How would you calculate the distance between the spacecraft and the galaxy they're looking at in this picture?

How would you calculate the distance between the spacecraft and the galaxy they're looking at in this picture?

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you can't

talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/distance.html

Wouldn't you have to first know how big the galaxy is?

Yup

you could get a really wide estimate by picking out individual stars and assuming they're the size of an average white star

First, it has to be REAL
then you use your hyperspace measuring tape or have your R2 unit do it for you, silly
;P

You need some assumptions first, like distance camera to persons and their height in order to determine viewing angle. Then you can assume size of galaxy is similar to ours and then by ratios you can determine distance.

tan(viewing angle/2)=(radius of galaxy)/(distance)

estimate local viewing angle of the galaxy
get radius of most common spiral galaxies
calculate distance

Distance between luke and C3P0

Angle from viewpoint between luke and c3p0

Distance from viewpoint to luke

Guesstimate of width of galaxy from known averages

then do the trig

Thanks guys
I've been thinking about intergalactic space and wondering if any human will ever witness a sight as in the picture

You can't work out the vewing angle if you don't know what kind of lens the camera has.

There is no camera, there are people. Be one of them and estimate your field of view.
Angular size of 60° and Milky Way type galaxy yields a distance of 170 light years.

>Giant windows on a space ship

who said it is a window, senpai? Maybe it is just a screen displaying the feed from an external camera mounted on the outside of their nebulon-b frigate?

>galaxy is 100,000 ly across
>can see whole thing from 170 ly away
gg Veeky Forums

are owls birbs?

>Wouldn't you have to first know how big the galaxy is?
Leia's about 5'4". You can see the galaxy is about wide as she is tall.

If it was far away, it would have to be big for all of it to be visible, but as we can see, it's quite small, at under 6' in diameter.

Therefore, we can conclude it's in the room with them.

>who said it is a window, senpai?

>Luke and Leia admire their new big-screen TV with their faithful slaves before conceiving Rey.jpg

How can I see with my eyes to calculate that distance between the spacecraft and the galaxy if our eyes aren't real?

Of course we aren't birds you neet we are the Jews of the Afroaves Clad animal kingdom who plot every weekend at the dead of night to undermine your species progress.

You think it was by chance shit like the plague and ebola descended on you bastards through rats and bats?

The stars in the sky belong to us you naked monkey men.

Its not a galaxy. Get your black ass over to wookiepedia

why are there more stars in the background?

>galaxy

Maybe you can make an estimate taking the average galaxy size or something. Maybe measure the center in relation to the rest of the galaxy and look up how big such a galaxy usually is.

>estimate your field of view
>60 degrees

????????????????????????????

confabulate or calculate
no diffi cult

Amazing how helpless people can make themselves.

>You can't work out the vewing angle if you don't know what kind of lens the camera has.
You are joking, right?

Please tell me you are no Veeky Forumsentist.

Field of view != Viewing angle

helpless

You need to compare two perspectives. Shift the spacecraft an A.U. or two to the left or right and see how much the galaxy appears to move, relative to the "fixed" background stars (which are so far away that they won't appear to move at all until you move a lot further).

Parallax, betch.

Those aren't stars.

Then what is it?

You don't. Star Wars is high fantasy set in space.

If you assume the central object is a galaxy, the "stars" in the distance are actually distant galaxies, so far away that they appear to be a single point of light.

You could also argue that the central object is a galaxy, but the characters are inside a distant star cluster on the outer edges of the galaxy, or perhaps inside an orbiting dwarf galaxy like the Clouds of Magellan in real life.

Additionally you could argue that the central object is not a galaxy but newly formed star with a protoplanetary disk.

Personally I think the first is more likely because I don't think the film makers put that much thought into it, as Star Wars is more fantasy than sci-fi. Plus the rebel fleet was in hiding at that point in the story, so it makes sense that they would be way out as far from the galaxy as they could get.
Ultimately there's no point thinking about it. Unless you can find a statement from the artist or director saying it's supposed to be X, we'll never know for sure.

star wars is for children

with a golf course distance reader

this user gets it

pretty sure its supposed to be a star forming or some shit. NOT a galaxy.

I'm sorry, but the geometry of this scene is not a cube conveniently aligned with the camera.

>Personally I think the first is more likely because I don't think the film makers put that much thought into it, as Star Wars is more fantasy than sci-fi.

The most correct answer.

>yfw you are now aware that the "galaxy" in Star Wars wasn't a majestic spiral, but a shitty little irregular Magellenic Cloud-type orbiting one, and Luke, Leia and the bots are all like, "You ever wonder who's in the big-ass galaxy next door? Maybe we should ask them for help!"