by BDanielMayfield » Mon Oct 14, 2013 11:14 pm
geckzilla wrote:I just don't think that you can get a good feel for the structure of the Milky Way without a camera. I wouldn't make that comparison for anything other than a low light situation. A lot is revealed that our eyes can't discern in the darkest darkness. To me it would seem if you want to make a comparison ideally you'd want to use similar exposure conditions, but that's really hard since the Milky Way is right up next to us so there's some confounding factors like Chris mentioned. Still, just about any exposure compared to any other exposure should be more similar than naked eye versus CCD captured image.
(Maybe I'm unwise to post this, but what the hey, I'm gona risk it.)
Hello again group. I’ve been thinking for a while about this conversation and Geckzilla’s entry quoted above. I’ve been of two minds about saying anything more, because I don’t want to come off as being overly argumentative. But this conversation does demonstrate something that’s illustrative, and that is observational biases.
We all have a degree of bias in our view of things, based on our individual training and experiences. Arguments, often over trivial matters, arise when people can’t see eye to eye on something, but this is because they are looking at the issue through differing mental “filters”, if you will. Often nether party is wrong, they’re just seeing things differently.
In the case at hand here I have the admitted bias of being mainly an eyeball observer of the sky, at times from extremely dark sites, but also with the advantage of having seen many photos of other galaxies and diagrams of what the Milk Way was and is believed to look like as a whole. Therefore, when looking toward our galaxy’s core in Sagittarius and seeing how thick the Milky Way is in this direction, I came to an admittedly subjective impression that our galaxy’s bulge might be larger than that of the barely discernable (from our sideways view) bulge of NGC 891.
Geckzilla, you’re viewing this from a professional photographer’s standpoint, are you not? Of course our eyes can’t compare to the low light that cameras with long exposures can collect. But, apart from the rap around view of the sky you might see reproduced at a planetarium, one can’t (unless there’s a major blackout) see the grander of the Milky Way from New York City. I hope you don’t mind my asking, and I mean no disrespect, but have you done much observing with your own eyes from really dark locales at a time when Sagittarius is high? Maybe you have, and my inquiry is totally off base. If so my appologies in advance.
Cringing in fear of getting scorched, Bruce
[quote="geckzilla"]I just don't think that you can get a good feel for the structure of the Milky Way without a camera. I wouldn't make that comparison for anything other than a low light situation. A lot is revealed that our eyes can't discern in the darkest darkness. To me it would seem if you want to make a comparison ideally you'd want to use similar exposure conditions, but that's really hard since the Milky Way is right up next to us so there's some confounding factors like Chris mentioned. Still, just about any exposure compared to any other exposure should be more similar than naked eye versus CCD captured image.[/quote]
(Maybe I'm unwise to post this, but what the hey, I'm gona risk it.)
Hello again group. I’ve been thinking for a while about this conversation and Geckzilla’s entry quoted above. I’ve been of two minds about saying anything more, because I don’t want to come off as being overly argumentative. But this conversation does demonstrate something that’s illustrative, and that is observational biases.
We all have a degree of bias in our view of things, based on our individual training and experiences. Arguments, often over trivial matters, arise when people can’t see eye to eye on something, but this is because they are looking at the issue through differing mental “filters”, if you will. Often nether party is wrong, they’re just seeing things differently.
In the case at hand here I have the admitted bias of being mainly an eyeball observer of the sky, at times from extremely dark sites, but also with the advantage of having seen many photos of other galaxies and diagrams of what the Milk Way was and is believed to look like as a whole. Therefore, when looking toward our galaxy’s core in Sagittarius and seeing how thick the Milky Way is in this direction, I came to an admittedly subjective impression that our galaxy’s bulge might be larger than that of the barely discernable (from our sideways view) bulge of NGC 891.
Geckzilla, you’re viewing this from a professional photographer’s standpoint, are you not? Of course our eyes can’t compare to the low light that cameras with long exposures can collect. But, apart from the rap around view of the sky you might see reproduced at a planetarium, one can’t (unless there’s a major blackout) see the grander of the Milky Way from New York City. I hope you don’t mind my asking, and I mean no disrespect, but have you done much observing with your own eyes from really dark locales at a time when Sagittarius is high? Maybe you have, and my inquiry is totally off base. If so my appologies in advance.
Cringing in fear of getting scorched, Bruce