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• Seeing stars
• Posted: 2008-02-01 08:31:18 By Mateo G
• I am 23 years old, and I was diagnosed with RP when I was 12. My RP was inherited from my mother, and along with other conditions, it has caused very rapid deterioration of my eyesight. One thing that has always bothered me is that I have never been able to see the stars; I can see some bright ones, but when my friends see a sky full of stars, I maybe see three or four. Does anyone else experience this? I can't even remember the last time I could see the stars; I must have been very young.

• Re: Seeing stars
• Posted: 2008-02-01 12:06:44 By Clemente W
• jejeje my story is pretty much the same. When I was young i think i could see stars, at least i remember seeing Venus and Mars (i know they are planets ¬¬)but now i see none of them. The funniest thing here is that i almost studied astronomie XD
  Well I think that the saying "you want what you can't have" is true. Another wierd expirience that i had with stars is that once when i was like 11 years i was at a scout camping, the older ones started to make fire malabarism, theowing fire from the mouth and all that kind of stuff. Well the thing is that when they finished sudenly i was seeing, i was seeing at night, and as i was in the country i could see all the stars in the sky. It was atonishing to be able from one moment to another to be able to see the milky way. There was so much light in a night full of stars that the things proyected shadows, i had no idea that the things proyected shadows at night, it was gorjous. But at the night after was the same thing ever, not seeing a thing xD.

• Re: Seeing stars
• Posted: 2008-02-01 13:09:27 By Darran Z
• Yes, seeing stars is difficult for many with RP. The reason is is that the stimuli to the rods need to be extremely high for us to see something. The average stimuli for a normal rod is 300mV to 550mV. People with RP, are down to 30mV or less. That is a huge differene. That explains why we see some very bright stars and do ont see the others.
  
  Darran

• Re: Re: Seeing stars
• Posted: 2008-02-01 13:25:04 By Brad R
• Mateo
  I am new to this site and postings, but not RP. One thing I have done that has helped me see stars, and it all depends on how your vision is now, is to have someone with a telescope configure it so all you have to do is look into the telescope and see the stars. With my RP, I have lost a lot of my peripheral vision and maintain some central vision, so at times I am able to see stars. Just throwing it out there. :)
  
  Brad

• Re: Seeing stars
• Posted: 2008-02-12 19:23:35 By Lynette D
• I am also 23. I can see the brighter stars. I have mild astigmatism so I wondered if that was the reason I couldn't see stars. I almost considered paying for glasses to correct my vision from 20/30 to 20/20 just in case that might help. I have hesitated though since I think that even with correction, the night blindness is probably the real reason I can't see them! It's always a little awkward when my friends say, "Oh look! There's the big dipper!" I've started just to go along with it because I don't like to explain that I can't see it. (This happens with other things than stars sometimes.)