Astronomy in Hawaii under threat?

[TomK]

Light scattering? That wouldn't explain color shifts which occur in the sky throughout the day. 

There are more recent photographs taken on the dark side of the moon which show no stars in the sky.

Its the shape of the lense that gives it its properties, not the material its made of. What is the shape of the atmosphere?

1) Light scattering does explain the colors of the sky, "atmospheric lensing" does not: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hba...lusky.html

2) Who took these more recent photos from the dark side of the moon? Please give a citation.

3) As randomq pointed out, it's the refractive index of the lens material that is most important, and when you look at a star through the Earth's atmosphere, you are effectively looking through a plane slab of atmosphere, so the shape of the atmosphere plays little to no role. What the atmosphere does is shift an image of a star as you look closer to the horizon due to refraction, the light from the star has to go through more of the atmosphere so the star appears to dim and since you are looking through a greater air mass of the atmosphere, the image quality degrades due to atmospheric turbulence and temperature layers and the light you see becomes redder due to scattering. It's why sunsets give you a red sky.

PS. I should add that "atmospheric lensing" is a term some flat-earthers often invoke to explain why the sun and moon don't change their apparent size even though the flat earth model involves the sun and moon moving toward or away from the observer which would change the observed apparent size of either. Unfortunately, no one has provided any evidence for such an effect.