Starship Asterisk*

APGwynn wrote:The music accompanying the video amazing is the worst music I have ever heard.

Solution: mute APOD sound; click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TD_pSeNelU

The music accompanying the video amazing is the worst music I have ever heard.

@2:45-2:46 > Caspian sea, Northern Iran, Tehran (right)

@pking

Is first major city Denver?

Denver is on the far left. The big one at lower right is Dallas. This is at 00:14 on my view.

robykc wrote:Hello. Has anyone observed the three lights - between 1:40 and 1:43 - moving away ? I'd like to know what they are, if someone could tell me.Thanks!

Satellites, most likely.

Which lights are you talking about? (specify the location in the frame?) I noted a very bright region of the aurora moving from left to right over the horizon, but didn't note anything particularly strange. (I.e. it didn't seem to be moving relative to the Earth.) Ah, on closer look, there appear to be three satellites moving from left to right in the upper right quadrant of that section. Was that what you meant? Remember that this is time-lapse so they are actually moving relatively slowly if we can see them move in the video.

Hello. Has anyone observed the three lights - between 1:40 and 1:43 - moving away ? I'd like to know what they are, if someone could tell me.Thanks!

StarGrizzly, welcome to Asterisk!

Hi guys - My first post.

At 2,02 - What an amazing sight! The unique shape of Italy unexpectedly emerges with Sicily and Sardinia, and lights of Milan, where I live, can be clearly seen. You are heading East towards the Balkan peninsula.

At 2,26 - Unmistakable images of Nile and Egypt.

At 2,32 - Sinai Peninsula.

SuperStargazerScott wrote:What is that huge brown dimly-lit patch in the middle of the screen at 0:34?

The bright spots I identified with Google Maps:
0:31 :from north to south: Edmonton, Red Deer, Calgary
0:32 : from west to east in nearly one line above the brown patch: Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Swift Current, Regina and far east Winnipeg
0:33 : the dotted line directly leading to the brown patch from west to east: Highway US2: Shelby, Havre, Malta, ..., Williston, which lies on the left edge of this brown patch. The 2 bright spots right of the patch are Minot and Minot AFB.
Maybe this helps to identify what this brown patch is.

What is that huge brown dimly-lit patch in the middle of the screen at 0:34?

Wow, TNT! It's amazing that you know all that!

I wonder if anyone would appreciate me pointing out many of the clouds that appear in this video...

0:30: cirrus clouds (light can be seen through them
0:37: cumulonimbus (lightning clouds)
1:07: altocumulus (look like white spots), altocumulus undulatus (lined pattern)
1:15: cirrus, cirrocumulus (similar to altocumulus clouds, but smaller and light seen through them)
1:22: cumulonimbus
1:31: cumulus humilis, stratocumulus mid-right (have a jagged appearance), stratocumulus undulatus (lined pattern), cirrocumulus to the right, thick sheet of cirrus in center
1:45: cumulus clouds, sparse altocumulus clouds, stratocumulus, thick sheet of cirrus
1:55: stratocumulus undulatus, altocumulus
2:00: altocumulus, altocumulus undulatus
2:04: cirrostratus, cirrostratus fibratus
2:11: thick sheets of cirrus
2:15: thick cirrus
2:20: cumulonimbus
2:30: thin sheet of cirrus
2:40: thick cirrus
2:50: cirrostratus
2:54: cirrus, cumulonimbus
2:59: thick sheet of cirrus
3:01: stratocumulus, cirrus uncinus
3:06: altocumulus
3:10: altocumulus castellanus (vertical growth from altocumulus)
3:14: cirrostratus
3:18: cirrostratus, stratus (thick blanket-like cloud), cumulonimbus
3:32: altocumulus castellanus, cirrostratus
3:49: cumulonimbus
3:57: thin sheet of cirrus
4:02: altocumulus, cirrus
4:05: altostratus undulaatus
4:08: altocumulus castellanus
4:17: thick sheet of cirrus, cirrocumulus undulatus to the right
4:20: cirrostratus (ocean currents create these cloud formations)
4:25: altocumulus, altocumulus undulatus
4:31: cumulonimbus, thin sheet of cirrus
4:40: cumulonimbus

This is a really long list!

A little bit of atmospheric optics, instead of geography for my part:
Between 4:20 & 4:22, there seems to be a part of a Moon cloudbow, on the bottom right part of the image. (Orion star constellation is at the horizon, this day the Moon was somewhere in the Sagittarius at the opposite of Auriga star constellation, where the center of the bow seems to be).

At 3:02 you can see Puerto Rico, in the Caribbean Sea.

At around 2:40 in the video, Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula are the reddish land. Lighting is also visible several places in the video (blue flashes in the clouds)

This is absolutely the best site on the web. With one exception I never bother frineds and family with "links" to anything, this one site being the exception. By the way, at 0:33 that's me looking up wondering what that object is going so fast, and at 4:16 that's a guy in a wife-beater tee shirt in Louisiana looknig at the same object and calling 911 to report a UFO . . . but then again, I could be wrong.

:21-22 Toronto, Buffalo, and Rochester are the three bright spots. Ottawa and Montreal shortly thereafter.
1:15 Cali coast and then Mexico.
4:38 I believe is Ahmedabad, as you can see the India-Pakistan border go by once again. Then the Indian peninsula passes, and Sri Lanka (Colombo is the brightest spot).

at 3:29, could the orange light on the right side be Darwin in Australia?

I kind of liked the electronic music. Then again, I'm one of those young whippersnappers and I like some of these newfangled things. The most interesting part is the faux record player noise. Or it could be real record player static recorded and then mixed in with the music? I'm not sure. I do think it's interesting that in a world where perfect sound quality is possible a lot of people admire the imperfections of vinyl.

I'm thinking perhaps silence is the most appropriate soundtrack that could accompany this astonishing work and then I thought what kind of sounds could be a metaphor of what we sense as silence and wondered how a melody of humans softly breathing might work...

I like all the locales identified. I think what needs to be documented are the clouds. What kind? What altitude? How many different ones in a single view? As far as locales go, I was wondering if the lightning was always in a different location or was one location being electrified "with a vengeance." Identify clouds.

i would like to see real time of this video. a full 90 minutes long at the real time speed. that would be cool!

Can someone please confirm (with evidence) what the bright flashes are? I first thought lightening, however maybe meteors, and or reflections?

What you see at 2:02 is Italy. It's interesting to notice that Northern Italy looks like one single big town - in fact, that's where the maximum density of population is - in the Po valley - and where you find large towns like Turin, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, Padua, Venice. Then the two coasts - Adriatic and Thyrrenian - look again as a continuous settlement (the two big spots on the Thyrrenian coast are Rome and Naples), while the mountainous center (the Apennines) is darker. It's interesting to compare the quantity of light on the Italian and Croatian Adriatic coasts - the latter being darker, as the population there is less.