APOD: Spotty Sunrise over Brisbane (2014 Jul 11)

[APOD Robot]

Spotty Sunrise over Brisbane

Explanation: In this composite cityscape, dawn's first colors backdrop the lights along Brisbane's skyline at the southeastern corner of Queensland, Australia, planet Earth. Using a solar filter, additional exposures made every 3.5 minutes follow the winter sunrise on July 8 as planet-sized sunspots cross the visible solar disk. The sunspots mark solar active regions with convoluted magnetic fields. Even as the maximum in the solar activity cycle begins to fade, the active regions produce intense solar flares and eruptions launching coronal mass ejections (CMEs), enormous clouds of energetic particles, into our fair solar system.

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[Nitpicker]

Very nice.

[Herbert]

Very nice.

very interesting photo. please note, that the sun is rising leftbound . so it really must be in the southern hemisphere.

[owlice]

Nothing gold can stay.

Lovely, all of it; thank you, APOD!

[geckzilla]

It's odd to me to see city lights outshining the sun but I understand that's an artistic liberty.

[Chris Peterson]

It's odd to me to see city lights outshining the sun but I understand that's an artistic liberty.

That's not the term I'd use. There is only one image in the sequence that contained a view of the city, and it was taken before the Sun rose. All the images containing the Sun were made through a solar filter, so the city couldn't be seen at all.

This is a very simple composite. It would require more complex processing, and more "artistry", to create an image like this with a daylit city scene.

[geckzilla]

I don't know how to measure the degree of artistic liberty taken but that was really not the point. It's a cool picture but the lights and the sun are in conflict in my mind when I view it. I might have made the sun brighter if I'd done it. Or I might have made it bright purple...

[MarkBour]

Artistic Liberty :
http://www.travelization.net/2012/10/be ... apers.html

Image 7 is my favorite, because it shows the moon (... and a sunset ... I think).

[FloridaMike]

The angle of that sunrise is disturbing to my north centric point of view.

[Boomer12k]

Something we did not see for quite a while....Sunspots.

I used to take my small telescope, and put out a piece of paper behind the eye piece to see Sunspots.

:---[===] *

[Nitpicker]

I suppose if you want to make a composite of filtered Suns rising with an illuminated city in twilight, not in silhouette, this is what you get. Whilst it looks unnatural, it conveys more information than any more natural approach. (And it is always a bit difficult to make downtown Brisbane look pretty, but this image does, I think.) Conceptually, it is not much different from a stretched image of a nebula, where the dust has been made brighter and the stars have been made dimmer, compared with their natural appearance.

To anyone whose north-centric point of view disturbed by this image, try to think of it as a sunset.

[Chris Peterson]

I suppose if you want to make a composite of filtered Suns rising with an illuminated city in twilight, not in silhouette, this is what you get. Whilst it looks unnatural, it conveys more information than any more natural approach.

This is the most natural, because it allows the layers to simply be stacked with the lightest pixels passing through. To create an image with a daytime city would require carefully masking the city and pasting it in separately, or cutting out the Sun images and pasting them. And you'd need to fake some sort of blue sky, too.

[Nitpicker]

I suppose if you want to make a composite of filtered Suns rising with an illuminated city in twilight, not in silhouette, this is what you get. Whilst it looks unnatural, it conveys more information than any more natural approach.

This is the most natural, because it allows the layers to simply be stacked with the lightest pixels passing through. To create an image with a daytime city would require carefully masking the city and pasting it in separately, or cutting out the Sun images and pasting them. And you'd need to fake some sort of blue sky, too.

Not sure what you mean exactly, but I think we are talking about two different kinds of "natural". And I'm not sure we'd see much natural blue sky with the Sun in any of those positions. The dynamic range of the human eye would probably allow the city to look not too dissimilar to the way it does in this APOD, whilst the Sun is rising as shown. Perhaps more difficult to achieve the same range with a camera. It is only really the Suns and the sky which look artificially dim to me.

[Chris Peterson]

Not sure what you mean exactly, but I think we are talking about two different kinds of "natural". And I'm not sure we'd see much natural blue sky with the Sun in any of those positions. The dynamic range of the human eye would probably allow the city to look not too dissimilar to the way it does in this APOD, whilst the Sun is rising as shown. Perhaps more difficult to achieve the same range with a camera. It is only really the Suns and the sky which look artificially dim to me.

Well, the Sun is "properly" exposed in the sense that the final shot is just shy of having any saturation. So we see all the white light surface detail, as well as a realistic progression of relative brightness change with altitude. The sky is also natural for the cityscape- that is, we're seeing a realistic, unaltered image of the predawn city and sky.

The discordance comes from the that- the Sun in a predawn sky. But I don't know how it could be more "natural". Certainly, the scene could be composited using a postdawn city and sky, but that would be a lot more work in Photoshop, and I'm still not sure it could ever give a sense of naturalness, since with our eye we never see the Sun looking like this.

[Nitpicker]

Not sure what you mean exactly, but I think we are talking about two different kinds of "natural". And I'm not sure we'd see much natural blue sky with the Sun in any of those positions. The dynamic range of the human eye would probably allow the city to look not too dissimilar to the way it does in this APOD, whilst the Sun is rising as shown. Perhaps more difficult to achieve the same range with a camera. It is only really the Suns and the sky which look artificially dim to me.

Well, the Sun is "properly" exposed in the sense that the final shot is just shy of having any saturation. So we see all the white light surface detail, as well as a realistic progression of relative brightness change with altitude. The sky is also natural for the cityscape- that is, we're seeing a realistic, unaltered image of the predawn city and sky.

The discordance comes from the that- the Sun in a predawn sky. But I don't know how it could be more "natural". Certainly, the scene could be composited using a postdawn city and sky, but that would be a lot more work in Photoshop, and I'm still not sure it could ever give a sense of naturalness, since with our eye we never see the Sun looking like this.

My thoughts are it would be more "natural" if either the whole image was filtered, or the whole image was unfiltered -- with the city largely in silhouette, either way -- but this would have resulted in an inferior image, in my opinion. I agree that it would also be unnatural, if the city component of the image was from later in the day, with the Sun risen out of frame. Downtown Brisbane is prettier at night than in the day.

[Chris Peterson]

My thoughts are it would be more "natural" if either the whole image was filtered, or the whole image was unfiltered -- with the city largely in silhouette, either way -- but this would have resulted in an inferior image, in my opinion. I agree that it would also be unnatural, if the city component of the image was from later in the day, with the Sun risen out of frame. Downtown Brisbane is prettier at night than in the day.

If each frame were filtered using the solar filter, the sky would be completely black and there'd be no city visible at all, even in silhouette.

[Nitpicker]

My thoughts are it would be more "natural" if either the whole image was filtered, or the whole image was unfiltered -- with the city largely in silhouette, either way -- but this would have resulted in an inferior image, in my opinion. I agree that it would also be unnatural, if the city component of the image was from later in the day, with the Sun risen out of frame. Downtown Brisbane is prettier at night than in the day.

If each frame were filtered using the solar filter, the sky would be completely black and there'd be no city visible at all, even in silhouette.

Depends on the filter maybe and a few other things. My solar filter can be used to capture (poor) images like this:

http://asterisk.apod.com/download/file. ... &mode=view

From: http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=33313

[LocalColor]

I know its winter "down under" but as I sit here in a puddle of sweat, the image looks 'HOT'!



Very nice composit, like it.

[geckzilla]

Speaking of discordance, my mind doesn't want to believe that winter exists in the southern hemisphere. Australia, South America, and Africa are never, ever cold.

[Nitpicker]

It was supposed to be the coldest morning since 2008 this morning in Brisbane, at +4°C. Apparently it was even colder, but it didn't seem like it at our place. I'm in shorts and a t-shirt now at 11 am on Saturday and the winter sun is beautifully mild, with not a cloud in the sky.

Mind you, the fact that Queensland houses tend to be poorly insulated and unheated, does make winter nights a tad harsher than they need to be.

[ShaileshS]

I have been noticing since last few days, on many days, the APOD for new day doesn't seem to be getting published at 9pm Pacific time. What's causing the delay ? Why is it so erratic ? I have a habbit of checking the new image soon after 9pm my time but I have been disappointed to see old image still there .. Anyone knows the reason ? Thanks.

[geckzilla]

I have been noticing since last few days, on many days, the APOD for new day doesn't seem to be getting published at 9pm Pacific time. What's causing the delay ? Why is it so erratic ? I have a habbit of checking the new image soon after 9pm my time but I have been disappointed to see old image still there .. Anyone knows the reason ? Thanks.

See this post.
Also know that you can click the "next" link ( > ) to get to the next day's APOD when this happens.