Can't you see the stars when you fly at night?

I can't see the stars from my seat when I fly at night. This is actually misinformation. You can actually see the stars, and there are ways to see them more clearly. Then why is there such a misinformation? Of course, many people who fly at night feel this way, and there will be such misinformation. There are three main reasons for this feeling:

1, atmospheric background light (sky glow).

There are many tiny suspended particles in our near-earth atmosphere, such as dust. At night, these particles will reflect the illumination light on the earth at night and produce bright atmospheric background light. When the plane flies in the stratosphere, the bright near-earth atmosphere will make a large area of high-brightness atmospheric background light appear in people's field of vision, and it is more difficult for human eyes to see the stars under the action of atmospheric background light.

This means that if you fly at night and there is a busy city below, it will be more difficult to see the stars. Actually this phenomenon is called? Skylight You can often observe this phenomenon in China today, that is, the whole sky looks bright red or yellow at night (Figure 2).

2. Ambient lights in the engine room.

When flying over the Mongolian grassland at night, it is easier to see the stars because there is no interference from the atmospheric background light, but if the lights in the cabin are on at this time, it is unlikely to see the stars, because the glass window of the plane has not been treated with anti-reflection, which will reflect the light in the cabin and interfere with the human eyes, so it is difficult for us to see the stars outside through the window of the plane.

3, the thickness of the plane window.

The easiest way to see the stars is to turn off all the lights in the cabin when flying over the Mongolian grassland at night. However, because the plane window is double-glazed, and each layer is very thick, if you look directly out of the window, the chance of seeing the stars immediately is also very low. However, at this time, you can see the beautiful starry sky outside the window in a small way:

Cover your head and airplane windows with clothes or other hoods and let your eyes adapt to this light environment for a few minutes. At this time, you can see the starry sky similar to the one below.

The following picture shows astrophotographer Alessandro Melgar on a Boeing 747 from new york to England? 400, he named it "the Milky Way on a 747 plane over the Atlantic Ocean". Alessandro Merga wrapped a blanket around the lens and the plane window to prevent the mirror from reflecting light.