see at least 4k-5k stars
On a personal note (which I hope many will relate), I’ll never forget the very first time I looked up at the night sky after getting my first pair of glasses. The sheer number of extra stars I could see combined with the clarity, made me fall in love with stargazing :-)
Of what use is a vision test where it's easy to memorize the answer? In English Pleiades is also known as the Seven Sisters, because of the ancient Greek myth. I can easily believe that Pleiades was also associated with 7 in general Roman culture.
It doesn't help that more than 7 stars can be visible. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades says "Its light is dominated by young, hot blue stars, up to 14 of which can be seen with the naked eye depending on local observing conditions.") Muhammad was written to have been able to see 12.
If someone says there are 9 stars, is that a sign of good vision? Or simply a guess?
Then there's the observation that other cultures see six stars. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades_in_folklore_and_liter... .
In modern times only 6 stars are usually visible to the naked eye, and there are proposals for why 7 was used in Ancient Greece; eg, stellar variability or a numerological leaning towards 7.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140610015945/http://starcount....
Hershel made a lot of amazing discoveries and advancements with this telescopes, so decided to count the stars in every direction of the sky. He found that there were equal numbers no matter where he pointed his scope, so we must be at the center of the universe!
- [Axis of evil (cosmology) - Wikiwand](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Axis_of_evil_(cosmology))
And besides the above, the CMB itself provides a 'natural absolute frame of reference' as it's the remnants of the very early universe.
I'd expect Herschel to be acquainted with Olber's Paradox [1]. Olber postulated that if the stars were uniformly distributed in space, the sky would be brightly illuminated in all directions. It isn't therefore, either stars are not uniformly distributed and we cannot be at the center of an infinite universe.
Regardless, most of humanity sees more like 10 or 200, which is super sad and I would be interested in knowing if there are studies (or any possible way to know) what kind of effect that might have on a population - not being able to see the night sky well, or at all.
Edit: At night at one spot, there 4,500 visible, not 9,000 - but then we have an odd tagline, again showing the odd choice of words by the author.
> Ten thousand stars bedazzle the eye on a dark night.
Not really? Just 4,500 if you live in the middle of no light pollution.
Looking up at the sky gives us a sense of awe. But why? Is it because we "see countless stars"? Apparently not. 9000 is a pretty small number compared with the grains in a fistful of sand, or a cup of rice. So why does looking at the starts give this sense of vastness?
It's possible that it's an acquired mode of thought. Perhaps to ancient people, the 88 constellations (and approx 700 familiar stars in constellations) were ... just that, a few familiar dots on the celestial vault.
I somehow imagined I could see tens of thousands ... but had never really bothered to count.
So when I look up at the night sky, I can almost see all the planets orbit all the stars up there, and all the moons around all those planets - and it is vast. Even just what you can see and imagine with your own eyes and head, it's vast. No need for looking through a telescope to get the sense of vastness - but perhaps you do need the knowledge that stuff is up there - even if you can't see it.
okay, a showerthought:
The ancients treated the stars and planets as Gods. And some of them have the same characteristics - they exist for seemingly eternity, or at least billions of years. They shine light and provide what is necessary for life to start, and for it to go on. They are always up there, 'above', 'watching' as it were (they send rays of light down to the planets, where it is partially absorbed and partially bounced back). And one day, when the Sun goes out, it will end the universe that exists on Earth. Based on what we know now, the ancients seemed to get a lot right in the actual nature of the stars.
Fomalhaut is a great example. Occasionally I'll take people out for sky tours, and when Fomalhaut is visible I mention to them that not only is that star extraordinarily close (25 ly), but that it has planets that we've actually imaged in photographs!
> Your fields will produce lots of seeds, as many as stars (a few thousand) ... or as many as grains of sand (millions).
Nowhere does it say those numbers are equal. Or maybe it means:
> You'll get lots of children (seeds?), as many as stars (9000), or as many as grains of sand (millions, eventually).
Is there an actual quote that says there are uncountable stars?
> Deuteronomy 10:22: Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.
Shortly before that quote was written, a census numbered the men at around 600,000, for a total population of 1.5-2.5 million.
And there's also the New Testament interpretation of the same events:
> Hebrews 11:12: Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.
Neither you nor anybody here can know if the author meant "There are around 600,000 stars" or "There are around 5,000 stars". Also, exactly who tracked the geneaology to make sure those 600,000 men were direct descendants of the 70 people? Is that sentence possibly false? Was the author aware of the census? etc, etc.
I don't think there is any point discussing it when there are actual star catalogues produced as early as 1800 BC by early astronomers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_astronomical_maps,...
Agreed. I used the Bible in this context as a source of historical human ideas.
There are lots of similar passages, both in other parts of the Bible, and in other works, that refer to the stars as "uncountable" in some form or another. I used this particular reference because it was the first one I found. :)
As for the headline, if you travel all over the world and look at every visible star, you'll only ever see 9,096 total.
In fiction, there’s the classical “Nightfall” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_novelette_an...) about what it might mean if the stars would appear one night in a thousand years.
Not saying anything else so I don't spoil it.
Ofcourse, at the poles you have long polar day (midnight sun) in summer - and will generally see only one star during the night: the sun.
Conversely, during polar night, you'll be able to see some stars for most of the day, if not maybe a few bright stars even at noon.
Sigma Octantis (mag 5.47, ra 21h09m dec −88°57′) is the best South Pole star within (optimistic) naked-eye range. As you can see, it is just over 1° off axis (c.f. Polaris, which is marginally better at c. 3/4° out).
Instead we navigate by using the southern cross to find the south celestial pole
My polar alignment scope has etchings for Sigma Octantis (screenshot from companion iOS app: [1]). Wikipedia also describes Sigma Octantis as a southern pole star [2]. Maybe it's just not as common to refer to Sigma Octantis as a pole star as it is for Polaris, but it does seem to be recognized.
[1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/astro-physics-polaralign/id5...
We're talking about pole stars. Being a naked eye star isn't a necessary condition. Choice of a pole star is a balance between brightness and proximity to the pole.
> again no one in the Southern Hemisphere I've every heard of looks up and points at a "pole star"
It's never too late to learn something new. :)
More to the point, "the north and south polestars" would be well understood by much of Sky & Telescope's target audience, and that's who they're writing for. I get that it's going to be less common knowledge outside of their target audience, but that doesn't make the article incorrect, which seems to be what you want to argue.
Actually the recent Sky and Telescope article about killer asteroids mentioned another interesting form of sampling. The article said that astronomers have a high confidence that 90% of all large asteroids which cross earth's orbit are known. But how can this be? This is the argument: we "tag" an asteroid when we find it. Then we look for these types of asteroids over some period of time. 90% of the asteroids found in this period are already tagged ones, so we know only 10% remain.
I'm trying to get my head around the reliability of this method- at the very least the sampling has to be non-biased and sensitive.
Had I not drop out from my PhD studies my thesis would be about photometric system for GAIA :(
A sort of Google maps for the heavens. You can download star catalogs with over 150 million stars.
It's amazing what you can do with it. Here's a little movie I made of the 2-day long transit of Uranus across the Sun as viewed from Neptune in the yer 46915: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU9yzUUMhqU
Somnologists also care about light pollution, particularly the colors. One hypothesis is that artificial lighting interferes with health sleep patterns and behaviors.
Bombardiers on nighttime missions do like to have lighted targets to aim at.
...it's not an issue that motivates many people, no.
[1] https://petapixel.com/2015/04/04/what-the-naked-eye-sees-in-...
The author of that article might claim the first picture is “real” in a physical sense, but even if it was, it ceases to be when transfered to a limited computer screen and viewed in indoor ambient light.
I just got back from Exuma Island in the Bahamas. This is a decently remote island without much light pollution. It was by far the best star-gazing I've ever experienced. I've backpacked in Big Bend, Yosemite, and Yellowstone (and less notable areas), Exuma takes the cake for looking at the heavens.
I say all of this because the picture on the left seems much more representative of the _best star-gazing conditions I've ever witnessed_. The Milky Way was big and beautiful; It caused my S.O. and I to sit outside for 1.5 hours just staring. But it still looked more like the first picture.
Maybe you were mis-remembering, or maybe your vision is just better for these sorts of things. Either way, I want to know where you were to see the second picture.
(Also might explain why some photos show a bunch of stars that are deep blue/red)
It says that Abraham’s children will be as numerous as the sand on the seashore and the... stars in the sky.
After all, as far as ancient people knew, there were millions (possibly billions) of sand grains by the sea, and ... maybe 5,000 stars?
I am sure Greek astronomers would have laughed at any Jew who said that the number of stars is in the millions and billions.
Yet these days with modern science we have found out that there are as many if not more stars than sand grains.
Now, an atheist would say “that was just an expression”. But who really uses stars as an example of millions, just like sand grains, over and over repeatedly, if they really thought there weren’t that many? It must have been one lucky guess!
There are other proofs but this to me is one of the hardest to explain away.
* EDIT: lots of militant atheists on this site I see, wielding that downvote button rather than engaging in substantive argument
1) Surely the Bible is just making the same mistake I make when looking at the sky - imagining that I'm seeing millions instead of just 9k.
2) If it wasn't just an expression then there are an estimated 300 billion stars in the milky way alone. Astronomers put current estimates of the total stellar population at roughly 70 billion trillion (7 x 1022). I don't see that many descendants of Abraham.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A figure of speech that uses the stars as a reference to a huge number is not extraordinary evidence.
If you want substantive argument you have to start off with a position that is ground in something that could be reasonable. Your position is starting out by extrapolating god from the fact that someone made a wild guess about the number of stars in the sky. That does not seem to invite substantive argument, it merely proves that you have a tendency to leap to - probably - wrong conclusions.
> If you want substantive argument you have to start off with a position that is ground in something that could be reasonable.
Thanks for saving me the trouble of having to explain this. :P
Why do you think that?
Plato, who lived until 347 BCE, wrote in Timaeus (39b-d) (quoting https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/physis/plato-timaeus/time.as... ):
> Mankind, with hardly an exception, have not remarked the periods of the other stars, and they have no name for them, and do not measure them against one another by the help of number, and hence they can scarcely be said to know that their wanderings, being infinite in number and admirable for their variety, make up time.
A Greek astronomer living at the same time that the Torah was written down would agree that numbers were uncountable. It was a poetic metaphor or hyperbole to mean "uncountably many."
Eg, https://www.bibleandscience.com/bible/books/genesis/genesis1... points out that an Akkadian inscription from around 1280 BCE - which is around the same time that tradition says that the Oral Torah was given to Moses at Mount Sinai (1312 BCE) - says "Thereupon, the land of the Kuti, whose numbers are countless as the stars of heaven"
Or from around 1018 BCE: "In his first year the city of Suru of Bit-halupe rebelled. Assur-nasir-pal captured the city and said, "Öhis heavy spoil, which like the stars of heaven could not be counted, I carried off""
Thus, the account in the Torah appears to be in line with what the Greeks and what others in the Middle East believed - that the number of stars in the sky was beyond counting.
On the other hand, a Greek astronomer after Hipparchus or Ptolemy might have laughed, as their catalogs counted about 1,000 stars. But that was several hundred years after the Torah was written down.
This is what we would expect if the authors of the Torah drew from the general cultural understanding of their era, and does not require some special or hidden connection to a non-human source.
You further posit "who really uses stars as an example of millions, just like sand grains, over and over repeatedly, if they really thought there weren’t that many?"
As I believe I have demonstrated, it wasn't until Hipparchus's star catalogue from about 135 BCE that people in that region of the Earth had the idea that the visible stars might actually be countable. Until then it was used metaphorically to mean "could not be counted."
The Greeks also used the number of grains of sand as a metaphor for "uncountable". For example, Pindar's Olympian 2 ("For Theron of Acragas Chariot Race 476 B. C.") ends "Since the sand of the shore is beyond all counting, who could number all the joys that Theron has given others?"; http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%... .
There are other metaphors for uncountable. In Olympian 12 the same author uses "I would not know how to give a clear account of the number of pebbles in the sea."
Could you explain what "militant" means? Are you militant? Do you think I am?
There are not a number of Jews equivalent to the grains of sand nor the stars in the sky (100 billion stars x ??? trillions of galaxies?), either today or in total whom have ever existed. There will never exist a number of Jews equivalent to the number of stars in the universe. There will never at any point in the future exist a total number of people, much less just Jews, who have ever lived to match even close to the number of stars in the universe.
Why are you taking this passage in the Torah to say millions, except for the fact that that's a magnitude that is relatively close to the number of Jews? You're seeing a fit that doesn't exist.
If a Greek astronomer said there were 5000 or 9000 stars, and a Jewish astronomer said there were millions, or even billions, of stars, they would both be as far away from 10^24 (or more) by almost the same magnitude.
The Torah is not giving correct guesstimations of any of these quantities. It's vague and no more accurate than your Greek dude saying, "dunno, maybe 10,000?" It's just saying, "man, you'll have a lot of descendants." If someone told me I'd have between 5000 and 9000 descendants, I'd probably think that was quite a lot.
This doesn't strike me as particularly convincing. If it's good enough for you, then by all means. But it is anything but proof.
I don't see you "engaging in substantive argument" in the replies here...?