• @Cyclist
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    1532 months ago

    Amateur. In a dark location, on a clear night, I can see the Andromeda Galaxy, 2.3 million light years away.

    • Davel23
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      762 months ago

      Oh yeah, well I can see your mom. 2.3 million light years away. Because she’s fat.

    • teft
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      162 months ago

      Triangulum Galaxy is a smidge farther away (~2.7Mly) and also naked eye visible with the right sky conditions and good eyes.

      • comador
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        32 months ago

        Looks like a smudge until you unfocus your eyes anyway.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 months ago

        I dont think 400000 times light can travel in a year of difference is “slightly further away”

        • teft
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          12 months ago

          What’s a few hundred thousand light years between friends?

    • go $fsck yourself
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      152 months ago

      But since the sun is 93 millions miles away it’s further because the number is bigger

      • @HereIAm
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        22 months ago

        No you see some infinites are bigger than other. So light year is basically a larger infinity than millions. There’s a YouTube video about, look it up 👍

        /s (you never know these days)

    • Midnight Wolf
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      72 months ago

      Smh you say on a dark place but then you say light years. If the whole year is light then how do you expect anyone to see if it has to be dark?

      • @Cyclist
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        12 months ago

        It’s a timey-whimey thing.

    • @Akasazh
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      -32 months ago

      You’re not really seeing it, though, your seeing it’s distant past

      • @Shard
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        82 months ago

        If you’re going down that road, you’re never seeing anything in its present form because even for an object a meter in front of you, all you’re really seeing is the object as it existed nano seconds in the past. Hows is a nano second in the past different from years in the past?

      • don
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        72 months ago

        Neptune: tf are you talking about

        The Oort Cloud: lolwut

        Interstellar medium: fuck me, it’s cold

        Sagittarius A*: (chuckles softly)

        Andromeda Galaxy: tf is a sun

        Laniakea Supercluster: yo is that the Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall?? What up, homie!

        Universe: gotta go fast

        Can:

  • Lord Wiggle
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    252 months ago

    Look at the sun for a while and you won’t see anything ever anymore.

  • LustyArgonian
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    222 months ago

    Everest can be seen 200 miles away on a clear day

  • @warbond
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    212 months ago

    Where did you learn that? Is that a real thing people are taught?

      • @Dasus
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        182 months ago

        I don’t want to check miles, but it’s pretty on point with what I remember, which is the horizon being 5km away for a 180cm (~6ft) tall person. (3 miles is close enough to 5km)

        Getting even a few meters of something under you would drastically change how far you see.

        • @[email protected]
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          42 months ago

          A few extra meters wouldn’t be too drastic. From the top of Everest the horizon is about 300km away.

          • @Dasus
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            192 months ago

            1.8 meters sees ~4.8km. Standing on top of a car, on someone else’s shoulders, at say, 5 meters, would give you eight kilometers.

            Granted, not too drastic yeah. But like, if you have a tree, and climb it, and it’s, say, 15 meters. Now you can see ~14 kilometers.

            I’d say going from ~5 to ~14 by climbing a tree (or a mast of a ship) is pretty significant, but not drastic, I’d agree to that, yeah.

            I wonder how much it was an advantage at sea, really. Like the scout at the top of your mast would be able to see the enemy ship from very far, while the enemies would technically be able to see only the mast of the ship that the scout is on, making it much harder to spot. I’m sure someone’s written about it in tedious length. An upvote to anyone who finds me such texts.

            • @[email protected]
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              22 months ago

              Well, there’s a reason old ships had people high up as scouts. These days we just use radar and gps

              • @Dasus
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                32 months ago

                I mean yes, that’s obviously the purpose. I just wonder how effective it was, and would like to read about it.

              • @yetiftw
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                22 months ago

                did you just not read the last paragraph??

      • Lord Wiggle
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        32 months ago

        Depends how high you are. On a tower you can see much further.

          • Possibly linux
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            22 months ago

            It depends on the family drama. You might get pulled away before you can look

            • Lord Wiggle
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              02 months ago

              Before you can look where? It turns out the damn tower doesn’t even have windows! You can see nothing but walls and your stupid boomer mom screaming you’re a disappointment!

              (Last week I had this, just not in a windowless tower. Fucking boomers)

      • @[email protected]
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        2 months ago

        That’s just weird. The question is about the eye. And the primary “answer” they give is about the geometry of our planet.

        Edit: At least the real answer is somewhere further down in the text:

        Theoretically, in a vacuum there’s no limit to how far away your eyes could see since light rays can travel an infinite distance, McCulley says.

        • OfCourseNot
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          42 months ago

          Light emitted farther than 46 billion light years away will never reach you. While traveling an infinite distance the universe expands faster, and light emitted not that far will get so red-shifted that it won’t be visible anymore.

      • @T00l_shed
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        72 months ago

        Poe’s law would say otherwise.

  • don
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    62 months ago

    tbf, looking at the sun from three miles away would be all that you could see.

    Y’know, if it didn’t instantly turn you into plasma.