Something to keep you awake at night!

[pdplot]

I haven't seen more than a few stars in years. Last time was years ago on Captiva Island in Florida. Even on the clearest night, light pollution here in the East ruins the night sky - no Milky Way that I used to see when I was a kid. Just the planet Venus, maybe Mars or Mercury, a few of the major stars and that's it. Todays kids will never get to see the universe as it really is.

 

[Boink]

Mercury is tough from anywhere. Here's a shot I took (with a simple camera) of Venus and Mercury. Mercury almost had to be pointed out to be found. Normally, the sun is just too bright (and close).

 

[Trevor Triumph]

We were in Flagstaff, AZ a few years ago at the Lowell Observatory. There is a small plaque near the building that represents the sun. A few feet away another that is Mercury, then Venus and maybe Earth. Turns out Pluto according to the scale there is just east of Los Angeles. Bill Bryson, is a book, sort of a history of everything suggests the if one could scale atoms to solar system, the space between the electrons, the parts of atoms spinning around, I think, would be as great as the distance between the planets.

 

[Boink]

Yes, the distances are really staggering, even for the planets.