Strange streak discussion: 2004 Dec 7 APOD

[victorengel]

I've made that fake image for two reasons:

I think I missed your fake. Can you post another link to it or give the page number that it's on?

Most people were not considering it and I do not agree with that because it's so easy doing it.

I think most people are not considering a fake because they've chosen to try to find an explanation assuming it is not a fake. That is not discounting that it could be a fake, by the way. In my opinion, the fake theory is less likely than the bug theory for reasons already mentioned.

In this image, which I consider the best one until now:
Was the focus set to infinity?

In the original post, it was mentioned where the focus was set -- on th giraffe, which was the closest the photographer could get to infinity -- 5 meters or so, if I recall correctly.

seems not but can't tell for sure, it depends on the lens used.
Also you can see the flash in the giraffe so it wasn't far from the camera.

There is a specular reflection for sure, but judging by the color, the reflection is from incandescent light, not the camera flash.

In general. Everyone is talking about 1/20 shutter speed. The standart speed for pictures with flash is 1/60 (that's why the old manual SLR's usually have that number in red) and that's because anything faster than that will not catch the flash and anything slower would be burned.

No. There is a sync speed on cameras. This is the FASTEST shutter speed that will work with the flash. Anything slower will also work and expose the same amount of flash. Longer exposures will expose more by the ambient light. It could burn out the picture, but only if there were sufficient light. The pictures we're discussing were taken near sunset on an overcast day. It's entirely reasonable for 1/20 second to be appropriate for the situation.

Also when I look at Pryde's picture I see something like f5.8 - 1/120 or something like that. To use 1/20 you'd have to be somewhere between f11 and f16 but that's not a normal setup. Not to mention that to take a picture at 1/20 he had to use a tripod. Did he used a tripod?

I can't believe you have to even ask the tripod question. There are three pictures taken 15 seconds apart that line up perfectly. That would be impossible to do without a tripod. The chances of Mr. Pryde not having used a tripod are near zero. But what difference does this make?

I've taken many pictures and some in places with many bugs and I never catched a single one that wasn't on purpose.

That you know of.... Even if you haven't captured any accidentally, what difference does that make?

[Guest]

As for a hoax, the simplest place to begin would be to examine the other
35 photos. This would at the very least eliminate the ommission hoax: that is, that there are other similar, unambiguous images that would
clearly show that the streak/flash to be an insect.

Of course, Mr. Pryde has not provided them, or any other information,
for that matter, other than the basics in his original account wherein
he claims to have photographed a meteorite hitting the lamp post.

Given the intense, world-wide interest in this, that is remarkable in itself.
And now apparently it will be two weeks hence (away on holiday) until
Mr. Pryde, suppossedly, will answer some e-mail questions. That works
out to 40+ more pages of discussion; flailing away in the dark.

Until Mr. Pryde is more candid, it is just an interesting photo, and no
conclusions can be drawn from it.

[Luis]

the "strange_pryde_big.jpg" available from the APOD site can be grouped with the before and after pictures in cloudbait.com but the "strange_pryde_big.jpg" in cloudbait was last changed 2004:12:21...

Good point MrMoon, but the APOD pictures were posted on the 7/12/04. If cloudbait changed anything to it, the date is 21/12/04, which is 2 weeks later, and has nothing to do with the image we are discussing! We are talking about the one in APOD.

We know the file names were changed, so we know the date of change will be different than the creation date. So, although, true that the file could have been modified and the image doctored, there is little to go with this information. It does not add any new info, it could have been altered or it could have not... Which we already knew.

Still, it is a good point...

Disclaimer: The above lines are my personal opinion and anybody is welcome to disagree.[/quote]

[Luis]

Of course, Mr. Pryde has not provided them, or any other information,
for that matter, other than the basics in his original account wherein
he claims to have photographed a meteorite hitting the lamp post.

Given the intense, world-wide interest in this, that is remarkable in itself.
And now apparently it will be two weeks hence (away on holiday) until
Mr. Pryde, suppossedly, will answer some e-mail questions. That works
out to 40+ more pages of discussion; flailing away in the dark.

Until Mr. Pryde is more candid, it is just an interesting photo, and no
conclusions can be drawn from it.

Maybe Mr Pryde doesn't really care about it anymore. Maybe he honestly thought it was a meteorite and that is why he said so. Since then, his theory has been dismissed and the most likely explanation people has come up with is that it is a flying bug in front of his camera...

I can see him loosing interest in the whole thing and just going back to his photographs of clouds, Christmas holidays, family life, and more exciting things than a bunch of looneys like us discussing his picture over and over again.

Disclaimer: The above lines are my personal opinion and anybody is welcome to disagree.

[Luis]

Now that the discussion is so exciting, could anybody suggest a link or two to look for more exciting things to look in the sky? I just bought my first telescope (Newtonian f=114mm) and I would like to get the best out of it. Any suggestions?

[Crystallize]

Obviously it has a carbon based element since it can "burn"
and leave a smoke trail.

How ever, it's to small to be considered as a manned "UFO" as such,
not in my opinion anyway.

But it could be debris from some old rocket, satellite or other "space junk" as they are called, unfortunately it's probably "nothing"

[Guest]

Good point. And happy hunting with your new Newtonian 114mm!

[HawaiiArmo]

Luis has been sticking closer to common sense than most of his detractors.

Well, I am not sure you can say something like that. I've finally read thru a lot of these posts (some are very funny) and I'm thinking that 1) you really cannot say that Luis is sticking closer to common sense. That is an opinion (yours) only. 2) Luis seemed quite set in setting out 'prove' his theory while disregarding other possibly valid ones.

Everybody is entitled to his/her opinions. As a scientist (good or bad one, I leave it to everybody's judgment) I do not have 'my theory' I only try to prove wrong the theories available. So far I have not tried to prove the bug theory right, I have done all I could to prove it wrong, failing miserably (You can call this attitude common sense or arrogance, that is beyond the scope of the discussion, and also your personal opinion, which I fully respect). All other theories have been proven very unlikely or wrong, at least to me, again this is my opinion and it is fully questionable.

My training is in Physics and Optics, and I have spent many years designing and building optical instruments. I can with a good degree of confidence make the maths and numerical simulations to convince myself that the bug theory is very likely and plausible.

With my Physics and Optics, I am unable to do the maths and image processing required to prove the hoax theory wrong.

There are two plausible theories still standing ground, the hoax and the bug. We are unable to prove the bug theory wrong. Despite many efforts to do it, by many people. The hoax theory, experts like yourself have proven it is possible to make a similar picture with photoshop. This is equivalent to the picture of the bee in the bicycle wheel. It does not prove it right, but together with all the other work, trying to disprove it, it makes it very plausible.

With the hoax theory, the production of a hoax, shows it is possible. GOOD!. Now what tests can we apply to the image to show that it is not a hoax. Assume it is one, and try to prove it is not. How do you do that?

Despite all of the personal attacks, and emotional chit-chat, still not a single post has addressed the question. How can we seriously analyse if the image is or not a hoax. I do not know and there is a question asking for a possible action plan. All I got out of it is trolling (some of it well deserved of course )

Any way, who is going to tell how to go on with testing the hoax theory. It is proven it can be a hoax. Good, that is not enough to prove it is a hoax.

I've addressed the question many times before. We should try to test for the possibilities, but there is no way to be definative whether it's a hoax or not. The photograph could be faked to produce an even better image then the initial one posted, but that's not the arguement. We can try to analyze it, and see if we can spot photoshop editing, or whatever was possibly done to leave a trail that would definatively prove the hoax. However, ultimately, there may be no simple answer. I think a good test would be to analyze the picture that was posted as a hoax, and try to compare it to the initial photograph. A side-to-side comparison would be very beneficial. Yet, the initial question would still remain, perhaps the photo was hoaxed in a different way, or an extremely sophisticated software was used, and thus, the hoaxed photograph would not be a fair comparison to the possibility that the original was hoaxed. Short of an intense interrogation of the photographer, there may never be true consensus, but science doesn't need consensus. As for the arguement that all of this is pointless because we can never be sure whether the photo was hoaxed or not (and thus, we must start at an initial assumption that's incorrect), that should not stop hypothesizing at the theoretical possibilities (such as a bug crossing the plane of the photographic field). Just because quantum gravity does not well fit with quantum mechanics, doesnt' mean we have to abandom quantum mechanics. Many times, when physicists apply the rules of quantum mechanics to analyze the quantum world, they realize they may start from a not fully formulated theory, but since the theory explains many of their variables quite well, they're not going to abandon it. One day, maybe a better theory will come along (such as the M-theory of superstrings), but phycisists would still apply the same quantum equations to describe phenomenon.

[Lou:]

The dark line is not so strange to me, I have seen many in the past four years while watching contrail's / Chemtrail's being made.

Some are projected in front of the aircraft as it fly's along while others are visible paralling the contrail's / Chemtrail's that the aircraft has created.

Far better photos than NASA offers of the anomalous black line mystery can be found on many Chemtrail web sites and they are nothing new !

[wombat]

You say your telescope is f=114, but I suspect it's actually D=114 (114 mm diameter mirror in a tube about a meter long - is that right???)

To get the "best" out of it, I would suggest two things.
1. Find out where there's an amateur astronomy group meeting in your town/city. Take your telescope to that meeting and listen to all the opinions.

2. Find out where there's a good dark spot not too far where you live, go and spend a couple of hours there one night. Now is not the time to do this, because it's full moon, you'll need to wait a week or so. So

2a. Go outside tonite and observe the full moon. You might want to get a map of the moon first (plenty to download from the net).

3. Get yourself a star atlas and a red LED torch (flashlight).

As to what to look at, since this is your first scope, try the big and bright things. Start with the Orion Nebula (Centre star in the Handle of the Saucepan). If you're in the Southern Hemisphere, look at the Magellanic Clouds.

That should keep you busy for quite a while.

[wombat]

Also, over the next two weeks or so, you might find it rewarding to follow Comet Macholtz across the sky. You may need help here; I'm sure that there'll be plenty of that here.

[Can't use my Bad Buoy]

...Comet Macholtz...help; I'm sure that there'll be plenty of that here.

There is a post in the NSL education forum which links to a map of this event.

[Luis]

You say your telescope is f=114, but I suspect it's actually D=114 (114 mm diameter mirror in a tube about a meter long - is that right???)

Yes, you are absolutely right, it is f=1m, and D=114.

Thanks for the tips. I will try.

About Orion, I'm used to see it as a guy with a belt and a sword, cannot figure out what you mean by the handle of the saucepan. Would that be the belt?

Thanks again
Luis

[George]

[quote="Anonymous"]
"And now apparently it will be two weeks hence (away on holiday) until
Mr. Pryde, suppossedly, will answer some e-mail questions. That works
out to 40+ more pages of discussion; flailing away in the dark."

Meanwhile APOD shortlists a plausible solution and keeps the discussion open. It still looks to me like a sociological experiment.

[wombat]

I'm still obsessing about identifying this insect. My knowledge of flying insects is more or less limited to what I wash off the front of my car, which leads me to the famous gag about what's the last thing that goes through a bug's head when it hits the windscreen of your car......

I understand the comments that have been made that we have nowhere near enough info to derive genus and species, but I'm still hopeful that we can get some idea of what category it might have been; and what category it definitely isn't.

This leads me to have a shot at the shape of the wings - or at least, the shape of the reflections of the flash off the wings. The reflections look quite complex, and I thought that that might give some clues. A few thoughts have occurred here, always a scary experience.

The easiest thing to say is that the complex appearance is due to warping of the insect wings under load, so that they are non-planar, and hence give unusual reflections. I see a parallel in this argument to the hoax theory, in that you could probably take almost any arbitrary wing shape, bend it into something reasonable according to wingbeat phase, flight load, etc; then orient the insect, camera, and flash so as to get exactly what we see here. So whilst this may be ultimately true, it seems unhelpful. Or is it?

The second thing that occurs to me is that maybe this insect, like the dragonfly that flew into my bathroom a few minutes ago thereby stimulating this thought, has two pairs of wings. Can anyone see the reflection of two pairs of wings here? Can anyone say for sure that it does not have two pairs of wings?

I'm also guesssing that this is certainly not a beetle; because if it were, we would have seen the shadow of its wing covers (is that the right word?) against the sky.

[Leyshon]

This is a particle beam weapon....."Star Wars".
I suspect the photographer an employee of the NSA.

What a perfect way to let our enimies know....."Look what we've got fellas !".
How else do we let them know....e-mail ?

A perfect demostration.

Set up an photographer with a camera with a highly precise timing device. Pick a small target in a remote location.....zap the target with a couple thousand watts of particle beam energy and get it on photograph.
A photograph that is then deseminated worldwide on the internet....including a NASA site just to make sure they (*cough*china) see it.

Look, everytime somebody develops a new weapons system, don't they always demostrate it ?

[Luis]

A perfect demostration.

For the ultimate weapon system. One that produces no damage whatsoever! The perfect pacifist weapon. I wish all governments would buy it immediately. It could save many lives in case of war! Maybe Bush and cronies should start looking into using it in middle east.

[victorengel]

This leads me to have a shot at the shape of the wings - or at least, the shape of the reflections of the flash off the wings. The reflections look quite complex, and I thought that that might give some clues. A few thoughts have occurred here, always a scary experience.

The easiest thing to say is that the complex appearance is due to warping of the insect wings under load, so that they are non-planar, and hence give unusual reflections. I see a parallel in this argument to the hoax theory, in that you could probably take almost any arbitrary wing shape, bend it into something reasonable according to wingbeat phase, flight load, etc; then orient the insect, camera, and flash so as to get exactly what we see here. So whilst this may be ultimately true, it seems unhelpful. Or is it?

At the risk of sounding redundant, I will point out again that the camera's strobe fires not at an instant in time but over a segment of time, so the image of the wings must be taken to include some fraction of a whole phase of the flapping pattern -- and integral over time, if you will.

[Guest]

You say your telescope is f=114, but I suspect it's actually D=114 (114 mm diameter mirror in a tube about a meter long - is that right???)

Yes, you are absolutely right, it is f=1m, and D=114.

Thanks for the tips. I will try.

About Orion, I'm used to see it as a guy with a belt and a sword, cannot figure out what you mean by the handle of the saucepan. Would that be the belt?

Thanks again
Luis

If you live in the southern hemisphere, you will see the saucepan as up. The handle is the sword of orion where M43 and M42 are part of. I would suggest taking some time into looking into M42, it is one of the best nebula you can see. The bottom of the saucepan is the 3 stars which are in a row, orion's belt. However in northen hemisphere this is all upside down, so you'll the handle going down and the bottom of the saucepan is at the top.

Remember to always try and protect your night vision while you're observing. Use a red LED light as Luis said, and don't look into any bright lights as these will immediately destroy your night vision.

skyglow1

[Leyshon]

Good point Luis.
But perhaps they were demostrating the targeting ability, not the power capabilities.

I would imagine the targeting more difficult technically anyway then power.

Actually I've been hearing for years astronomers talking about how ground based telescopes now have the ability to compensate for atmospheric distortion in their observations.
I think this technology came directly from the Star Wars research.
Atmospheric distortion was one of the major hurdles preventing space based "beam" weapons from targeting earthly targets.

Looks like our guys have solved that problem.

No suprise here, as I've faith that it's mankinds destiny to eventually solve all problem our minds can imagine.


And Bush comment is irrelevent.

[Luis]

Good point Luis.

Actually I've been hearing for years astronomers talking about how ground based telescopes now have the ability to compensate for atmospheric distortion in their observations.

Yep, the technique is called adaptive optics. But I would correct you and say that *some* ground based telescopes now have the ability to compensate for atmospheric distortion.

There are several issues to address still (apart from the monumental cost of the equipment cost). One of them and where most of the fun is at the moment is that of correcting the aberrations introudced by the atmosphere in a wider field. You may want to google multiconjugate adaptive optics, artificial guide star, and of course the Keck telescope which has provided some of the most exciting results of AO.

I think this technology came directly from the Star Wars research.
Atmospheric distortion was one of the major hurdles preventing space based "beam" weapons from targeting earthly targets.

True, but the efforts where more into spying on spy satellites. Ground based telescopes are used to look at spy satellites to find out what those satellites are spying on. Atmospheric turbulence is the main problem, and that is what really kicked AO into being used in telescopes.

Looks like our guys have solved that problem.

Good for you down there! I hope the technology moves to other more constructive fields in the near future.

See for instance
http://www.cvs.rochester.edu/williamslab/

No suprise here, as I've faith that it's mankinds destiny to eventually solve all problem our minds can imagine.

That reminds me of the machine that by iterating all letters of the alphabet could eventually write everything that has ever been written.

And Bush comment is irrelevent.

Completely irrelevant, true. But still what I wish.

[Luis]

Completely irrelevant, true. But still what I wish.

And what I mean by this, is:

I wish the weapons used by armies were like this *beacon* with no destructive power at all, but with the power to get people talking to find an agreement and spare lives and suffering to everyone.

Nothing else.

[Engineer in Canada]

The streak in the distance I believe has nothing to do with the lamp pole and its light. The distant shadow might be explained by a string of clouds due to a ship beyond the visible horizon, that has moved do to higher winds or shifted because of the reflection of the sun and is visible no more. It might be a misile test, or a jet, or a any aviation divice, but these would leave a think trail of smoke for a long period of time. The streak disapears in the distant landscape and doesn't reach the lamp pole. The "magnified" amount of light originated from the lamp pole, since it is on, as can be observed more closely refering to the light ploes on the left side of the picture, as the sun is setting the dock lights up. The light is refracted by smoke originating from under the the pole, probably a exhaust fumes from a boat under the pole, the light is thus refracted due to the smoke and looks like it might be sparks which is impossible because sparks don't have a patern to the, they fly all over the place, and nothing is being ejected under or to the left of the pole, it looks pretty homogenious with a heavier light concentration at the light and a more disperse still homogenious above the light bulb of the pole. If the bulb didin't work when it was checked, well a simple explaination to that is possible, the brighter light was cause by the light bulb just giving its last breath before dying. The light bulb would have blew up due to a high current load, for a example if you flick a switch on and off very fast, the light bulb will blow up and a flash will come from it. might be from a loose filamment. That is where the flash came from cause even more light to be refracted due to the smoke, the fact that the streak in the distance seems to hit the light pole is purely luck from where the camera took the picture. This is my theory.
Best Regards
Shafic

[Engineer in Canada]

The streak in the distance I believe has nothing to do with the lamp pole and its light. The distant shadow might be explained by a string of clouds due to a ship beyond the visible horizon, that has moved do to higher winds or shifted because of the reflection of the sun and is visible no more. It might be a misile test, or a jet, or a any aviation divice, but these would leave a think trail of smoke for a long period of time. The streak disapears in the distant landscape and doesn't reach the lamp pole. The "magnified" amount of light originated from the lamp pole, since it is on, as can be observed more closely refering to the light ploes on the left side of the picture, as the sun is setting the dock lights up. The light is refracted by smoke originating from under the the pole, probably a exhaust fumes from a boat under the pole, the light is thus refracted due to the smoke and looks like it might be sparks which is impossible because sparks don't have a patern to the, they fly all over the place, and nothing is being ejected under or to the left of the pole, it looks pretty homogenious with a heavier light concentration at the light and a more disperse still homogenious above the light bulb of the pole. If the bulb didin't work when it was checked, well a simple explaination to that is possible, the brighter light was cause by the light bulb just giving its last breath before dying. The light bulb would have blew up due to a high current load, for a example if you flick a switch on and off very fast, the light bulb will blow up and a flash will come from it. might be from a loose filamment. That is where the flash came from cause even more light to be refracted due to the smoke, the fact that the streak in the distance seems to hit the light pole is purely luck from where the camera took the picture. This is my theory.
Best Regards
Shafic

[wombat]

Victor, whilst I accept your comment that

the camera's strobe fires not at an instant in time but over a segment of time

, to paraphrase you, so what? I can't see how a simple integration/blurring would give the complex wing pattern that we have.

As has been discussed, most of the light from an electronic flash is discharged over a millisecond or so. Even at 200Hz, the top end of the wingbeat frequencies discussed in this forum, 1ms would not give a lot of blur.

Finally, since our view of the insect is apparently mainly head/tail on (rather than side on), I would expect that the amount of flash blur would be more or less directly proportional to distance from the body - a fan shape, if you will. I don't see that.

So I think my question still stands.