Mitch Cronin Posted June 27, 2009 Share Posted June 27, 2009 I was sitting outside just a while ago, star gazing, -- the central plane of our home galaxy which we call "The Milky Way" (I think it needs a better name) isn't completely obscured by light pollution where I live, but it's not bright either -- and I happened to see a streaking flash from a "shooting star", or meteor, or falling space junk (who can tell?).... and I noticed an airplane that looked to be in a good position and heading to have seen it as well. Then I got to wondering... How do the stars look from there? I 've never seen the sky at night from the cockpit of an airplane at altitude... I'll bet it looks pretty dang awesome? Anybody got any tales to tell? ...pictures to share maybe (high hopes?)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeker Posted June 27, 2009 Share Posted June 27, 2009 The stars do look pretty good from the cockpit but the problem is that the field of view is too small. If you get right up close to the windshield it's better but some of the brightness and clarity is lost because of the windshield itself. In my experience, the best place to stargaze is from a small hill about 500 miles north of Yellowknife in late August. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blues deville Posted June 27, 2009 Share Posted June 27, 2009 I saw what we initially thought was a tanker and fighter jets in formation on fire or something like that. It was this large fireball flying horizontally over the mid-west US at night with chunks of debris following behind. This continued until we lost sight out of the window. Everyone on the frequency was calling it in to ATC. The next morning on the drive home it was announced on the radio that a Russian satellite had re-entered the earth's atmosphere over that area and we were all treated to the fire works display. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JL Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 One early morning, back in the early Spring of 1997, on the way to YUL at 330, saw a smudge in the sky. Must have stared at it for almot 30 minutes before I actually "looked" at it and it was a comet! It was Hale Bopp. Getting to look at Hale Bopp every night...simply spectacular. The dual tails weren't so easy to see from the ground, but in cruise it was awesome! Another good one was the Leonid Meteor Shower. One year, on the way by Chicago headed south, they were falling at the rate of at least 6-10 per minute. And they were all colours too. Something that I had never noticed from the ground before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trader Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 I don't know why but the best place to star gaze from the cockpit is over Africa which, for some reason, on a moonless night seems darker then the Atlantic on a similar night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Hudson Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Mitch - great question - brings back all kinds of memories! The best was about 10S latitude on the way to Sydney - it was moonless with "billyuns and billyuns" of stars seen, (thank you Carl) and we had turned the cockpit lighting way down (did the same when looking for thunderstorms...), when I became aware of a very large, dull green "smudge" which "disappeared" when I looked straight at it, (the rods towards the edge of the eye's retina are more sensitive to dim light than the cones which are nearer the center of the retina). We talked about it for a while and decided it had to be the Large Magellanic Cloud - I had heard of it but seeing it for myself over the Pacific so far away from any land (it was really dark) was a magic moment I'll never forget. Here's one taken on my last flight - Northern Canada on the way to London... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon The Loon Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Great question, Mitch. Some might call it navel gazing, but hey, there's no accounting for bad taste, eh? I echo the sentiments above and have seen many amazing sights at night. But one that really stands out in my "sky gazing" library was the sight of Venus over the south Pacific from FL390, at noon hour. Where we happened to be, the local time would have been noon, i.e. sun directly overhead. But together with the intensity of Venus' reflection and our altitude, it continued to be visible. I spoke with some astronomer friends after seeing this phenomenon and they said it was extremely rare, usually only observable from high altitudes (mountain tops, telescopes...) Fireballs, giant meteors, aurora borealis and australis, comets (two), satellites including the ISS, noctilucent clouds ... all great sights and memories. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ACSideStick Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Mitch, i have an astronomy program in the PPC which lets me enter my heading, Altitude, and lat and long and the draws the sky picture in front of me for that exact time and date. It is infinitley zoomable and let's me learn star and constellation names. Years ago when we used an astrocompass, I got to know about 8 major stars, and soon forgot them when GPS came along. Now it's kind of fun to ge reaquainted with them on long all nighters (and some new ones in the southern hemisphere as well). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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