In a message dated 4/28/00 9:51:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time, chracker@mail.uni-mainz.de writes: > Jay Respler wrote: > > It's exactly the same as looking at the stars. Whatever your stellar mag > limit > > is, it is the same for sats. > > I don't think it's the same. Photo receptors in the retina have to be hit > by a minimum amount of photons per second to yield a perceptible > output to the brain. If you look at a star at the magnitude limit its light > will concentrate on one spot of the retina. An equally bright (fast > moving) satellite will not be visible because its light does not stimulate > an individual receptor long enough. Of course you might succeed to > exactly follow the satellite with your eyes but I can't imaginge that > this works precisely enough. > > Christian The same lack of precision applies to observing a star with the naked eye. Unless of course, you secure your head in a vise and immobilize the eyes with a muscle relaxant. Your ability to focus a point source onto a specific set of rods and cones, is measured in mili-seconds. _______________________________________ Regards, Stephen 28.37612N 81.35404W Orlando, FL Satellite Hunting™ visible pass prediction shareware v2.0.2 http://stephen.fathom.org/sathunt.html ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Apr 28 2000 - 19:29:57 PDT