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A comment on 1060-hour image of the Large Magellanic Cloud captured by amateur astronomers. Parent comment

Re:1060-hour image of the Large Magellanic Cloud captured by... by newnewpdro on Monday April 15, 2019 @02:35AM (#19663524)
No, the best you can do unaided is just a general view of the Milky Way.

But if you're willing to accept some optical aids like a reflector and eye piece, a large amateur "light bucket" dobsonian telescope can unveil deep space objects to the naked eye.

I don't think it's possible to get anything like these photos though, the sensor is collecting light over a very long duration to present as a single image. The only way to get more light into your naked eye real-time is with more aperture, obviously there are practical limits there.

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Re:1060-hour image of the Large Magellanic Cloud captured by... by smueller1234 on Monday April 15, 2019 @05:23AM (#19664135)
I've seen the Magellanic Clouds with my naked eye. I worked at an observatory in rural Argentina (location because light pollution). One night, I went out to one of the telescopes for emergency maintenance. When we got back out into the dark and hadn't turned on the headlamps of the car yet, the Milky Way stretched like a band across the sky, and you could see both Magellanic Clouds as small but macroscopic objects, indeed looking like clouds.

This was among the most breathtaking things I've ever seen (the other being a particularly vivid showing of northern lights in Alaska). The southern hemisphere's sky is infinitely more exciting than the northern one.

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