Erm... I feel like I am the rain and ya'll are the parade

But... (it didn't hit me until falconius said that he thought the magnitude of the night sky would be higher.)

Okay, the difference between total magnitude and apparent magnitude is that "total" is how bright it really is, and "apparent" is how bright we can see.

Cool. No big deal, we got this.

So, picture a star as a candle, or a torch or flashlight, or... whatever.

And over the whole space of the sky there's a billion stars, and over the country there's a billion candles/torches/flashlights.

All spread out, with maybe one big (moon) searchlight in the middle of the country, we see, from our airplane, a soft glow over the countryside. Pretty!

And in the sky we see lots of bright twinkling lights.

But.

That is "apparent" magnitude.


According to Wikipedia, -6.5 is "The total integrated magnitude of the night sky as seen from Earth."
We're talking about TOTAL magnitude.

So that's all those stars and the reflected light of all those planets, and that big ole' moon all squashed into one space. All those lights and candles and torches all set on top of one building with that searchlight right dead in the center.

That's all those lights magnified.

That's hella bright. Like... blinding bright. But it says "as seen from earth" which (in the example of candles on a building would be "as seen from our plane") which is still hella bright, but not blinding. It *is* like daytime at night, though.


Which is cool... it could work into a great plot.

It would cause, I presume, a polar/alaskan sort of effect, where half the year there would *be* no night. Maybe a very slight dimming, but no night.

That's fine by me, if that's what you want, but that is what it would be like... Daytime facing one sun, nighttime facing another, till we got to the opposite side of the orbit and had night again. And during the "daytime at night" phase, the moon(s) and star(s) would be visible sometimes, just as they are here on earth... during the day.

And that would affect everything, tbh. The type of plants that could grow, the way they grow, nocturnal creatures would probably be migratory, if they existed at all, or they would be underground creatures. Sleep patterns, tides, and winds would be affected, there'd be no "cooling" nights, etc...

Could be interesting but it wouldn't be subtle at all.