Have I discovered a new star? (star or space ship etc)?

Question

Last night I was watching stars through a sky light and noticed as I was moving my eye away from one star, it ended up getting brighter. In other words, once the star was out of my main vision and off to the blurry area of my eye sight, the star got way brighter. Have I discovered a new thing or am I getting false results through the sky light or are peoples eyes just designed like that?

Answer 1

Whatever you saw, it is highly unlikely to be a previously undiscovered star, since every star visible to the naked eye has been categorized for hundreds of years.

What you might have seen may include:
1. Aircraft
2. Artificial satellite
3. Actual star subject to atmospheric distortion.

However, what you may have "discovered" is a biological fact of the human eye. The light-sensitive rod receptors are more dense at the periphery of the retina. That means that faint objects appear brighter in you peripheral vision.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_cell

Answer 2

You have discovered averted vision. It's a common technique used by astronomy people for viewing dim objects. It you don't look directly at it but look slightly away, the light hits a more sensitive part of our eye and it looks brighter.

Answer 3

Humans have both kinds of vision sensors on their retinas - Cones and Rods. The cones allow you to see in color, but aren't good at detecting dim light; the rods are only good at differentiating between black & white, and are better for "seeing" dim lights. The cones are highly concentrated at the focal point of your eye, so if you look directly at something dim, it may not be visible at all, but if you look a little away from it, the light falls on the rods - and you "see" it clearer.

Answer 4

That's the way your eye works. The center of your vision area does a lot of work, and tends to become fatigued. The part of your eye away from the center is not used so much, so when you avert your eye from a faint object you see it better.

Answer 5

There are lots of little games on the Internet that will show you this. Look at a green dot on a white page then flip it over. Stuff like that. Our eyes are not very good scientific instruments. They can be easily fooled.
B

Answer 6

tell me more about it i also something 2 weeks back. it was a faint object moving from north to south a a steady speed its brightness didn't change though. i though it might be a satellite or something but i think satellites usually move in east-west direction.

Answer 7

the variables include the skylight, and lack of a fixed frame. the skylight sounds like the culprit (obviously), but movement - of your head - may also play a central role. sorry, no nobel for you.

Answer 8

You're not crazy, and your not human either. Your god's son.
Welcome home.