APOD: Home from Above (2010 Nov 15)

[Ozwald_Copperpot]

Well deduced, thanks! I couldn't enjoy the picture anymore, because I kept staring at this thing.

[owlice]

You're welcome.

[neufer]

What is she resting herself on?

This: Screen shot 2010-11-27 at 4.53.13 AM.png

That cropped from here and brightened: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cupol ... e_crop.jpg

So it's a padded cell, is it.

• <<The flight of Dr. Tracy Caldwell Dyson has ended now, a flight not only from point A to point A, but also from the fear of a recurring Lisa Marie Nowak type breakdown. Dr. Dyson has that fear no longer... though, for the moment, she is, as she has said, alone in this assurance. Happily, her conviction will not remain isolated too much longer, for happily, tangible manifestation is very often left as evidence of trespass, even from so intangible a quarter as the Twilight Zone. >>

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is a 1963 episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone, based on the short story of the same name by Richard Matheson. Richard Matheson, in The Twilight Zone Magazine, called this episode one of his favorite episodes of The Twilight Zone, praising Richard Donner's direction and William Shatner's performance, though criticizing the appearance of the monster, comparing it to a "surly teddy bear" [ Yogi ].

Bob Wilson (William Shatner) is a salesman on an airplane for the first time since his nervous breakdown six months ago. He spots a gremlin on the wing of the plane. Every time someone else looks out the window, the gremlin leaps out of view, so nobody believes Bob's seemingly outlandish claim. Bob realizes that his wife is starting to think he needs to go back to the sanitarium, but also, if nothing is done about the gremlin, it will damage the plane and cause it to crash. Bob steals a sleeping policeman's revolver, and opens the window marked "Auxiliary Exit" to shoot the gremlin, succeeding despite the fact that he is nearly blown out of the plane himself. Once the plane has landed, although he is whisked away in a straitjacket, a final shot reveals evidence of his claims: the unusual damage to the plane's engine nacelle—yet to be discovered by mechanics.

This episode was remade into a segment of the 1983 movie version of the series, with John Lithgow portraying the main character, who has been renamed John Valentine. The story is somewhat shortened, but the plot in general is the same, although with some differences. In this version, Valentine travels alone, and his fear of flight seems to be more emphasized, as the segment begins with an almost hysterical Valentine hiding in the bathroom. When he eventually spots the gremlin, he reacts more strongly than the original incarnation of the character. He yells at the flight crew and his fellow passengers on several occasions. At the end of the segment, in a scene not shown in the original 1963 TV episode, the mechanics discover the severe damage done to the plane.

The original gremlin was an ape-like creature which seemed to be driven by curiosity rather than a will to cause damage. In the movie, the gremlin more resembles an alien, with slimy beige skin and a frightful grin. It seems more intelligent and menacing, beginning to dismantle one of the jet's engines, rather than curiously roaming about as the original gremlin did. It taunts Valentine several times, holding up a piece of wing and demonstratively tossing it inside the engine to damage it. When Valentine tries to shoot the gremlin, it runs over the wing to Valentine, grabs his hand holding the gun, and promptly bites the gun in half. At that moment the lights of the landing field appear below. The gremlin grabs Valentine's face, seemingly about to kill him, but stops and the waves its finger in a dismissive "tut-tut-tut" manner. It then leaps away, off into somewhere else. The epilogue features Valentine being driven to the sanitarium by the passenger from the prologue (played by Dan Aykroyd), who is actually a demonic creature who killed his driving companion (Albert Brooks) at the beginning of the movie after asking, "Want to see something really scary?". He poses the same question to Valentine just as the film ends.>>

[b][url=http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=21901&p=135993#p135993]unusual damage[/url][/b] to Qantas's A380's [b][url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nacelle][color=#FF0000]nacelle[/color][/url][/b]

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unusual damage to Shatner's plane's [b][url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nacelle][color=#FF0000]nacelle[/color][/url][/b]

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Qantas Airways grounded its A380 super-jumbo fleet after an engine on one of the double-decker jets exploded six minutes after it took off Thursday from Singapore, shooting shards of metal through a wing and showering debris on the Indonesian island of Batam. The 2-year-old Qantas jet suffered an "uncontained engine failure," which meant that shrapnel caused by the blowout escaped the engine's protective metal nacelle, which also was heavily damaged by the blast. It also prompted aerospace experts to question whether the engine blowout was an isolated incident, or a troubling reminder that plane-makers Airbus SAS, Chicago-based Boeing Co. and their suppliers have been stretched thin by ambitious new jets like Airbus' A380 and A350 programs and Boeing's oft-delayed 787 Dreamliner.

The news provided another unwelcome blemish to Rolls-Royce's reputation for safety and first-rate engineering. Boeing largely had blamed its latest Dreamliner delay, announced in late summer, on Rolls-Royce after an engine used to power the Dreamliner exploded during testing at a manufacturing facility. "This is at a very early stage, and it would be inappropriate to draw any conclusions at this time," Rolls-Royce, a United Kingdom-based engine-maker, said in a statement. Although Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Australian aviation officials are investigating the incident, one fact was certain: that the Sydney-bound passengers on Qantas Flight 32 had survived a dangerously close call when their jet returned safely to Singapore about 70 minutes after the engine failure. Nobody was injured in the first major scare involving an A380. But amateur video of the incident, flashed around the globe via Twitter and YouTube, showed smoke trailing from one of the plane's inboard engines and punctures to the wing over the failed engine.>>

[poitrasj]

We could call this photo "Dyson with Sphere."

[Schnee]

The fact that the question was asked means that it is possible to find a correct answer. There is a lot of water and there is a chain of clouds that could correspond to Hawaii. So I am guessing this is Hawaii.

[Star*Hopper]

The fact that the question was asked means that it is possible to find a correct answer. ...

Well, I have a li'l trouble with your logic (eg, It's possible for me to ask "How many molecules are in the Great Orion Nebula?".....) but, technically, it's not only possible to find THE correct answer to this particular APOD Challenge, if one answers at all it's practically impossible to truthfully avoid doing so.

You see, the question is, verbatim: 'Can you identify which part of Earth is visible in the background?'
It doesn't ask you nor anyone to guess anything -- the question is, "Can you...?"
And the only two correct answers would be, either "Yes" or "No".

And I got it right.
~S*H
*******

[Schnee]

The fact that the question was asked means that it is possible to find a correct answer. ...

Well, I have a li'l trouble with your logic (eg, It's possible for me to ask "How many molecules are in the Great Orion Nebula?".....) but, technically, it's not only possible to find THE correct answer to this particular APOD Challenge, if one answers at all it's practically impossible to truthfully avoid doing so.

You see, the question is, verbatim: 'Can you identify which part of Earth is visible in the background?'
It doesn't ask you nor anyone to guess anything -- the question is, "Can you...?"
And the only two correct answers would be, either "Yes" or "No".

And I got it right.
~S*H
*******

I knew someone would argue about this. you are right, but I am still GUESSING the ISS is above hawaii.

[Star*Hopper]

Well of course it's above Hawaii. Hawaii's just barely above sea level.

*BIG WINK*
~S*H
*******

[NoelC]

Imagine living in a place where everyone knows to keep their fingers off the glass...

-Noel

[Schnee]

Well of course it's above Hawaii. Hawaii's just barely above sea level.

*BIG WINK*
~S*H
*******

yaaaaawn

[Star*Hopper]

*Invokes Ludlow's Prayer*

[kahalla]

I just guessed, like all others, but I found the ISS Position somehow over Mid-Northern Atlantic, looking over Greenland ( down left in the Image) and the North East Canadian Territories.
But it`s all guessing, because I can't tell Clouds from snowy Mountains at all. A funny game it is. When will we get the rigth answer?

[Deepman333]

My guess would be West Africa. Just a guess

[pfile]

just a couple of notes. thread is quite long and i dont know if this is mentioned.

1) the red dot out the window is probably just a hot pixel. i did a histogram stretch of the image, and there are hot pixels all over the image. this stands to reason - the exif data says the shutter speed was 1/1600... unfortunately the exif data does not give the ISO but it must be quite high to capture the light inside the ISS. a high ISO means lots of noise in the image, which manifests itself as hot pixels.

2) is the exif time thought to be inaccurate? if it is accurate, it seems like with the orbital elements of the ISS you can tell exactly where it was at that time, modulo whatever time zone the camera is in (but if the camera reads UTC, then no problem). or is it just that the ISS orbit is always changing and no one has the exact 2-line ephemeris for that date of the ISS?

edit: whoops, i did not realize this thread was so old! sorry for resurrecting a zombie topic!

[bystander]

edit: whoops, i did not realize this thread was so old! sorry for resurrecting a zombie topic!

You are talking about an APOD that is five months old. How current did you expect the thread to be?

No problem, though. If you have something new to add to any topic, please feel free, but, especially on old topics, please read the thread and make sure your contribution is new.

Welcome aboard the Starship Asterisk*

[pfile]

i followed a link to the APOD and just did not notice the date. part of the exif data in the image was set to the download date (today) which added to the confusion.

anyway thanks for the welcome and sorry...