Re: Stars in orbit.

In article <Xns97C1D5D1DDE6kensuhotmailcom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Chris Schumacher
says...

I was just rewatching the first episode of Star Cops, and noticed the scene
where the crewman is murdered during his EVA. Instead of the usual
starfield, there's just pitch black...well, space.

I know the whole bit about fast-action cameras not being able to record
stars, but surely someone in Earth orbit would be able to see the stars if
they had the Earth to their back, right?
Am I wrong here?


If they had their back to the Earth, *and* no sunlit objects in their
field of view. It's not just cameras; the human eye has the same bug,
well, actually, feature, of being able to adjust its sensitivity and
see things as faint as stars when not required to see things as bright
as sunshine. And it's not just "the Earth", any nearby object bathed
in sunlight (say, a fellow astronaut), will be bright enough to force
eyes and cameras into their "OK, forget the dull stuff, we're looking
at something really bright here" mode.

Any plausible starscape seen from orbit, or the surface of the Moon or
whatnot, is going to have to be *only* a starscape. Or, perhaps, a
starscape plus the dull, shadowy forms of an eclipsed spaceship, lunar
nightscape, whatever. The latter is kind of boring, not the sort of
thing directors and cinematographers are going to go for unless they
are after a specific effect. The former, is going to look just like
a starscape seen from Earth, with few cues to indicate that it is
actually set in outer space.

A scene of an astronaut looking at the stars, is rather difficult to
plausibly arrange.


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