Beer and NELM

The Slide

When I first deigned to do some astronomy lecturing, I put together a talk on how to optimize observing - how to take steps to insure that what was seen was the most that could be seen.

In the course of putting this together, I conducted an experiment. An experiment which would go down famous in the annals of amateur astronomy, to be remembered by all who heard my talk. An experiment inspired by the immortal words of one of the most respected and well known observers in the world (who shall remain anonymous until he steps forward):

I'm not surprised that impaired health affects limiting magnitude; the smokers and beer drinkers at TSP are obviously not getting the most out of the sky.

In the end, no-one would remember my lecture. No-one would heed my advice. But all would remember... The Beer Slide!

Then, somehow, the beer slide was lost. It was one day not in my trusty slide tray. And when I got the capability of scanning slides, I could not put the Beer Slide on my website.

Now, in 2002, five years after first giving the talk of which it was a part, The Beer Slide has been found! Er, that is to say, a very poor copy of the beer slide has been found. Extremely poor, in fact. So poor as to be almost disgusting. Well, you take what you can get.

The Experiment

The experiment was elegant, simple, and repeatable by you and your friends (if over 21). I and three others drove out to the dark sky site. All four of us observed for a couple hours just to kill some time and gain some dark adaptation. I and two others started drinking beer. One of us, the designated driver, did not partake. Every few minutes, we would record our naked-eye limiting magnitudes.

Would beer affect our ability to see faint objects? For that, you need to see

The Results

The slide is unfortunately in extremely poor shape. Consider yourself lucky if you can read it at all.

The Beer Slide

The chart records the plummeting naked-eye limiting magnitudes that each of us recorded over the course of approximately two hours. Beer consumption is indicated in ounces. The magnitude of the faintest visible star is indicated on the left.

I (Jeff Medkeff) am the black line that plummets early - I am a small person and the alcohol apparently affected me first. My two drinking companions are purple and yellow; yellow was the largest of us by a fair margin. Light blue is our designated driver, who enjoyed a very fine night. The rest of us were totally convinced at some point during our second can that the night was going to pot.