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Why do the stars remain unchanging in size even as you travel away?

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Ciaphas Cyne
Moira.
#81 - 2013-09-19 23:45:11 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:
again this is easily disproved by going to your local hardware store and looking at light bulbs. size doesnt matter in this instance
Size matters a lot in how bright they appear. That's why there's such a plethora of photography equipment that lets you pour silly amounts of light onto a subject without blinding them with their brightness.

Quote:
also, you are really hung up on the star in the sky. whats important here is the light hitting pluto, not where or what its coming from.
Actually, what we're discussing is the difference between the brightness of a point source and the illumination it provides.

Quote:
the sun's size doesnt change, the distance does. we are not interested in how bright that point is when looking at it. we are interested in the light it gives off to the rest of the solar system!
…and that light changes as the distance changes (and this coincides with the apparent size of the light source). And since you brought up an article mentioning how bright the Sun would be when looking at it from very far away, it is very much part of what we're interested in.


ok again, take a 40w bulb that is the exact same size as a 160w bulb. which one is brighter? which one is bigger? seriously answer some of these questions instead of glossing over them.

did you read any of my source material? did you read the calculations showing the amount of photons hitting your eye on pluto? did you read the article that says clearly one could easily read a book on the surface of pluto?

this has changed from being fun to feeling like work. i am not a teacher people!!

google the following "what is the light level on pluto?" its not hard.

"buff only the stuff I fly and nerf everything else"

  • you
Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#82 - 2013-09-19 23:49:03 UTC
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:
oh i totally got your reference and appreciated it. what i did not appreciate was this:

"That is to say that I expect the constant illumination regardless of distance from the primary is a stylistic choice intended to prevent people getting lost when they can't see their un-illuminated ship in a dark environment"

its misleading and as ive shown....like 6 times now....an incorrect assumption.


As you have stated over and over again, the illumination (basically, energy per spare metre) drops off according to the inverse square law. As you get further and further away from the luminary your ship becomes less and less visible. The visibility of an object depends on many factors: in our case we are perceiving an image on a display that has a limited range of illumination. If we were to scale the brightness of objects in space (a ratio of many thousands across the range) to the range possible for our monitors, objects in deep space would become indiscernible from the surrounding black sky.

How do we translate the actual lighting into something that can be displayed on a computer monitor? You will find that for practical purposes you must at least scale the brightness by an order of magnitude to simply fit into the display's gamut. Then you find that things are still too bright at the bright end (everything will be "blown out," not just the highlights), and too dark at the dark end (the contrast between #000000 black and #010101 is far too small to be meaningful), so you find out that it's actually better in terms of UI to simply represent illumination in space as being at a constant, comfortable level. Keep in mind that the maximum contrast between #000000 and #FFFFFF is in the order of 768, assuming each colour provides equal illumination on a linear scale and we don't mind distorting colour to enhance contrast. You can safely ignore claims of million-to-one contrast ratios achieved by turning a display off then comparing that to all-white at maximum backlight intensity since you can't display any information on an all-white monitor or a monitor that is turned off. The difference in brightness between 400k lux at the luminary versus 60 lux at Pluto is too great to be displayed on a normal monitor.

So I also stand by my comment about ships being invisible in dark environments, should someone be foolish enough to attempt to display images of ships in space using realistic lighting models where the only luminary is the local star.

One improvement suggested by CCP some time back when they started the V3 project was the ability to illuminate an environment based on the nebula in the skybox (which is why ships are currently so "dark"). Since this luminary is necessarily very distant and very bright, it will achieve the same effect as the current unscaled illumination, and we will even be able to see ships and stations that are in the local-star-shadow of a planet. Thus CCP will be adding ambient/atmospheric lighting into the space scenes such that shadows are not absolute blackness.

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Ciaphas Cyne
Moira.
#83 - 2013-09-19 23:53:59 UTC
Mara, as far as i know, there is no place in the EVE universe that is far enough away from a star for it to be totally pitch black. that is of course assuming the star is as bright as our sun.

my interest in this thread isnt how the stars appear in eve. its with the very very wrong assumption that its dark on pluto. a celestial body that we can see with a telescope.

how the dummies in this thread think we can see pluto through a telescope, but cant see its surface if we were 10 feet from it really amazes me.

"buff only the stuff I fly and nerf everything else"

  • you
PotatoOverdose
Handsome Millionaire Playboys
Sedition.
#84 - 2013-09-20 00:00:34 UTC  |  Edited by: PotatoOverdose
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:
PotatoOverdose wrote:
...Are people seriously arguing that a star should take up the same solid angle as seen from an observer at 1 AU and 40 AU?

On a slightly diffirent note... here's a link for the people that think that illumination shouldn't get dimmer as you move away from a star (or any light source):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law

Edit: Keep in mind that the outermost planet in our system, Pluto (**** what the IAU says), is only 48 AU away at Aphelion. There are systems in eve that have celestials out past 200 AU. Depending on the star, it should be rather dark at those distances.



"Rather" is a quantity we can find out. turns out that its "rather" bright on the surface of pluto. which is what this thread has become about.

Well, isn't it grand that the inverse square law I linked gives us a method of calculating that?

For simplicity, lets assume Pluto is 50 AU away. And according to your post, it has an illumination of 60 Lux. Quite a few systems in eve extend past 200 Au. So lets take a hypothetical celestial at 200 Au. Our hypothetical celestial is 4 times further away from our light source, so by the inverse square law it recieves 1/16th the illumination.

So, (60 Lux)/16 = 3.75 Lux. According to Wikipedia, this corresponds to the dark limit of "civil twilight."

Lets take a look at one of those provided images. In this photo we see people and some indiscernible constructions against the backdrop of the sky. Those people are under an illumination of around 3.75 Lux.

Note how you can't see ****. So, in a system with celestials/stargates/plexes past 200 AU (and a quick google search will reveal quite a few), your ship should be nothing but a dark silhouette against the backdrop of the skybox. Barring other sources of illumination, of course.
Ciaphas Cyne
Moira.
#85 - 2013-09-20 00:20:07 UTC  |  Edited by: Ciaphas Cyne
PotatoOverdose wrote:
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:
PotatoOverdose wrote:
...Are people seriously arguing that a star should take up the same solid angle as seen from an observer at 1 AU and 40 AU?

On a slightly diffirent note... here's a link for the people that think that illumination shouldn't get dimmer as you move away from a star (or any light source):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law

Edit: Keep in mind that the outermost planet in our system, Pluto (**** what the IAU says), is only 48 AU away at Aphelion. There are systems in eve that have celestials out past 200 AU. Depending on the star, it should be rather dark at those distances.



"Rather" is a quantity we can find out. turns out that its "rather" bright on the surface of pluto. which is what this thread has become about.

Well, isn't it grand that the inverse square law I linked gives us a method of calculating that?

For simplicity, lets assume Pluto is 50 AU away. And according to your post, it has an illumination of 60 Lux. Quite a few systems in eve extend past 200 Au. So lets take a hypothetical celestial at 200 Au. Our hypothetical celestial is 4 times further away from our light source, so by the inverse square law it recieves 1/16th the illumination.

So, (60 Lux)/16 = 3.75 Lux. According to Wikipedia, this corresponds to the dark limit of "civil twilight."

Lets take a look at one of those provided images. In this photo we see people and some indiscernible constructions against the backdrop of the sky. Those people are under an illumination of around 3.75 Lux.

Note how you can't see ****. So, in a system with celestials/stargates past 200 AU (and a quick google search will reveal quite a few), your ship should be nothing but a dark silhouette against the backdrop of the skybox. Bbarring other sources of illumination, of course.



first off:

thank you so incredibly much for actually reading and comprehending my posts!

second:

i am totally willing to admit that at the distances you mention (200+AU) it would be very difficult to see, although not pitch black, like you have said. that has revealed my ignorance as to the size of systems in eve. but please dont use that picture as your point of reference. you see black silhouettes because of the angle of the camera in relation to the light source (the sky). the figures in that scene can most likely see themselves much better than you can see them. its kinda like this picture:

http://robertstevenson.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/sun.jpg

you cant really see the man, he almost looks all black, but notice the suns out lol. if we spun the camera around, and put the light source behind us, we would see the man much clearer. dig it?

finally:

this discussion is largely about the light levels on pluto. if you can admit that its bright enough to see on pluto clearly, i can admit that there are systems in eve that could be very very dark on the edges. dont forget, though, if the conditions on pluto are on avg 250 times brighter than a full-moon night on earth like the OP i linked claims, the math doesnt really work out the same way you have shown here. so if at 50AU (roughly i know) the levels are 250x the full moon, then at 200AU the levels are...what 15 times brighter than the full moon? doesnt really jive with the 3.75 lux figure you gave me. then again the 60 lux on pluto we both started with came from a different source than the one that claimed the "250 times" figure. either way twlight, is not pitch black. and i think we can all agree on that, no?

either way, thank you for actually being constructive, and again thank you for reading my posts instead of skimming over them.

"buff only the stuff I fly and nerf everything else"

  • you
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#86 - 2013-09-20 00:37:10 UTC
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:
ok again, take a 40w bulb that is the exact same size as a 160w bulb.
No, because that would be a completely different case.

Instead, take a a 62cm² bulb emitting 1000 lux. Then compare it with a 1cm² diode emitting 2000 lux. Which one will illuminate more? Which one will be more intense?
Now take a 62cm² bulb with an intensity of 2 candela. Then compare it with a 1cm² with an intensity of 1 candela. Which one will illuminate more? Which one will be more intense?

Quote:
did you read any of my source material? did you read the calculations showing the amount of photons hitting your eye on pluto?
Did you notice that this means we're interested in how bright that point is when looking at it?

Quote:
can you see pluto? if you answer "yes" then you need to accept the fact that light hits it.
…a fact no-one has disputed.
PotatoOverdose
Handsome Millionaire Playboys
Sedition.
#87 - 2013-09-20 00:37:20 UTC  |  Edited by: PotatoOverdose
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:



first off:

thank you so incredibly much for actually reading and comprehending my posts!

second:

i am totally willing to admit that at the distances you mention (200+AU) it would be very difficult to see, although not pitch black, like you have said. that has revealed my ignorance as to the size of systems in eve.

finally:

this discussion is largely about the light levels on pluto. if you can admit that its bright enough to see on pluto clearly, i can admit that there are systems in eve that could be very very dark on the edges. dont forget, though, if the conditions on pluto are on avg 250 times brighter than a full-moon night on earth like the OP i linked claims, the math doesnt really work out the same way you have shown here. so if at 50AU (roughly i know) the levels are 250x the full moon, then at 200AU the levels are...what 15 times brighter than the full moon? doesnt really jive with the 3.75 lux figure you gave me. then again the 60 lux on pluto we both started with came from a different source than the one that claimed the "250 times" figure.

either way, thank you for actually being constructive, and again thank you for reading my posts instead of skimming over them.


All of the figures and equations I used except the 60 Lux figure you provided, I sourced in my post. In my post, I took an extreme case of a 200 Au from a main sequence yellow star, such as our sun.

Lets take a more common example from Eve, a 100 Au White Dwarf system of which there are probably hundreds in eve. A typical white dwarf is an order of magnitude (10x) dimmer than our sun.

Now, let us assume that the illumination on Pluto is not 60 Lux like you originally posited, but 100 Lux. So we need to do:
(Illumination on Pluto)*(scale down 10x for white dwarf)/(100Au / 50Au)^2.
so: (100 Lux)*(0.1)/4 = 2.5 Lux.

2.5 Lux is notably darker than the civillian twilight image I linked, and this was calculated by nearly doubling the original posited illumination on Pluto.

So: In hundreds of systems in eve, on the outer celestials, your ship would be nothing but a dark Silhouette against the background nebula Skybox. (Ignoring other light sources.)
Ciaphas Cyne
Moira.
#88 - 2013-09-20 00:57:42 UTC
PotatoOverdose wrote:
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:



first off:

thank you so incredibly much for actually reading and comprehending my posts!

second:

i am totally willing to admit that at the distances you mention (200+AU) it would be very difficult to see, although not pitch black, like you have said. that has revealed my ignorance as to the size of systems in eve.

finally:

this discussion is largely about the light levels on pluto. if you can admit that its bright enough to see on pluto clearly, i can admit that there are systems in eve that could be very very dark on the edges. dont forget, though, if the conditions on pluto are on avg 250 times brighter than a full-moon night on earth like the OP i linked claims, the math doesnt really work out the same way you have shown here. so if at 50AU (roughly i know) the levels are 250x the full moon, then at 200AU the levels are...what 15 times brighter than the full moon? doesnt really jive with the 3.75 lux figure you gave me. then again the 60 lux on pluto we both started with came from a different source than the one that claimed the "250 times" figure.

either way, thank you for actually being constructive, and again thank you for reading my posts instead of skimming over them.


All of the figures and equations I used except the 60 Lux figure you provided, I sourced in my post. In my post, I took an extreme case of a 200 Au from a main sequence yellow star, such as our sun.

Lets take a more common example from Eve, a 100 Au White Dwarf system of which there are probably hundreds in eve. A typical white dwarf is an order of magnitude (10x) dimmer than our sun.

Now, let us assume that the illumination on Pluto is not 60 Lux like you originally posited, but 100 Lux. So we need to do:
(Illumination on Pluto)*(scale down 10x for white dwarf)/(100Au / 50Au)^2.
so: (100 Lux)*(0.1)/4 = 2.5 Lux.

2.5 Lux is notably darker than the civillian twilight image I linked, and this was calculated by nearly doubling the original posited illumination on Pluto.

So: In hundreds of systems in eve, on the outer celestials, your ship would be nothing but a dark Silhouette against the background nebula Skybox. (Ignoring other light sources.)

Edit: Upon further reading of the linked article and its source material, it turns out that 10x dimmer is the upper bound for typical white dwarves, with the lower bound being 50x dimmer.



cant argue with that! i never made any assumptions about stars that weren't our sun. so anything you wanna talk about in-game with in-game stars is fine with me. my interest is in our own system, with our sun. never intended to talk about anything else :)

do you see my point with the twilight photo though? how its the placement of the light source that is making you see the foreground as darker than it really is?

"buff only the stuff I fly and nerf everything else"

  • you
Ciaphas Cyne
Moira.
#89 - 2013-09-20 01:00:50 UTC  |  Edited by: Ciaphas Cyne
"Instead, take a a 62cm² bulb emitting 1000 lux. Then compare it with a 1cm² diode emitting 2000 lux. Which one will illuminate more? "


the diode. all day. next question?

"Did you notice that this means we're interested in how bright that point is when looking at it?"

no...it doesnt. it mean we are interested in the light hitting the surface.

"buff only the stuff I fly and nerf everything else"

  • you
PotatoOverdose
Handsome Millionaire Playboys
Sedition.
#90 - 2013-09-20 01:04:03 UTC  |  Edited by: PotatoOverdose
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:



cant argue with that! i never made any assumptions about stars that weren't our sun. so anything you wanna talk about in-game with in-game stars is fine with me. my interest is in our own system, with our sun. never intended to talk about anything else :)

do you see my point with the twilight photo though? how its the placement of the light source that is making you see the foreground as darker than it really is?

With regards to the photo, that could well be the case.

I've actually done a bit more digging, turns out my numbers were a bit off [source]. White dwarves are upperbound at 1% of Sol illumination and lowerbound at 0.1% Illumination. So at best, a 100 Au white dwarf system would have an illumination of 0.25 Lux on the outer celestials. and at worst 0.025 Lux, which may as well be pitch black, and we definitely wouldn't see our hulls without additional illumination.

So, space in eve should be much darker than it is in a great many systems. Cases where we wouldn't "see" our hulls would actually be somewhat plentiful. Mildly interesting.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#91 - 2013-09-20 01:21:43 UTC
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:
"Instead, take a a 62cm² bulb emitting 1000 lux. Then compare it with a 1cm² diode emitting 2000 lux. Which one will illuminate more? "

the diode. all day. next question?
Wrong, and you already have the next question(s]. Why did you skip over them?
2000 lux emitted from a 1cm² surface means an output of 0.2 lm. At, say, 10m, this translates into an illuminance of 0.00016 lux.
1000 lux emitted from a 62cm² surface means an output of 6.2 lm. At, say, 10m, this translates into an illuminance of 0.0049 lux.

Quote:
no...it doesnt.
…then maybe it wasn't making quite the point you were hoping, now was it?
Ciaphas Cyne
Moira.
#92 - 2013-09-20 01:23:29 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:
"Instead, take a a 62cm² bulb emitting 1000 lux. Then compare it with a 1cm² diode emitting 2000 lux. Which one will illuminate more? "

the diode. all day. next question?
Wrong, and you already have the next question(s]. Why did you skip over them?
2000 lux emitted from a 1cm² surface means an output of 0.2 lm. At, say, 10m, this translates into an illuminance of 0.00016 lux.
1000 lux emitted from a 62cm² surface means an output of 6.2 lm. At, say, 10m, this translates into an illuminance of 0.0049 lux.

Quote:
no...it doesnt.
…then maybe it wasn't making quite the point you were hoping, now was it?


you understand how a light bulb works yes?

you understand the glass bulb isn't the object emitting the light, yes?

"buff only the stuff I fly and nerf everything else"

  • you
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#93 - 2013-09-20 01:25:53 UTC
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:
you understand how a light bulb works yes?

you understand the glass bulb isn't the object emitting the light, yes?
You understand that we're talking about how bright a diffuse light-source looks in relation to how much it illuminates its surrounding, yes?
Ciaphas Cyne
Moira.
#94 - 2013-09-20 01:25:59 UTC  |  Edited by: Ciaphas Cyne
PotatoOverdose wrote:
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:



cant argue with that! i never made any assumptions about stars that weren't our sun. so anything you wanna talk about in-game with in-game stars is fine with me. my interest is in our own system, with our sun. never intended to talk about anything else :)

do you see my point with the twilight photo though? how its the placement of the light source that is making you see the foreground as darker than it really is?

With regards to the photo, that could well be the case.

I've actually done a bit more digging, turns out my numbers were a bit off [source]. White dwarves are upperbound at 1% of Sol illumination and lowerbound at 0.1% Illumination. So at best, a 100 Au white dwarf system would have an illumination of 0.25 Lux on the outer celestials. and at worst 0.025 Lux, which may as well be pitch black, and we definitely wouldn't see our hulls without additional illumination.

So, space in eve should be much darker than it is in a great many systems. Cases where we wouldn't "see" our hulls would actually be somewhat plentiful. Mildly interesting.


so now that we all know we could read a book on pluto, and that photography can be misleading...i wonder what other things we can learn from this thread?

"buff only the stuff I fly and nerf everything else"

  • you
Ciaphas Cyne
Moira.
#95 - 2013-09-20 01:27:53 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:
you understand how a light bulb works yes?

you understand the glass bulb isn't the object emitting the light, yes?
You understand that we're talking about how bright a diffuse light-source looks in relation to how much it illuminates its surrounding, yes?


as far as i can recall we were talking about how you can see on pluto....

and some how we got on the subject of how you seem to think that big objects are brighter than small ones. seriously go get two light bulbs of different watts and tell me all about how their size is responsible for that.

a sun burns at its center. just like a light bulb.

"buff only the stuff I fly and nerf everything else"

  • you
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#96 - 2013-09-20 01:35:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:
as far as i can recall we were talking about how you can see on pluto....
…and you started to claim that the surface area of the light source had no impact on perceived brightness or illumination, which generated the bulb vs. diode comparison.

Quote:
a sun burns at its center.
…and elsewhere, but the (visible) light it emits comes from the photosphere and above. Hence its name.
PotatoOverdose
Handsome Millionaire Playboys
Sedition.
#97 - 2013-09-20 01:40:00 UTC  |  Edited by: PotatoOverdose
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:
Tippia wrote:
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:
"Instead, take a a 62cm² bulb emitting 1000 lux. Then compare it with a 1cm² diode emitting 2000 lux. Which one will illuminate more? "

the diode. all day. next question?
Wrong, and you already have the next question(s]. Why did you skip over them?
2000 lux emitted from a 1cm² surface means an output of 0.2 lm. At, say, 10m, this translates into an illuminance of 0.00016 lux.
1000 lux emitted from a 62cm² surface means an output of 6.2 lm. At, say, 10m, this translates into an illuminance of 0.0049 lux.

Quote:
no...it doesnt.
…then maybe it wasn't making quite the point you were hoping, now was it?


you understand how a light bulb works yes?

you understand the glass bulb isn't the object emitting the light, yes?

You're both communicating poorly tbh.

First line in the definition of Lux says it is a unit of flux.

Think of it this way, you have Pluto and a 1 m^2 piece of sheet metal orbiting our sun, both at 50 Au. Let's say both have 100 Lux incident. You would be able to see Pluto with relative ease via simple telescope. Good luck seeing the sheet metal.

Now let's say you have a piece of sheet metal that is 1 Au^2 orbiting at 50 Au. It would be much easier to see the gigantic piece of sheet metal as opposed to Pluto. Could probably do it with the naked eye.

Tippia is correct if you're using one of these lightbulbs, and you measure the 1000 lux at the surface of the lightbulb, which makes sense as you can't measure it at the filament. (To Tippia's credit, the fact that it was measured at the surface was stated.)

On the other hand, if you were looking at one of these, and you measured the light flux at the filament, Ciaphas Cyne would be correct in favoring the 2000 lux LED.
Ciaphas Cyne
Moira.
#98 - 2013-09-20 01:45:45 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:
as far as i can recall we were talking about how you can see on pluto....
…and you started to claim that the surface area of the light source had no impact on perceived brightness or illumination, which generated the bulb vs. diode comparison.

Quote:
a sun burns at its center.
…and elsewhere, but the (visible) light it emits comes from the photosphere and above.



and this is where we are coming to grief. i dont care about perceived brightness. I care about the amount of light in and around pluto. where that light came from, or the size of the object it came from DOES NOT MATTER or even what it came from is totally irrelevant once we know the light levels in the space that Pluto occupies. what the star in the sky looks like from the surface is anecdotal!!

a sun, just like a light bulb, burns at its center, the energy from that then makes the sun glow! very similar to how a lightbulb burns at its center and then is diffused by the glass around it. The amount of light being created never changes. it just gets diffused by the glass. place a bulb around that LED diode and boom, the room now "appears" more illuminated. but nothing has changed, just the direction of the light. the sun, however, doesnt change size on a time scale that is relevant to this discussion. so the direction of the light doesnt change. I think our argument is pretty semantic and if ive used scientific terms like "brightness" casually and in a confusing manner, i am sorry!

honestly as long as you understand that we could see just fine on pluto, i dont think we really have an issue here.

you do understand that stars being brighter when they are bigger is a function of the life cycle of the star and what its burning, though correct?

"buff only the stuff I fly and nerf everything else"

  • you
PotatoOverdose
Handsome Millionaire Playboys
Sedition.
#99 - 2013-09-20 01:50:16 UTC  |  Edited by: PotatoOverdose
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:
Tippia wrote:
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:
as far as i can recall we were talking about how you can see on pluto....
…and you started to claim that the surface area of the light source had no impact on perceived brightness or illumination, which generated the bulb vs. diode comparison.

Quote:
a sun burns at its center.
…and elsewhere, but the (visible) light it emits comes from the photosphere and above.



and this is where we are coming to grief. i dont care about perceived brightness. I care about the amount of light in and around pluto. where that light came from, or the size of the object it came from DOES NOT MATTER or even what it came from is totally irrelevant once we know the light levels in the space that Pluto occupies. what the star in the sky looks like from the surface is anecdotal!!

a sun, just like a light bulb, burns at its center, the energy from that then makes the sun glow! very similar to how a lightbulb burns at its center and then is diffused by the glass around it. The amount of light being created never changes. it just gets diffused by the glass. place a bulb around that LED diode and boom, the room now "appears" more illuminated. but nothing has changed, just the direction of the light. the sun, however, doesnt change size on a time scale that is relevant to this discussion. so the direction of the light doesnt change. I think our argument is pretty semantic and if ive used scientific terms like "brightness" casually and in a confusing manner, i am sorry!

honestly as long as you understand that we could see just fine on pluto, i dont think we really have an issue here.

you do understand that stars being brighter when they are bigger is a function of the life cycle of the star and what its burning, though correct?

Reread my post and Tippias.

Tippia states that the light flux was measured at the surface:

"2000 lux emitted from a 1cm² surface means an output of 0.2 lm. At, say, 10m, this translates into an illuminance of 0.00016 lux.
1000 lux emitted from a 62cm² surface means an output of 6.2 lm. At, say, 10m, this translates into an illuminance of 0.0049 lux."

Flux can be measured anywhere, and where it is measured is almost always very important.

Also, while the Sun does 'burn' at the center, we never actually see that light. The energy from that fusion stimulates material in the photosphere, and that is what we see.

If we could see light coming from the very center of a star, through spectroscopy we would be able to know the precise composition, lifetimes, and processes that occur in all stars, and our knowledge of the universe would be far closer to completion.

Neither of you are horribly wrong in your general points, you're just not communicating well.
PotatoOverdose
Handsome Millionaire Playboys
Sedition.
#100 - 2013-09-20 02:00:49 UTC
Ciaphas Cyne wrote:


you do understand that stars being brighter when they are bigger is a function of the life cycle of the star and what its burning, though correct?


This is not strictly correct.

"Despite the lower energy density of their envelope, red giants are many times more luminous than the Sun because of their great size. " [source: sentence 4 under characteristics]