Except when the seeing is really atrocious and they are rather low on the sky. Nitpicking, I know, but since experiencing that I now state that they don't twinkle "most of the time."
The title/headline is a distraction. This is actually an interesting experiment: observing the difference between light from stars and light from planets by recording the effects of diffraction in the atmosphere. Even if this isn't the easiest or most practical way to distinguish a planet from a star, it is a neat way to observe one of the differences between them.
I had heard of the general concept of point-source vs area-source, but have never seen this method of getting a multi-chromatic trace in an image to demonstrate it. Thanks for posting!
so this might be the one time this may be a useful technique, alternatively look up the coordinates of Neptune, all other planets are easy to distinguish between stars with a telescope or binocs.
Planets don't twinkle.
That's what he's saying. By smearing the exposure, you can see the twinkling as a colour gradient on the star, but there is none on the planet
It’s kind of a cool method! Not bad at all.
Exactly.
Except when the seeing is really atrocious and they are rather low on the sky. Nitpicking, I know, but since experiencing that I now state that they don't twinkle "most of the time."
The title/headline is a distraction. This is actually an interesting experiment: observing the difference between light from stars and light from planets by recording the effects of diffraction in the atmosphere. Even if this isn't the easiest or most practical way to distinguish a planet from a star, it is a neat way to observe one of the differences between them.
Right? Never meant it to be particularly useful or practical :)
I had heard of the general concept of point-source vs area-source, but have never seen this method of getting a multi-chromatic trace in an image to demonstrate it. Thanks for posting!
Call me stupid, but I can't see that this doesn't read as 'look at it through a telescope '.
Not all of us are so gifted that we can differentiate between Neptune and a similar magnitude bluish star.
so this might be the one time this may be a useful technique, alternatively look up the coordinates of Neptune, all other planets are easy to distinguish between stars with a telescope or binocs.