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From: rrd@fc.hp.com (Ray Depew)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.folklore.urban,sci.astro
Subject: Re: Why is the sky blue?
Date: 28 Oct 1996 23:38:30 GMT

About seeing stars in daylight from the bottom of a well, long tube, etc.:

The last time this came up on alt.folklore.urban (and it was crossposted then, too), it was revealed as a joke. A Boy Scout Joke, no less. A good old-fashioned Boy Scout Summer Camp Joke, right up there with left-handed smoke shifters and snipe hunts.

In late afternoon, when everybody's feeling too tired to climb mountains or carve neckerchief slides but dinner's still an hour or two away, some of the older Scouts start talking about working on their Astronomy merit badge. One of them says he's going to go identify some constellations, and everybody waits for a tenderfoot to say "You can't see stars in the daytime!"

When the know-it-all tenderfoot finally says that, one of the older Scouts sides with the tenderfoot and challenges the stargazer to prove that it can be done.

Meanwhile, one of the other older Scouts says "I'm thirsty" and gets himself a big glass of water. He sips quietly, and watches the proceedings with interest.

So the stargazer takes a long tube, like a mailing tube or a fly-rod case, and a compass, and figures out an imaginary bearing on some constellation or star that is not visible in the summer -- Orion, for instance -- just to make it plausible. He then orients the tube just so, and invites the older skeptic to "take a look." The guy looks, is suitably impressed, and says so. Other Scouts take turns looking through the tube, and are also amazed that it works.

Finally the know-it-all Tenderfoot lets his curiosity overcome his better judgement. He swallows his pride and asks if he might take a look. The daylight astronomer obliges. The tenderfoot squats, peers through the tube -- "you have to wait for your eyes to adjust," he is advised -- and the aforementioned thirsty Scout pours the glass of water down the tube.