Astronomy comments on Facebook

[PortableAstronomer]

Hi everyone,

Just wondering what I should reply to a message I recieved in my Inbox today.

The background to it is that some time ago I submitted some of my rather modest deep-sky images on a Facebook group "Astronomy for Everyone".

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49940334806

Anyway, some time ago I submitted a photo of the North America Nebula and in the description I wrote...

"The light from this nebula has taken 1500 years to reach us. So you're seeing it as it was 1500 years ago!"

Okay distance estimates vary enormously... but then I got this response in my Inbox on Facebook from another user...

____________________________________________

From : ***

Date : 04 Jan 18:12

I didnt know there were street lamps 1500 years ago. I thought there were only flame lit candles or oil based lights? Unless that light is powerful enough to reach that nebula...

____________________________________________

Who wants to go first?

Chris

[Beulah]

Uh......

[skye at night]

Unfortunately it is just one of the symptoms of the fact that you dont need a brain to buy and use a computer...

and too many people think that having and using one makes them clever..

it does not..

maybe the government should license computer use like everything else.

Steve

[MG1]

That's almost as good as the chap who was insistant he had taken a photo of a meteor shower....

(ps I'm hiding in this thread to avoid talking about shoes...don't tell lulu!)

[Space Bat]

I think the chap was just trying to be clever....

Perhaps the response should have been.......

Wow I never thought of that - so now I understand why they measure stars sometimes in candle power

I presume that this is due to paraffin wax being the same constitution as the gasses that make up these feint nebula and cause them to shine...So my guess is that the nebula must have planets and life where they are using street lights which is causing the nebula to glow and not the other way round

After doing more research on your theory I have found that Nebula is indeed made from Paraffin, but I was gobsmaked that it also contained cocaine

http://www.henriettesherbal.com/eclectic/bpc1911/eucalyptus_nebu.html

Many thanks for your mail - it has opened up yet more questions, what an interesting and beautiful universe we live in, by for now and live long and prosper.

Chris

[arad85]

Tsk... He should have been worried about the lights we had 3000 years ago... Clearly, if it took 1500 years for light to reach us from the nebula, then the illuminating light would have taken 1500 years to reach there to illuminate it... Tsk... some people... :)

[matt c]

LOL:D it never ceases to amaze me how little people know about the universe we live in, I remember speaking to someone once who didn't realise the sun was a star

[lulu57]

That's almost as good as the chap who was insistant he had taken a photo of a meteor shower....

(ps I'm hiding in this thread to avoid talking about shoes...don't tell lulu!)

You can run, but you can't hide!

(Actually, you can't even run in those boots...)

Re: the light/nebula comment -

Maybe the person who wrote the remark was very young and just hasn't learnt about that stuff yet? (I'm clutching at straws here, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt...)

[PortableAstronomer]

Well, someone asked me why I don't have a flash unit on my ccd camera, if it's so dark out there.

And another post on SGL where someone's Mother insisted her photo of the moon would come out well because she used the flash. You only have to look at the London Eye at night to see all the flashes coming from those cameras up there. As if that will light up Westminster. tsssk

[lulu57]

Well, someone asked me why I don't have a flash unit on my ccd camera, if it's so dark out there.

And another post on SGL where someone's Mother insisted her photo of the moon would come out well because she used the flash. You only have to look at the London Eye at night to see all the flashes coming from those cameras up there. As if that will light up Westminster. tsssk

Ah well, not everyone is smart about electronics or basic physics.

My grand-dad was a pretty nifty mathematician and physicist, but when my grandmother was ill, he tried to fry an egg in a saucepan.

He was very, very clever, but my gran beat him in the common sense department hands down.

[tinvek]

always amazes me how many flashes you see going off at football games and concerts, when i took my son on the london eye at night i had to show the chap in with us how to turn off his flash as apart from screwing up my shots (he seemed to have a telepaphic ability to press the shutter as i did) he also was developing a nice collection of pictures of his own flash reflecting off the pod windows.

to cap it all when the official phot was taken, he'd managed to get his family in the correct place but had then facing in completly the wrong direction (think he expected there to be a chap on a bungie cord haanging down from the pod above us )

[Demonperformer]

I can still remember the flash lights going off in S Devon in August 1999 while people were trying to photograph the [clouded over???] total solar eclipse!!

[MG1]

I can still remember the flash lights going off in S Devon in August 1999 while people were trying to photograph the [clouded over???] total solar eclipse!!

In fairness...it was the first time I'd used that camera and nobody showed me how to turn it off.....

[skye at night]

Well, someone asked me why I don't have a flash unit on my ccd camera, if it's so dark out there.

And another post on SGL where someone's Mother insisted her photo of the moon would come out well because she used the flash. You only have to look at the London Eye at night to see all the flashes coming from those cameras up there. As if that will light up Westminster. tsssk

When the last visible full lunar eclipse ocurred up here/uk (2006 I think) I was set up using a WO scope and dslr etc to take images ...

Neighbours wondering what I was up to and others in a parallel street (lived where there were streets at that time, none here now!) were out ooing and ahhing with their pocket digital cameras flashing away non stop and actually spoiling some of my images...

Most of these cameras cant illuminate a drunk dad 15 feet across a room at a wedding and these folks seem to think they are going to illuminate an object 240 000 miles away...

This went on a few minutes and at about 5 minutes before total eclipse, a loud male voice boomed out 'that's it all done, back inside"!!!

insert Alan Partridge Voice<open>/"This Country"?/<close>insert Alan Partridge Voice

Steve

[Rosanella]

Hi everyone,

Just wondering what I should reply to a message I recieved in my Inbox today.

......

Anyway, some time ago I submitted a photo of the North America Nebula and in the description I wrote...

"The light from this nebula has taken 1500 years to reach us. So you're seeing it as it was 1500 years ago!"

Okay distance estimates vary enormously... but then I got this response in my Inbox on Facebook from another user...

____________________________________________

From : ***

Date : 04 Jan 18:12

I didnt know there were street lamps 1500 years ago. I thought there were only flame lit candles or oil based lights? Unless that light is powerful enough to reach that nebula...

____________________________________________

Who wants to go first?

Chris

This chap/chapette is probably very young. But if he/she is not very young then he/she is just being very silly and had not a lot to do. So, just ignore the comment.

[Astro_Baby]

It is scary - I was at a dinner party recently with supposedly well educated and intelligent people and got askes stuff like;

So are there oceans and stuff on the moon ?

Is there life (like wildlife) on any of the planets ? - you never see it on NASA pics

If they landed on the moon why cant you see the footprints/lunar module from earth ?

Surely you cant see anything with a telescope - its too far away. Can you actually see stars ?

Sighs

[Space Bat]

To be honest you can tell honest questions that may come through lack of understanding....that seem daft, to the I am going to try and be smarter than you and say something stupid to wind you up...

I find that kids...always use words in questions with HOW, WHY, DOES IT?

Pain in the rears...say OH REALLY, I THOUGHT, ACTUALLY...etc

Chris

[Eyeball]

Such a response is indicative of many who use Facebook!

[Darren B]

Unfortunately there are people who think that street lights we help you see stars better because you can also see the roads better. Therfore if you went to a darksite, you cannot see what's around you and you will not see any stars because it's too dark.

[PhoenixRising]

" I remember speaking to someone once who didn't realise the sun was a star "

Most people I speak to dont realise this! Maybe we're a wee bit thick in the Peak?

[Talitha]

Here's a good one..

My (college educated) older brother has been teaching Science for over two decades in a high school just outside of Chicago. We were talking once,and i mentioned how stunning the Milky Way had been a few nights previous. He quickly said "You're wrong, it was probably a line of cirrus clouds... we can't see the Milky Way, because we're inside of it."

-sigh-

[661-pete]

Folks, your take on this piece of wackiness is probably the right interpretation, but have you considered the following? What if "***" of Facebook is just having a monumental wind-up - for fun? Perhaps he/she is an experienced astronomer/imager - for all we know it could be someone* on this forum (under another name)?!

*No it wasn't me (honest injun!) I don't have a facebook account anyway...

I can still remember the flash lights going off in S Devon in August 1999 while people were trying to photograph the [clouded over???] total solar eclipse!!

As it happens I did take several flash photos during totality (well it wasn't much use looking up at the sky was it!? ). Of my family standing there peering into the gloom.

But I was tickled pink, once, in Paris, standing in the square before Notre Dame at night, watching all the tourists flashing away with their cheap miniature cameras. I don't think there's a built-in flash anywhere in the world, capable of illuminating an entire cathedral facade (which was well floodlit anyway...)

[PortableAstronomer]

According to his Facebook profile, the person in question likes to spend all his time watching Jackass and trying to imitate them. So no point taking anything too seriously in this particular case!

[lulu57]

But I was tickled pink, once, in Paris, standing in the square before Notre Dame at night, watching all the tourists flashing away with their cheap miniature cameras. I don't think there's a built-in flash anywhere in the world, capable of illuminating an entire cathedral facade (which was well floodlit anyway...)

Half the time, it's just unfamiliarity with the camera that's the problem. Most people don't use their cameras as much as the average astrophotographer, so they may not know all the fiddly bits. I know that by the time I've remembered how to turn off the autoflash, the moment has gone - so I usually just snap away at whatever takes my fancy!

[PortableAstronomer]

Most compact cameras nowadays have a night-time mode on the dial on the top of them, even with a little graphic icon next to it showing a building at nightime with a star symbol above it ; a giveaway to even those who can't read. Yet everyone seems to leave it in general automatic mode. But surely after their first time out they notice the images are all too dark, then that should be a second hint that there's something wrong. But no, they go away thinking their flash isn't powerful enough.