I don’t think this is a new question. Haven’t we seen this one before?
Not that I remember, and not that I can find. By the way, it’s a Staff Report, not one of Cecil’s columns.
Whoops, it is a staff reply. I had searched the old columns and couldn’t find it, but I really quite sure that I’ve read a question very similar to that one with a reply from Cecil that was also very similar. Especially the part about being able to see the sun. Maybe I’m just having major deja vu.
Well, the question is in a roundabout way related to a Straight Dope colum, so I guess I’ll leave it here.
I don’t remember any Straight Dope column relating to the subject, but of course I don’t have a photographic memory.
I seem to remember there being a Straight Dope column about how far humans can see, but the search engine doesn’t return any columns containing the word “Andromeda”, which would surely be mentioned in such a column (M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, is the most distant object visible to the naked eye). I suspect that this is a glitch with the search engine, though, so I’ll try again later.
Oops, never mind…