Quote:
Originally posted by VanderL@Nov 14 2004, 05:29 PM
Really? Why is that, why not the surface brightness of, say, Jupiter?
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I'm having this same discussion here in the EU thread and in the BB Refuted thread. Basically, it is as I noted above. If the stellar density was so thick as to block light going through the galaxy, you'd need to have so many stars that no matter where you looked, you'd be seeing the surface of some star. Hence it would be as bright as the sun. Actually, it'd probably be a little dimmer and redder than that, but not by a lot.
Just as a further note, even IF it the quasar had a star directly between us and it, we'd see the quasar, because its light would be microlensed around the intervening star.
As to how bright the quasar needs to be to shine through? It's practically a point source of light. If you're telescope can resolve enough detail, it doesn't need to be extraordinary in brightness. Basically it should look like what we're seeing.