Starship Asterisk*

In the attached image, I took a flashlight and a scanner with two clear windows, much like a 2-pane window, and shined a flashlight through it and took a picture in the same orientation as the sun, window, and camera in the picture. What you will notice is the the reflected images go to the RIGHT, ...

Chris, they do match quite well. I tried lining them up using Photoshop but there's plenty of distortions and places where I'm not sure whether I'm seeing a part of the reflection or a cloud behind it so I didn't post it. I then tried outlining what I knew were clouds, what I thought were clouds, wh...

The clouds are impossible to outline. Not only due to the nature of clouds not having hard outlines but also because the sun's brightness and the camera's exposure obscures them beyond the point where one could determine the location of the clouds within a reasonable degree of accuracy. The color a...

Much as I agree that the more common cause of such an effect would be the multiple window panes, I am firmly on the side of atmospheric refraction in this case. As pointed out by some previous writers, the clouds interrupt the second and third images in a pattern consistent with interposition betwe...

drss123 wrote:... and the cloud pattern is different than it appears in the primary image of the sun. ...

Can you see the entire cloud pattern in front of the sun?

I'm still convinced that it's window panes. The confusion with the clouds I think is happening because there are also some tangents with the clouds that make it appear as though the sun's reflections are happening behind them instead of at the window pane. This may have also tricked the photographer...

The reflections are behind the clouds because the original sun is behind the clouds. I wouldn't call it an obvious flaw in the window pane idea at all. It's impossible to see the form of the clouds which are in front of the original sun because it's so bright to the camera that the original shapes g...

I set out to find some more examples of triple sunsets taken by others. I used Google to translate this from Italian into crudely formed English. I was in coach, the sun was perpendicular to the glass and the reflection has come true. Potevo esimermi da scattare ? Anche qui avevo il polarizzatore e ...

You don't have to hit something solid to make an impact, nor does size matter. im·pact (ĭm'păkt') n. 1. The striking of one body against another; collision. 2. The force or impetus transmitted by a collision. 3. The effect or impression of one thing on another: still gauging the impact of automation...

I like to use Stellarium to help find things. As long as you set your position up accurately enough you can turn it on, key in what you are searching for and it will center on it. Then you just look in that direction in the real sky and find it. It's a lot easier than a static sky map for me. And mo...

It was actually a complete coincidence as I remembered a post I made in that thread, hit the ego search to find the thread and see if anyone ever replied to it since I never checked up on it and then saw your post. It's true though, having a Chinese fiance, I will never get away from tea, teacups, t...

You forgot one. What's up with you and that teapot, anyhow?

Super saturating every colored bit of an image is actually the opposite of dynamic range, however. That's why I dislike it. If one's photo is to have high dynamic range, it ought to be not only in tonal value but also in hue as well. To pump the colors up too far is similar to doing a cheap contrast...

HDR photography seems to also mean you are supposed to super-saturate your photos and also be sure to include those weird fuzzy light and dark gradients when coming towards an edge to increase clarity but take it so far that it looks unnatural and kinda messed up. Thankfully, the APOD pic doesn't do...

Yeah, I thought it would be fun to turn it around and work the conspiracy theorists into those dastardly NASA scientists' plans of increasing their publicity for free by deliberately throwing in a few things to give any nut something to work with. Genius!

The Sun is shining onto Earth from above, but onto the Moon from the left. Obviously, this picture is a clumsy fake. I have seen other pictures from the Apollo missions with a similar problem. Maybe that's why some people say the Moon landings never happened. I have a science experiment for you. Wa...

I was surprised to see Jupiter there at all considering there is a cloud in front of it. The optics in the photo confuse me.

I really don't like the bottom half of the pic. It needs to be a lot less saturated and have some actual atmosphere on the horizon. That and the person's shadow is way, way too sharp... it should be incredibly diffuse given the broad, diffuse glow of the milky way. It's not like there's a moon there...

Congrats guys, you totally smashed the old thread's record number of pages. Here are some statistics I have made up on the content of this thread for your amusement: Semantical arguments: 11% Wry or sardonic remarks: 15% The word "consensus": 4% Links to or quoting of "references"...

I almost think today's APOD has nothing to do with global warming and everything to do with a devious little experiment to see if we can attain a thread with a new highest reply count.

I figured the donut was actually something on the lens and not a shadow at all.

It's this: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050612.html

I always wondered if neufer participates in conversations in real life the same way he does here by opening encyclopedias and reading them aloud or grabbing an old term paper and reciting an excerpt from it rather than just...you know, talking. Heh.

Is it just me or is the tracker nearly impossible to read? Even in places of moderate population it's very difficult to tell what the individual dots indicate. The dots are too large.

We don't even know that there is a cure for cancer or what else we may discover in space. I'm all for keeping both areas funded. Heh.