by alter-ego » Tue Dec 12, 2017 7:13 am
MarkBour wrote:
...
As to the APOD photo, I tried some Google Maps viewing of the Svolvaer area, and haven't been able to figure out much about this image and which way it was aimed. The caption said "early 2014" (as in winter, I take it). The location is north of the arctic circle. The sun on the horizon, must be at least to the south. It also said this foreground is " a summit of the Austnesfjorden fjord". That just tears up everything. It makes me think the image is facing west and has been left-right reversed.
But this is an astronomy site. Does anyone recognize any constellation in this image?
Mark, I just read your question about the APOD.
Location and view angle are not only difficult to figure out, but the star fields don't jibe. I think that's partially due to projection distortion, partially due to star visibility behind the aurora, and maybe composite images don't show a contiguous sky. However, starting with Google and overlapping star chart images, I've anchored the direction by identifying a familiar constellation on the left side of the image. Above the reddish cloud, Lyra plus another dozen or so surrounding stars are visible and unmistakably identifiable. Assuming early January, 2014, and considering the relative orientation of Lyra, the view is eastward to the summit, with Lyra in roughly a NE direction and at the same altitude as the man. However, the relative brightness of Vega and other stars in the image so far off from what I expected that I was lucky to locate Lyra at all - it just popped out. Surprisingly I couldn't star-hop to any identifiable stars in the adjacent constellation, Hercules. I couldn't make any sense of the stars surrounding the summit. I've been assuming the image shows the sky at roughly the same time but possibly not. That would make identification much harder, and I did not extend my constellation search any further.
In any case, Lyra sets the direction which generally appears consistent with water and roads in Google maps, and, as you said, the pink sky sure looks like the sun below the horizon to the south. I found the summit confusing to identify and instead focused on big picture things that aren't so dependent on position.
[quote="MarkBour"]
...
As to the APOD photo, I tried some Google Maps viewing of the Svolvaer area, and haven't been able to figure out much about this image and which way it was aimed. The caption said "early 2014" (as in winter, I take it). The location is north of the arctic circle. The sun on the horizon, must be at least to the south. It also said this foreground is " a summit of the Austnesfjorden fjord". That just tears up everything. It makes me think the image is facing west and has been left-right reversed.
But this is an astronomy site. Does anyone recognize any constellation in this image?[/quote]
Mark, I just read your question about the APOD.
Location and view angle are not only difficult to figure out, but the star fields don't jibe. I think that's partially due to projection distortion, partially due to star visibility behind the aurora, and maybe composite images don't show a contiguous sky. However, starting with Google and overlapping star chart images, I've anchored the direction by identifying a familiar constellation on the left side of the image. Above the reddish cloud, Lyra plus another dozen or so surrounding stars are visible and unmistakably identifiable. Assuming early January, 2014, and considering the relative orientation of Lyra, the view is eastward to the summit, with Lyra in roughly a NE direction and at the same altitude as the man. However, the relative brightness of Vega and other stars in the image so far off from what I expected that I was lucky to locate Lyra at all - it just popped out. Surprisingly I couldn't star-hop to any identifiable stars in the adjacent constellation, Hercules. I couldn't make any sense of the stars surrounding the summit. I've been assuming the image shows the sky at roughly the same time but possibly not. That would make identification much harder, and I did not extend my constellation search any further.
In any case, Lyra sets the direction which generally appears consistent with water and roads in Google maps, and, as you said, the pink sky sure looks like the sun below the horizon to the south. I found the summit confusing to identify and instead focused on big picture things that aren't so dependent on position.