Can you see a ship in space?

[Aurora]

So...if there is a ship, or a fleet, traveling in space, could a hypothetical outside observer see you zipping by? The stars are always waaaayy in the distance, so where would the light source be for the ships to be seen?

[genji2000]

I have no idea realistically, but I guess the lights from the ships themselves could illuminate the other ships in the fleet.

[timbo]

You can see low orbit satelites with naked eye from Earth at night.

[genji2000]

You can see low orbit satelites with naked eye from Earth at night.

Yeah but we have the sun to light them up, or if they're low enough to be in shade then presumably city glow?

[TAZ-99]

So...if there is a ship, or a fleet, traveling in space, could a hypothetical outside observer see you zipping by? The stars are always waaaayy in the distance, so where would the light source be for the ships to be seen?


Well...we can see the light from those stars...so unless the fleet was jumping and say just using thrusters while passing by another ship just using thrusters...at the very least those ships would block out the stars behind them...but I think that the light traveling to the eye would create enough illumination...this assumes the ships are close enough to be seen with the naked eye since so much smaller than those stars.

And as was stated the ships are lit up too.

The blackbird had a carbon hull that absorbed the ambient light from the stars and the other ships making it invisible to the naked eye - but of course that was a tiny viper too. Much harder to do that with a big ship as it blocks out the stars behind it creating a silhouette.

:D

[Sparrow]

there is a shot just at the beggining of "Taking a break of all your worries" of the fleet in the dark.. you only see siloutes and the anticollision lights

[Captin Jenkins]

Interesting question. Like genji said I think the lights on the ships themselves would make them be seen. However, if they were to turn their lights off then I guess they would be totally invisible since it is true that in deep space there would be nothing to illuminate them. Unless the distant stars themselves would be enough? I know one distant star would not be enough but in deep space you would be able to see millions of distant stars from every direction a full 360 degrees, would all of them together be enough to illuminate or at least slightly illuminate a ship or a fleet of ships? I don't know.

[Zod]

You can see a ship if it is illuminated at close quarters, but I beleive that you cant see much else, not even stars from a distance.

There are no particles to carry the light, when you see stars at night, from Earth, it is due to the atmosphere or something like that. I wish i had listened more in physics now.

I will ask one of the physics lecturers at work and get back to you

[pagad]

I think you can see light reflecting off the hull. I'm fairly sure all of BSG's action occurs in-system and not deep space, so the ships would be illuminated by the sun, I guess.

That said I know bugger all about space physics so...

[genji2000]

The faint starlight glinted dully off the Bellerophon's hull.

[Jason525]

So...if there is a ship, or a fleet, traveling in space, could a hypothetical outside observer see you zipping by? The stars are always waaaayy in the distance, so where would the light source be for the ships to be seen?
No.

[genji2000]

No.

No?

[Jason525]

No?
No. It would need running lights like the Enterprize.

[Shadow Rider]

If you can see a planet from space, why not a ship? Both would be reflecting the light of the sun off of it?

[Wouter]

There are no particles to carry the light, when you see stars at night, from Earth, it is due to the atmosphere or something like that. I wish i had listened more in physics now.

Light doesn't need to be "carried" by anything, and in fact the atmoshpere is rather responsible for blocking some of the light (especially when cloudy, obviously), or otherwise deforming it. That's why a space telescope was launched, it can see things better from outside the atmosphere.

Light is in itself made up of a kind of particle (well, theoretical particle/wave "we"re not quite sure what it actually is" thingy), called a foton. It travels at (no surprise here) lightspeed. As long as the light is strong enough (and not too far away - some of the stars we see in the sky may not actually exist anymore, turned nova, bu their light is only reaching is now), we will see it.

I guess that at some point far enough away from a sun, you wouldn't be able to see a ship that isn't self-illuminated (or illuminated by another object capable of producing light). Presumably, BSG ships are never far away from solar systems, or actually in solar systems, so the nearby sun makes them visible.

[barnmaddo]

Light is in itself made up of a kind of particle (well, theoretical particle/wave "we"re not quite sure what it actually is" thingy), called a foton. It travels at (no surprise here) lightspeed. As long as the light is strong enough (and not too far away - some of the stars we see in the sky may not actually exist anymore, turned nova, bu their light is only reaching is now), we will see it.
Foton is actually spelled Photon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon). Otherwise very nicely said.

I think the main factor on whether the ships were visible would be what color they were painted... for example a dull black color would be very hard to see, even with lots of ambient light.

[Aurora]

I think the main factor on whether the ships were visible would be what color they were painted... for example a dull black color would be very hard to see, even with lots of ambient light.

You need light to determine color, so I don't think the paint color really matters if there is an absence of light. I think I agree with previous posts...that unless the ship has its own light source, in deep space the ship could not be seen.

[Wouter]

Paint (or natural) colour does matter, because dark objects are much harder to see. That's why people wear fluorescent vests to be visible, even in daylight, but especially when light is low (like in moonlight).

A bycicle without lights, painted in white would be much easier to see than a similar one painted in black, in the same ambient light (which could again be very important when ambient light is low to very low), for example. It won't be any different for ships in space, presumably.

[pagad]

Most shots -

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y165/Iron_Warrior/800px-Olympiccarrier2_101_1080i.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y165/Iron_Warrior/bscap211.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y165/Iron_Warrior/Mini_gal_top.jpg

seem to establish a light source (e.g. a nearby star) on one side of the ship, as opposed to, say, Star Wars and the original BSG, where ships were inexplicably lit all around, so this implies that the RTF is jumping from system to system and isn't actually in deep space, where you wouldn't see anything at all. I think it's pretty sound scientifically - I'm pretty sure light doesn't have any trouble travelling through space.

[Wouter]

Light doesn't have any trouble at all travelling through space, that we can see the stars shows this.

[NEXUX]

So...if there is a ship, or a fleet, traveling in space, could a hypothetical outside observer see you zipping by? The stars are always waaaayy in the distance, so where would the light source be for the ships to be seen?

Acordingly your technology we can reply your question.
I belive if you have highly advanced machines you can see it but if we are talking about to see from any planet by the human ( or cylon ) eye than it is up to the position of the ship and person. If those objects close to planet orbit why not....

The machines we are talking about which has ability to dedect the object and can show us the objects "beyond the light year factor" which means kind of very high technology that able to make observations beyond the light speed ; Otherwise what we see is just past time of that object.

If we are talking about low technology limited by light year speed means also we need those objects should close to any star or planet to utilise the reflection for the best observation conditions.

Or the spaceship it self should have strong light sources like mega engines or some thing.

[pagad]

Light doesn't have any trouble at all travelling through space, that we can see the stars shows this.

The thing is, in deep space, the light would be so feeble you wouldn't be able to see a bright white gas giant. Read it somewhere, so it must be true...

[Shadow Rider]

For another logical assumption, the fleet would be jumping into systems rather than the deep of space.

Firstly, I think they would want to go from system to system so they could look for resources. If you're jumping from (relatively) empty space to empty space the chances of finding any resources (water, food, tyllium, etc.) decrease to almost zero.

Secondly, I think that it would be easier to calculate jump coordinates with markers nearby. I can't exactly put it into words, but I just feel that being closer to a sun would give you more accurate calculations for where you are in the galaxy and how far away the other stars are from you.

[NEXUX]

For another logical assumption, the fleet would be jumping into systems rather than the deep of space.

Firstly, I think they would want to go from system to system so they could look for resources. If you're jumping from (relatively) empty space to empty space the chances of finding any resources (water, food, tyllium, etc.) decrease to almost zero.

Secondly, I think that it would be easier to calculate jump coordinates with markers nearby. I can't exactly put it into words, but I just feel that being closer to a sun would give you more accurate calculations for where you are in the galaxy and how far away the other stars are from you.

Do you mean on jumping to use SUN and some other objects in space as a referance points to locate exact jumping coordinates and not lost in space?

[Shadow Rider]

Basically...=P

[BSGfan-atic]

I would have to think that unless you were actually quite close to the ships, as all the shots in the show are, you would have a really hard time seeing much of anything. The running lights of ships would help a little probably, but even then, the distances in space are just so much vaster than here on Earth, that I think that even then, it would be hard to see much of anything in space, if you weren't looking in exactly the right place at the right time. As for being able to see planets from space, as Shadow Rider mentioned, we only know that it is a planet because it doesn't move in the sky like the othe stars, and we can only see it from orbit because of light from its sun being reflected from it. Ships deep into space, but not yet in inter-galactic space, would be so far away from stars that I really don't think an observer would see anything. Just some thoughts. As pagad said above "...I know bugger all about space physics..." Me, too.

[pagad]

Maybe this is why the fleet does fly so close together. I seem to remember Pegasus only being seen when Apollo's CAP flies close enough for a visual.

[Sgt Teta]

So long as you are within 3-4 solar systems distance of a sun, you will be lit up, all be it very dimly. From earth you can see an asteroid belt surrounding our solar system at about 4 "solar system lengths". If you were right next to said asteroid, it would obviously be brighter

Given that stars are the only way you can navigate in space, it would be prudent to "leap-frog" close to suns, in a long chain, to get to your destiantion.

[Sluggmeister]

NO you would not see a fleet of ships in space drifting by NO you cant sit on earth or the moon and see them fly past you. if you at all would want to see something in space you would have to have a massive lightsource like a sun or anything else that would actually toss out enough light so you could see the reflections on the ships. you could possibly distinguish the engines on ships flying past at quite a massive range. or you could mayhaps distinguish siloutees if you know were to look and when the ship blanks out a star or 2.

you have to understand that in the series the ships are illuminated so you can see them or there would be no purpose of space combat or anything to do with spacewarfare. out there in teh solar system the viper pilots wouldnt even see the raiders that were a few hundred meteres away except for the shadow quickly zipping by and removing visable objects behind them such as planetoids stars asteroids etc, the ships of such enormous sizes that they are in bsg would have to have leaway for tens or dozens of miles to manouver safely to begin with and thats quite far enough to only make out faint silloutees.

the ships dont have an internal light source strong enough to make them become visable at all just take into account how small the moon looks. the moon, the closest astral body, is 365 000 km from earth and you only see it when the sun shines dircetly onto it... now now the moon is a vastly larger object then any ship in the bsg series. so if you tossed a grain of sand into a sandstorm would you see it? now you wouldnt the vastness of solar systems and space itself would blanket such things out. by the time we travel to say jupiter in our own solar system you would see the sun as a smaller object as we see the moon and the only way to see the planets that are thousands times larger then a mighty battlestar is when they pass directly infront of the sun as shadows. and to see uranaus you wuold need to know exactly were to look and when.

[Sgt Teta]

if you at all would want to see something in space you would have to have a massive lightsource like a sun or anything else that would actually toss out enough light so you could see the reflections on the ships.

Yeah, i think we gathered this, the point is, are they sticking to their principles of Natural (read "true") science, ARE they actually close to a star? or are they using "fake" light for the series.


The ships of such enormous sizes that they are in bsg would have to have leaway for tens or dozens of miles to manouver safely to begin with and thats quite far enough to only make out faint silloutees.

Thats not quite true. The series has allready shown ships can manouvre incredibly well, remember, with no air, gravity, etc, manouvreability is just down to the size of your engines, remember, you can flip your ship end over end, but still fly in the same direction. The speeds on BSG (for capital ships) are obviously not incredibly high, or the ships would zip past each other in seconds, which dosent happen.


the ships dont have an internal light source strong enough to make them become visable at all.

I agree with that, only at ranges of a few hundred metres, would internal light sources, such as the lamps on the raptors, be able to light up other ships. Running lights however would be visible at quite a distance.

[Sluggmeister]

i agree with you to a point sgt teta. in space and moving in zero G etc you can cut alot of distance from the manouvering but in hard vaccum the propellant force that drives you one way would have to be countered the other to even make the sligthest move anywhere. and i assume or rather hope :P that they wont use the amount of energy needed to move and shift for smaller changes in fleet setup it would be far easier to just disperse the larger ships at a greater range. in any case its a sci fi series and they have most likely means never mentioned as to how things works and besides how fun wuold the series be if you ever only saw one ship and hardly that ^^

if you want to see what i mean about light etc theres a simple test we performed in astro physics. get a golfball or tennis ball or something like that. paint it black or stick it in a black sock arm yourself with a flashlight and head out to the darkest place in the neighbourhood. if you live in a big city it wont work as well but it will give a hint. since the ambient light on earth when its "pitch" black is greater then the light is in space normally this is what you do. toss the ball into the air and see how high up you can distinguish it. it wont be many metres until it completely fades and is nothing but an object do the same with a ligthsource at it. it will "zip" by quite fast for being such an innate object. now you can elaborate this and think bigger. to see a ship in space would be like trying to spot the head on a pin in a sphere the size of earth with a candle as a light source.

[pagad]

Sluggmeister, forgive me if I misunderstood, but are you saying you could see a ship within a solar system but not in deep space?

'cause that's basically what I thought the case was. I know bugger all physics, though.

[buerger23]

You can see a ship if it is illuminated at close quarters, but I beleive that you cant see much else, not even stars from a distance.

There are no particles to carry the light, when you see stars at night, from Earth, it is due to the atmosphere or something like that. I wish i had listened more in physics now.

I will ask one of the physics lecturers at work and get back to you

First of all Zod i have to say that the atmosphere has nothing to do with seeing stars or not we see stars at night cause there is little or no ambient light. The only thing you see when you are looking at stars is the light from them so you will see them anywhere especially in deep space although you are correct in saying that you would not be able to see the ships in space because you would need enough reflected light to see them so you could probably not see ships come by if there was no ambient light. You would only see the silouette of the ships covering up the stars.

[MHall]

Of course you can see a spaceship in space. The ISS is very frakking bright (sometimes) in Earth's sky. Relatively close, in space, from the right angle, and the ISS would be blinding, much like staring at a fairly distant window that is reflecting the Sun.

Usually the ships are lit from one point source, proving that there's a nearby star, e.g., You Can't Go Home Again. Sometimes they are lit from two point sources, i.e., a binary star, such as in Eye of Jupiter / Rapture. Sometimes they are lit from all around, i.e., an emission nebula or similar, as in the Passage and Crossroads.

A lot of the above was pointed out in previous posts. As for whether the fleet could be seen in deep space (not near any light source), the real question is whether a camera could image a fleet in deep space. And of course, the right camera could. Some cameras are sensitive enough to use starlight. We know that cameras are being used, because the cameraman can't seem to keep still. ;)

For example, here is an image taken at night (probably with moonlight, but still...)

http://www.affordablecctv.com/images/lowlight-cameras/shasta-dam/7.jpg

Note the stars in the sky. They claim similar results with video.

When was the fleet in deep space, not near any star? It might help to look at a specific example.