Starship Asterisk*

The solar disk is inverted, the silhouette of the ISS is not. As such, yet another digital painting published for the eyecandy and likes factor.

Now for some original content of mine (for those skipping googling, 25 years of amateur astronomy under my belt) let the following discrepancy sink in: (a) With a fellow amateur astronomer, architect during the day (and btw APOD photographer from the olden days) I have discussions about reverse gran...

There is nothing about this image that remotely reflects the actual appearance of the event. It is synthesized from different times and different light levels in order to illustrate some aspects of the event that are not visible to the human eye. Do not attempt to analyze anything other than the ge...

The Craft Named Sunshine https://csillagtura.ro/sunshine-with-a-plane-2023-01-06/ Copyright: Pál VÁRADI NAGY While observing the Sun, I didn't even notice the plane crossing -- only that the stack got ruined. For the attached picture, I used one single ~5ms exposure of the Sun with the plane, and a...

The Black Sun I imaged the Sun in the narrow band of Calcium K. To obtain this picture, I used the photo output, of which I subtracted the median of it -- in essence, the limb and its darkening -- and the result is the brighter-than-their context regions. The differential rotation of the Sun become...

The Sun in Calcium K, photobombed by a plane. The solar disk and eruptions are a result of about 25 minutes of lucky imaging and stacking, and the plane is a single frame. The background got extrapolated, and some postprocessing went into removing the lens and filter artifacts that become visible wh...

Cross eye 3D Sun in Calcium K csillagtura.ro (will post later, for now on asztrofoto.hu) Copyright: Pál VÁRADI NAGY https://www.asztrofoto.hu/galeria/img/166/1667307727.jpg Combining the image of the Sun from early October, one day apart, shows 3 things: (1) the Sun's surface changes too quickly to...

The Sun in Calcium K shows prominences https://csillagtura.ro/solar-prominences-in-cak-2022-02-25/ Copyright: Pál VÁRADI NAGY https://csillagtura.ro/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/20220225_nap_sun_calcium_kalcium_k_vonal_line_b600_lunt_prominences_protuberanciak_2022-02-25-1049_4_lapl4_ap100_reg2_circu...

The Sun in Calcium K
https://csillagtura.ro/the-sun-in-calcium-k-2022-01-29/
Copyright: VÁRADI NAGY Pál

Jordicoy: Having seen your raw, long story short, you photoshopped yourself into controversy , even though started from an honest shot. And some of us still know one thing or two about what's real and what's photoshop, we just don't lecture people about our false claims, cause we avoid false claims....

Jordicoy: your photo, as published, is no single exposure. The caption claimed single exposure, although featuring a solar disk on top of the ground. End of story, as far as I am concerned, that's a fake, and we've been mislead, for you to obtain a work of art with more cuteness and social media cli...

Chris, I find your attitude towards reality, towards verifying claims as they are written, not by wishful interpretation, rather disappointing.

As for the just go part: reported.

I think (a rather polite form of there's the printscreen) the caption said the published image is a single exposure image. Yet it had a whole solar disk on top of the hill, just too dim to be seen without applying gamma. In my dictionary, that is pants on fire. Below, I made an honest attempt to pr...

I think (a rather polite form of there's the printscreen) the caption said the published image is a single exposure image. Yet it had a whole solar disk on top of the hill, including the part below the horizon, just too dim to be seen without applying gamma. In my dictionary, that is pants on fire. ...

So the single exposure part, as claimed in the original description, is busted. Looking into the raw now.

PS: I photographed the Sun on said date, only in Calcium K, so the spots looked familiar enough to not raise any doubts about the accuracy of the solar disk. The disk, in on its own, looks OK-ish. The way it combines with the landscape is the curious one here.

So, I compared the picture with the SOHO archive, using the SDO/HMI Continuum image series, https://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/data/Theater/ and the Sun's disk shows a fair match with the images stamped 2021-09-09T06-00-00 and 2021-09-09T07-30-00, rotated according to the horizontal view, about 70 degrees...

Since the discussion under the EPOD is public, let us share a response from the author -- already in contradiction with the single exposure claim

I got a response that the picture's been vetted. I feel like looking at and counting O'Brien's fingers or something.

Sure,

https://www.facebook.com/EarthPicUSRA/p ... 4728574137

Well, contacted the two senior editors. We'll see.

Is there a more official way to report fakes? Well, someone at APOD chose this picture and wrote the text, so contacting them might get a response. There are two possibilities: Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) There's also the original photographer - who happe...

Is there a more official way to report fakes?

Also, if you check out the little people and the tree, the light is coming from the left. ffs

Fellow amateur astronomer, Gábor HŐDÖR spent some more time with this ... work of art.



@APOD please think this through.