Disappearing Stars Optical Illusion

Whoa! Not only did I miss the second hidden face in our previous illusion, but was shocked today when I saw how many of you made a comment to point it out to me. As of this moment “Undershirt Illusion” has passed 300 comments, and all of this in less than 24 hours. By the way, thank you for showing me the other masculine face I missed. Neither me, nor my little brother managed to spot it at first. For today we have something different. The little animation below pictures a moon and 6 stars surrounding it, somewhere in a midnight hour. There is also a dotted circular layer moving in the background. If you manage to stay perfectly still, and concentrate your eyes on the moon (not moving your head), you’ll experience the disappearance of the yellowish stars. How many of them did you make disappear? I just remembered (after finishing this article), that we had a very simmilar illusion before.

125 Replies to “Disappearing Stars Optical Illusion”

  1. Five disappearing was the best I managed, but usually 2-3. Very weird – it seems completely random which ones disappear, and when they do disappear, it’s very hard not to move your eyes to where it was.

  2. I have seen this one before, and I was told that the point was that the stars where supposed to just twinkle not permanently disappear.

  3. nice =) everyone disappeared for a second! funny thing is, that earlier today i saw illusion like this for first time, and now i see it again ;)

    btw. i saw it at here.

  4. That is so weird! the 3 on the right disappeared first, then came back, then just one on the right disappeared :]

  5. I found that the illusion works best when viewed about 12 inches from the screen. Closer and my eyes had difficulty focussing, further and the stars never come close to disappearing. Hope this helps =0) BTW, all stars came close to disappearing at 12 inches.

  6. it’s because the black stars will hide beyond the blue spots surrounding the yellow stars.
    this make your brain think the blue spot is moving, and so hiding the yellow star.

  7. I’m sorry to say that this one actually didn’t work for me, no matter what distance away from the screen I sat. I sometimes have problems like this, though; I’m near-sighted in one eye and far-sighted in the other, so sometimes I can’t see things like this. I also can’t see “3D” movies. I’ve got no depth perception issues with the real world, but whatever mechanism these kind of things work on just doesn’t process for me.

  8. i usally saw about 2 or 3 dissapear, but there was this 1 time where i got all 6 to dissapear, but then i moved and they came back

  9. good illusion, works as you keep you eyes totally still while doing it. As a result of doing this the same area on the retina is constantly stimulated or “bleached”. This means that the cells cannot restimulate and so the brain stops seeing them. The moving dots are not necessary for this but will make it happen quicker. It is best view at about 20-30cm due to the angle subtended on the retina!

    hope that sheds some “light” on the matter! :D

    (im an optometrist so I know about these sorta things before you ask how!)

  10. well i got 1, then 2, then 1 again, then all WOO and then i blinked… lol if you just stare wide eyed at the moon you’ll get them all to go away

  11. I got the stars disappearing two or three at a time but if I let my eyes go into the ‘3d picture mode’ ie slightly crossed eyes, I got two groups of stars and moons joined by two stars in the centre. The black dots were moving behind just the same. If I then stared at this, stars and moons disappeared but not all at once. Very strange.

  12. That one kinda hurt my eyes :( I couldnt get it to work either. I’ll try again once my eyes get back to normal

  13. I couldnt get them to disappera completly… only fade, and then promptly had to look away… made me dizzy, and sick.

  14. that was really out there man, didnt think it would work but it did it was sooo awesome, hey is it just me or did the moon look like a bannanna

  15. 1 star at first, when I made fullscreen then zoom (F11, then Ctrl+mousewheel) I could make dissapear evrything but half a star.
    I felt like when seeing a stereogram.
    Thanks.

    1. OMG i made all of them go away but its really hard to not move your eyes when ur trying to count them!

  16. Try this when you are laying out under the stars. Pick a star and stare at it. Soon the rest will all disappear. Discovered this when I was a child – thought I was going blind. It is actually the process of physiological nystagmus (tiny eye tremors) that prevents our vision from going blank (adapting) on a regular basis. Good thing for rush hour traffic.

  17. Actually, the stars disappear by opponent process theory. The eye collects the different light colors however, as the cells that alert the brain that the color yellow is apparent, the cells slowly stop firing from being overworked. The afterimage then, is a blue background. That’s why the stars disappear. Todd’s comment about nystagmus and why the eyes will not adapt is true but then the yellow stars would never disappear because the stimuli would continually be collected.

  18. I couldn’t get any of them to disappear but I did manage to get the star to seperate from the black dots like a magic eye picture. The black dots looked as though they were at the bottom of a can, while the stars and moon were on a plain with the lid…

  19. Hello,
    And, again, no matter how long I look at the picture (the moon, without moving my head), no star is disapearing. Do I really hav a eye problem ?

  20. i managed 2 make 4 disapere, that is so amasing!!! if u havent notised by now thets a fake name and email adress

  21. That’s strange – the highest star have disappeard, and then it was going like a wall clock! next on the right have disappeard, then third, but first retourned! No fourth – here is seckond. No fifth – here’s the third one!

  22. … none disapeared after looking at the moon for 4 minutes… now my eyes hurt and i have an odd after image im my eyes

  23. but my star was disappeared 4 a whole night n appeared again in d morn
    it is on d east side but still doesn’t change its position

  24. That’s a WOW!!
    And another effect that it also becomes a bit 3D if you stare it for at least 2 minutes.
    The stars seems to be blinking and while it blinks out, they’re just like coming out from my monitor, with the moon following the stars to be 3D.

  25. That is pretty neat, I don’t understand how they seem to disapear thou. And it makes me dizzy to stare for too long, lol Love your site by the way .

  26. A.D.H.D… I tend to focus more on the moving dots rather than the moon but I was able to make the stars disappear…

  27. Very cool! :D The stars started to blink for me. They faded and slowly disappeared and then appeared again, awesome

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *