THIS is a star!!!??

[Stub Mandrel]

You ae also seeing diffraction rings around teh star (the pattern of circular bands) and out-of-focus 'doughnut' artefacts because the SCT has multiple central obstructions.

[Face_explosion]

I appreciate the info and staying with me on this. I completely understand refraction the pencil in the glass of water looks crooked as it enters. I just think that what we are seeing shouldn't be explained away by claiming refraction. If this is what happens when we look thru a $1500 telescope then where can we get some real Star photos  NOT 3D renderings?? The other star photo has motion that looks like the hypercube folding in on itself infinitely. Refraction cannot make rt angles and become so distinct. Also, can someone reproduce this theory regarding warm and cold air making light distortions?

it should be simple...right ?

[Stu]

24 minutes ago, Face_explosion said:

I appreciate the info and staying with me on this. I completely understand refraction the pencil in the glass of water looks crooked as it enters. I just think that what we are seeing shouldn't be explained away by claiming refraction. If this is what happens when we look thru a $1500 telescope then where can we get some real Star photos  NOT 3D renderings?? The other star photo has motion that looks like the hypercube folding in on itself infinitely. Refraction cannot make rt angles and become so distinct. Also, can someone reproduce this theory regarding warm and cold air making light distortions?

it should be simple...right ?

Have you ever seen a heat haze over a hot road in summer? Behind it the view is distorted and shimmering, exactly the same thing. By atmospheric refraction, we are not talking about a simple static case of a pencil in some water, but a highly complex and moving series of atmospheric cells, constantly shifting so the star appears to twinkle as you see.

I'm afraid that is the answer, what explanation do you have for it?

[Stub Mandrel]

29 minutes ago, Face_explosion said:

 Also, can someone reproduce this theory regarding warm and cold air making light distortions?

it should be simple...right ?

Have you never seen the air rippling over the hot bonnet (hood) or roof of a car or seen pools of 'water' shimmering on the road in full sunshine?

If you can see these effects in a few metres of hot and cold air surely the potential for many miles of air to generate similar effects is obvious?

[Stub Mandrel]

Alternatively, look at Hubble Space Telescope photos taken where there is no air to cause these effects. Or photos by the VLT or other Earth-bound scope that uses laser-interferometry to measure these effects and cancel them out of the image. Naturally they cost a lot more than $1300!

 

[Knighty2112]

I remember getting hypnotised by Sirius also when I was young years ago (think I would have been about 14 or 15 at the time), and observed a similar thing when I was looking at it too. It seemed to fold back in on itself, spread out again, and then fold back in repeatedly. As I was observing Sirius at the time when it was low in the western sky, plus not to far above a nearby house top, and I was observing it through my open bedroom window that was creating its own turbulence too by having the nice warm air in my room vacating out of the open window into the cold night sky I figured that may not be the best way to observe it. Plus it was also summertime, so the day had been hot, so all that latent heat that everything had soaked up under the sunshine, was now escaping back up into the atmosphere and stirring up the air currents all around.

Also, remember when we look at stars, especially the ones lower down closer to the horizon, that these air pockets that move up and around in front of the stars are multiple in nature, so there are more than one mass of air causing any distortion due to diffraction here. Think of it like 5 or 6 large magnifying glasses held up in front of a bright star, all been moved about in different motions and positions, and the resulting very complicated image that you would see would be similar to what you observed, and me also many years ago too when I saw Sirius dance around like crazy too.

[Ant]

There is only so many different ways to ask the same question and reword the correct answers.

I feel that this thread has been well and truly answered and I'm taking the unusual step of closing the thread.

Thanks

Ant