An orbiting telescope. Such as Hubble. Or an astronaut.

ufos and god? :0

1) People on planets orbiting those stars. For instance, we view the sun from the earth, which is in an orbit around the sun. The sun is a star. We can also see many other stars at night. I suppose it could be more difficult to see the other stars from a place in space where you would see the sun. 2) "Photos of the stars from orbit? Why is it that no photos seem to exist of the stars from orbit or space? I'm not talking about telescopic observations, but rather shots of what the starry plane look like, from the perspective of the human eye, while in space. For example, when the International Space Station or other spacecraft are photographed, space behind them always appears simply black. Is this how it appears to the eye or is this simply a problem of camera lenses? Furthermore, one would assume that, for example, from the dark side of the moon one would have a really spectacular view of the stars, but I have never seen any photographs from this perspective from the Apollo program. What's going on? Does the presence of the sun in space hinder the viewing of stars and turn space into a black blanket? Do the stars only come alive when you are orbiting about the dark side of the earth or the moon? Why are they never photographed? I think this was answered before. Light inside the spacecraft reflects off the windows and obsures the relatively dim stars. Low resolution cameras used to take pics of crew aren't well suited to taking pics of star, either. Pics could be taken with a little effort, such as turning off the interior lights and taking along a high res camera, but this seems rather pointless, since we have much better pics from orbital telescopes, like Hubble, and even large ground based telescopes. StuRat 22:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC) Well, you don't need a high resolution camera for that, just shading, like the hood of Hubble or the length of a telescope, limiting the view to a small angle. It would, however, help to be on the outside of a spacecraft. The Apollo moonlanders seem an obvious choice for that because the astronauts left the spacecraft, but space walks took place before that. And the USSR could have done this from the very start. Which seems like a logical thing to do because it seems spectacular. But there are two 'buts'. Firstly, what do you photograph when you're out there? The stars? Hell no, the stuff you can't see from Earth, like the Earth from space and the dark side of the Moon. Which brings me to the second 'but'. The USSR photographed the dark side of the Moon (the most interresting part of the 'sky' we can't see from Earth) and the US later sent people around the Moon, who could then see it with their own eyes. Guess which received most attention in the general public. Of course this could be a political thing (maybe the US achievements received equivalently less attention in the USSR). But there's another, much more irritating aspect (going slightly off-topic now). There's a very common flaw in the perception of space exploration; you don't need people for it. In this case just a camera. No manned flight needed. I suppose it's partly the influence of Hollywood that makes people think that for space exploration to be 'real' it needs to be manned. Which is causing a problem for the financing because the people and therefore governments want manned space exploration which is tremendously more expensive than normal space exploration. So loads of allotted money gets wasted on useless stuff, leaving the real research in the cold. DirkvdM 10:12, 4 January 2006 (UTC) Go out into the countryside on a clear, moonless, night: your view of the stars is breathtaking. Now take a picture. Do you see stars on it? With an ordinary snapshot, no. You would need to put the camera on a support and take a shot lasting several minutes. If you wanted to photograph something else (e.g. a person) you would use flash; getting the stars in the shot too is possible, but needs some work, and a camera more capable than most. Indeed, if you saw a snapshot taken in space and it had stars along with some other brighter object, I would be very suspicious that it was faked. No stars shows it is real! Notinasnaid 11:44, 5 January 2006 (UTC) Banging my head against my keyboard. Astronomy and photography are two of my main interrests and I missed this one! DirkvdM 07:49, 6 January 2006 (UTC)" Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk_archive/Science/January_2006#Photos_of_the_stars_from_orbit.3F 3) "I get a little nervous when debunkers state unequivocally that you can't see stars from orbit or from the moon. Especially since hoax believers tend to see everything in black and white (pun intended). You can see stars under the right conditions. You can see stars from the moon under the right conditions. It's simply that the right conditions are rarely met. I've seen literally thousands of photographs taken in orbit or elsewhere in space. In only two of them have I seen stars, and that was because the exposure time was purposely elongated for other reasons. In all the other cases the photo was of something considerably brighter than the stars (e.g., a sunlit piece of space hardware) and the photographer wanted to properly expose that, not the stars. Scrunch your face up against a shuttle window facing away from earth (or wait until you're on the night side), cup your hands around your face to block out the cabin lights (or simply turn them off) and I'd be very surprised if you couldn't see lots of stars. But I have to agree; if I'm stuck out on the end of the manipulator with my head in the bowels of a recalcitrant satellite and thirty-two pages of checklist left to go, I'm probably not going to pay much attention to Rigel or Jupiter." Source: http://www.bautforum.com/archive/index.php/t-869.html 4) "You can spend hours just watching outside… but after about 45 minutes, the sky starts to get dark as the sun sets behind the Earth and creates this amazing hue of Orange mixed with the prettiest Blue… and then the night time comes. You cannot see the Earth that well unless you’re going over cities. Only then you will see these blotches of orange hue spread around. Large cities, of course, are more visible. Most of the nights when I look out, I can see thunderstorms down below. I know it’s not pleasant for people experiencing the storm on the ground, but from up here, it looks like a magnificent light show. These flashes of light pop up in different locations randomly. The other night as I was watching this I was listening to “Canon” by Johann Pachelbel, and it looked like someone was orchestrating the lightning with the music… I think we were somewhere near the coast of Australia over the Pacific Ocean… But that is not the best part. The best part and by far my favorite view up here is the view of the universe at night. The stars up here are unbelievable… It looks like someone has spread diamond dust over a black velvet blanket. The Milky Way is easily visible… like a rainbow of stars over the entire earth… I cannot keep my eyes off of them I put my head to the window and stay there until the coldness of the glass gives me a headache… then I pull my head back a little and continue gazing out. As I gaze out I thank God once again for helping me be here and experience this. I have been thanking him for letting my inner voice carry out to you all and ask him to give me the vision to see my path in life and the strength to pursue it. These are the most peaceful moments I have had in my life and I feel a great source of positive energy. I have a hard time sleeping too long because I keep forcing my eyes open to just see this beauty and take it all in… only a second longer…" Source and further information: Anousheh Ansari Space Blog http://spaceblog.xprize.org/2006/09/26/watching-the-world-go-by/