Recent content by Quarker

Maybe, for whatever reason, charge neutrality is so important, the universe itself is charge neutral.

Not only charge neutral atoms, but matter-antimatter particles. Charge neutrality seems to be very important to the universe. Maybe the universe is trying to tell us something.

No argument here, but this list shows that there’s a good chance the universe isn’t mathematically coherent. Maybe a hodgepodge of unrelated equations really is the most accurate description of the physically accessible universe. If so, how did such a random collection of particles emerge to...

I never said physicists are doing it wrong, just that physics seems to limit itself to the same questions.

Maybe physics just isn’t asking the right why questions.

This is a rather esoteric list. If physics can’t explain why the three quarks in a proton have, in addition to color charges, just the right electric charge to bind an electron to the nucleus, explaining these other problems is a pipe dream.

So to answer the OP, any star outside of a certain radius of the observer will emit coherent light, probably depending on the brightness and size of the star as well.

Isn’t the destructive interference that occurs in every airy disc evidence of coherence? Any half decent telescope can show an airy disc, which is just how the telescope presents the visual image of a star.

Unlikely. I’ve been observing for 50 years. I know what galaxies look like in telescopes from small to large. And the physiological response I described was distinct and unmistakable. The chance that I may have stumbled on something new is a real possibility, especially since slow telescopes...

What I saw was not a reflection. Reflections don’t look like face-on galaxies.

Possibly. My explanation as to the cause of the phasing could be wrong. I started this thread so that other amateur astronomers could look for the same effect. If someone else has a better explanation for this effect, I won’t be offended. I just want to see it again.

Good point. The shift would have to be a full wavelength.

I think that by shifting identical wavelengths of light from the galaxy source exactly one half of a wavelength, the eye perceives that light as having twice the amplitude. It’s just constructive interference. But what does increasing the amplitude look like? In this situation, it looks like...

Apparently, it doesn’t take a lot of phased light to create the effect I described. Which means that small telescopes may be sufficient to view face-on galaxies, as opposed to large, heavy and expensive telescopes. The SCT’s you refer to don’t have large enough depths of focus to see this...

I think the phasing occurs in the eyepiece. Not all light from the primary reaches the eye. Some of the light is disbursed, but a small percent of the light can be shifted a half wavelength.