I see thousands of stars in the night sky but less than a hundred are reflected on swimming pool surface ???

Answer 1

The surface of the water is asorbing some of the light.

Refraction is the change in direction of a wave due to a change in its speed. This is most commonly seen when a wave passes from one medium to another. In optics, refraction occurs when light waves travel from a medium with a given refractive index to a medium with another. At the boundary between the media, the wave's phase velocity is altered, it changes direction, and its wavelength increases or decreases but its frequency remains constant. For example, a light ray will refract as it enters and leaves glass; understanding of this concept led to the invention of lenses and the refracting telescope.

If you were above the earths atmosphere you would see many more stars. but the earts atmosphere filters out some of the colours, and you just get a few wave lengths on the ground.

Reflection is the change in direction of a wave front at an interface between two dissimilar media so that the wave front returns into the medium from which it originated. Common examples include the reflection of light from the stars on your pool.

A mirror provides the most common model for specular light reflection and consists of a glass sheet in front of a metallic coating where the reflection actually occurs. Reflection is enhanced in metals by suppression of wave propagation beyond their skin depths. It is also possible for reflection to occur from the surface of transparent media, such as water or glass.

In fact, reflection of your starlight may occur whenever that light travels from a medium of a given refractive index into a medium with a different refractive index. On your pool surface, a certain fraction of the light is reflected from the surface, and the remainder is refracted.

Solving Maxwell's equations for a light ray striking a boundary allows the derivation of the Fresnel equations, which can be used to predict how much of the light is reflected, and how much is refracted in a given situation.

The brighter stars are thus bounced back to your eye, the dimmer ones are too feint to see once they have lost some energy being reflected in the pool's surface.

Answer 2

Our eyes can span more than 1908 Degrees view while the surface of swiming pools perhaps cn up to 90 Degrees

Answer 3

Water absorbs 90% of light energy and reflects only 10% back up. Those you see are only those bright enough to be visable after their light is reduced to 10%.

Answer 4

Water surface is not a perfect mirror. It absorbs a great deal of light.

Answer 5

wow, that is cause your pool isn't the size of the sky