APOD: A Triple Sunrise Over Gdansk Bay (2009 Aug 04)

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by kamoses » Wed Aug 05, 2009 6:58 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
Naos wrote:The fact is that the direction of multiple images seen through a pair of glass plates it completely independent of the orientation of those plates with respect to the source and observer. It depends only on the orientation of the two plates with respect to each other. If they are parallel, there will effectively be no displacement of images (or rather, a single displacement that manifests as a slight fuzziness of the edges). If they are not parallel, the displacement of the images will be in the direction that the plates converge. In practice, with typical double glazed panes, the direction of displacement will vary as you look through different areas of the glass- something that is completely consistent with the images presented. Since the camera was handheld, each shot was through a slightly different region of the window, and as a result each shows a slightly different relationship between the reflected images.
First off, it most certainly DOES depend on the orientation of the plates, unless of course there is no distance between the plates. The farther the distance between the plates, the farther the distance between the plates, the greater the effect. 2 pained windows are usually about 1/2" gap, so there is definitely an effect. Don't believe me? Grab a flashlight and find a 2 pained window. Orient the window between you and the flashlight one way, then try the other. Make sure the part of the window you are viewing the flashlight through is the same spot. I'll be anything the reflections will be on the other side. If it were strictly the angle between plates that mattered, the reflection positions would not change at all. Naos, I'd bet if you could run that simulation with the initial line going down, the lines would all shoot out the other way.

In addition, if the window panes were not perfectly parallel, and local flaws in the window were causing the reflections, in all likelyhood each picture would have a completely different reflection exhibited. One might have them going left, another right, another up, another down... but they're all in the same direction, simply with differing distances.

Windows act like half mirrors. When light hits it, it goes one of two ways: straight through, or reflects at an angle such that a line perpendicular to the window will bisect the angle between the incoming light, and light leaving. If the incoming angle is 45 deg to the window, it will bounce off at 45 deg in the other direction. If the light comes in almost parallel to the window, it will reflect almost parallel to the window. at a 90 degree angle, the light will bounce right back from where it came.

That all being said, I reiterate, the only two possibilities for the window causing the reflections is 1) the window goes close left to far right, or 2) there is an incredibly large angle difference between the two panes, though I believe it would be so large that it would constitute two separate windows, and there would be so much distortion you probably wouldn't see through the window.

I think green1 was on to something with his little picture montage on page 6. Maybe there was some sort of of heat gradient over the bay caused by cold water in the bay that when the sun came up slowly disapated due to the suns radiation? If the lake caused the temperature differences, it could have cause a sort of dome shaped boundary layer over the bay, which might account for the slight curve in the propagation of reflections. If that were true, the reflections would also happen between the suns reflection on the horizon and the viewer, and could account for all effects that a 2 pained window would cause (clouds reflecting in each instance, the horizon reflection, etc).

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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by geckzilla » Wed Aug 05, 2009 7:02 pm

I think I'm going on hiatus from this forum again.
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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by Chris Peterson » Wed Aug 05, 2009 7:06 pm

green1 wrote:
Chris Peterson: Although it is pretty obvious that this isn't an atmospheric phenomenon, it is quite certain that it can't be a refractive one at all. wrote:
Chris, you are forgetting that ALL the images in the photo are refracted images. The primary image is refracted (yes, dissipated) through the "lens" of the earth's atmosphere. Otherwise it would not be possible to view or photograph without protection (Safe Sun? :lol: ) So it is not a stretch to believe that there could be more than one angle of refraction.
Of course, since the light is traveling through different densities of air there is a small amount of refraction. That's what causes the small amount of distortion in the shape of the image (mostly vertical distortion, of course). But the amount of refraction is small, and it certainly has nothing to do with the ability to view or photograph the Sun without protection. That is the result of absorption and scatter of the light by the atmosphere attenuating the Sun.

The effect of refraction through a variable, gradated index medium (which describes the atmosphere) is to change the angle of the rays, not to discretely separate them into two bundles. An inversion layer (which by definition is horizontal) can create a blind zone, or sometimes a reflection, appearing to separate the Sun or Moon into two or three segments- always highly distorted. Nobody has remotely proposed a viable atmospheric phenomenon that could produce two horizontally displaced, undistorted images of the Sun, complete with matching cloud patterns and matching mirage components.
Chris

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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by Chris Peterson » Wed Aug 05, 2009 7:11 pm

kamoses wrote:That all being said, I reiterate, the only two possibilities for the window causing the reflections is 1) the window goes close left to far right, or 2) there is an incredibly large angle difference between the two panes, though I believe it would be so large that it would constitute two separate windows, and there would be so much distortion you probably wouldn't see through the window.
You are completely mistaken. If you are unable or unwilling to do the math, you can simply do an experiment as previously suggested.

Two parallel sheets of glass do not produce any ghost images, regardless of the angle the source is viewed from. If they are in the slightest out of parallel, the ghost images will in the direction the plates converge- again, regardless of the angle the source is viewed from. Minnaert also describes this in some detail in his book (previously referenced). He also describes how you can use the distance between the ghost images to determine the amount the glass panes are out of parallel- in this case, a fraction of a degree only.
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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by polymath » Wed Aug 05, 2009 7:40 pm

Four prisms arranged into a rectangle with each pair in symetrical orientation. [\][\] light direction^. A polarized pinpoint light source projected perpendicular into the beam splitting pair splits the beam into two beams. The second pair directs the perpendicular split beam back onto the direction of the original beam. The superior image passes directly through the first pair. The secondary image is the other. A third increasingly inferior image results from placing another four prisms in front of the secondary beam. Doubled birefringence. In the case of the picture at issue, water droplets and/or ice crystals in the distant stratocumulus cloud deck serve as the prisms. Degradation of intensity is a consequent of imperfect prismatic lensing. Increasingly red shifted light in the inferior images is a consequent of wavelength.

Edit: Or trirefringence occurs as a result of a triple pair of prisms; tertiary beam, secondary beam, primary beam, [\][\][\]^ light direction.

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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by Naos » Wed Aug 05, 2009 8:07 pm

Naos, I'd bet if you could run that simulation with the initial line going down, the lines would all shoot out the other way.
This case is already represented in the other drawing (if you rotate it 180 deg around the initial ray).

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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by GliderPilot » Wed Aug 05, 2009 8:11 pm

kamoses wrote: the only two possibilities for the window causing the reflections is 1) the window goes close left to far right, or 2) there is an incredibly large angle difference between the two panes, though I believe it would be so large that it would constitute two separate windows, and there would be so much distortion you probably wouldn't see through the window.
Chris Peterson wrote: You are completely mistaken. If you are unable or unwilling to do the math, you can simply do an experiment as previously suggested.

Two parallel sheets of glass do not produce any ghost images, regardless of the angle the source is viewed from. If they are in the slightest out of parallel, the ghost images will in the direction the plates converge- again, regardless of the angle the source is viewed from. Minnaert also describes this in some detail in his book (previously referenced). He also describes how you can use the distance between the ghost images to determine the amount the glass panes are out of parallel- in this case, a fraction of a degree only.
I haven't decided yet whether I believe the double pane window explanation, but let me comment on this:
"Two parallel sheets of glass do not produce any ghost images, regardless of the angle the source is viewed from."
This is almost, but not quite true. The two sheets produce a second image that is not offset from the first. The second image is produced by rays that pass through a different portion of the second sheet of glass than the rays that made the primary image. Those rays have also traveled farther. I agree, however, that there is no offset image. Whether you want to call the second perfectly overlapping image a "ghost" is semantics.

Second, let me comment on this:
"there is an incredibly large angle difference between the two panes"
and this:
"you can use the distance between the ghost images to determine the amount the glass panes are out of parallel- in this case, a fraction of a degree only."

The sun's diameter subtends an angle of about 1/2 degree. I estimate the largest separation between the sun's primary image and the secondary image in any of the photos is a bit more than 1 degree (2+ sun diameters.) That gives us a bit more than a half degree difference between the two panes. Whether you want to call that "an incredibly large angle difference between the two panes" depends on your viewpoint. If this is a window (and it looks to me like it is) then it's a picture window. If it's a meter wide, a half degree+ means a distance variation between the panes of about a centimeter. In my opinion, a misalignment of that much is very unlikely. I also discount the likelihood of local thickness variations or constant thickness-but-wavy variations in the window comparable to a half degree. I've dealt with enough optics to know that either of these would produce an unacceptably distorted picture window.

My main problem with the double pane explanation is that the separation varies as the sun rises. This implies that the angular difference of the window panes varies significantly. I assume it can't vary over time, so it must have to vary over the width or height of the window. This is the type of difference that is easy to spot. All you have to do is move your head. I have to give some credit to the person who spotted this phenomenon, and I think they would easily have noticed that the multiple suns moved closer or farther apart as they moved their head/or the camera around to look through different parts of the window.

On balance, I slightly lean toward an atmospheric phenomenon resulting from a horizontal temperature differential, but I'm interested in the comments of those who disagree.

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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by Chris Peterson » Wed Aug 05, 2009 8:26 pm

Naos wrote:
Naos, I'd bet if you could run that simulation with the initial line going down, the lines would all shoot out the other way.
This case is already represented in the other drawing (if you rotate it 180 deg around the initial ray).
And here it is experimentally:

Image

The top section shows an overview: an LED in the background, two sheets of glass in the foreground, separated by coins (U.S. nickels). The clamp holding the two pieces of glass together also makes them converge very slightly to the left side. In the overview image, the double pane is tilted about 45° counterclockwise- that is, the left side of the pane is much closer to the camera than the right side. Note also that while the glass itself is out of focus, the reflected images are not.

The lower images show the LED reflections up close. The lower right is with the glass rotated counterclockwise (as in the overview image); the lower left shows the reflections with the glass rotated clockwise. In both cases we're looking through at about 45°, all that changes is whether we're looking from the left or the right. Note that the position of the secondary reflections does not change. The position of neither the source or the camera was changed between the two images.

This experiment also reveals the smearing/ghosting from internal reflections within the individual panes of glass- something that is equally evident in the APOD images.
Chris

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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by Naos » Wed Aug 05, 2009 8:31 pm

Just an idea (I am not pretending to be the case here :mrgreen: ) :
what if the window suffer from constraints like atmospheric pressure or thermal dilatation ?

I explain :

- atmospheric pressure can vary a little, but the gap inside the double glazing window is a hermetic cavity, thus the two pieces of glass could bend to concave or convex shape depending on pressure difference inside/oustide the cavity. this could create large zone on the window with tilt angle. Is anyone capable to calculate the deformation of a piece of glass under pressure ?

- differential thermal dilatation between glass and the mounting of the glass could also create such a deformation. Interesting point is that the rising sun (illuminating the scene) can cause an increase of the temperature of the window thus changing the thermal constraint and so the tilt angle and ghost deviation.
My main problem with the double pane explanation is that the separation varies as the sun rises
Maybe I should go to sleep :lol:

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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by green1 » Wed Aug 05, 2009 8:55 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:This experiment also reveals the smearing/ghosting from internal reflections within the individual panes of glass- something that is equally evident in the APOD images.
Chris, your experiment shows exactly what i was trying to prove yesterday. The overlapping ghost images are brighter where they overlap, they do not look "stacked" as the contested photo images do. I still think the effect was caused by natural causes beyond the horizon.

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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by kamoses » Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:00 pm

In these two pictures I shined a flashlight on the inside of a standard two pane window. Using the simulation from Naos, I assumed that it would produce the same results as if I were to open the window and shine the flashlight through (I'm lazy...sue me). You can see that in the picture where the window is angled away to the right, the reflected image is to the left. Given, the first two are simply the primary reflections of the flashlight from the inner and outer pane, but the 3rd is the secondary image. The window angled the other way produces images to the right. Same window, same pane angle, different reflection directions.

On the flip side, I did a few other experiments with picture frames as geckzilla suggested, and the effects were more than I had anticipated. However, based on the lack of distortion and the assumption that these are not horrible quality windows that are built with very large manufacturing tolerances, the angle difference between panes should be minimal.
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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by Chris Peterson » Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:01 pm

Naos wrote:- atmospheric pressure can vary a little, but the gap inside the double glazing window is a hermetic cavity, thus the two pieces of glass could bend to concave or convex shape depending on pressure difference inside/oustide the cavity. this could create large zone on the window with tilt angle. Is anyone capable to calculate the deformation of a piece of glass under pressure ?
It could, although you don't need anything more than just normal variations in the surface flatness of float glass. In the experiment I did, the coins were 1.9 mm thick. All I had to do in order to reverse the direction of the reflections was add another coin on one side- a change in angle between the two panes of only of 1.2°.

Look at the reflections off a piece of float glass, and you'll see all sorts of distortions. The stuff isn't close to being optically flat. Look at a bright source through a double glazed window, and move your head around. The position of the reflections will move all around. To quote Minnaert:

"...experiment, however, teaches us that the brightest image lies invariably on the same side (always to the right, or always to the left), so long as one looks through one definite point on the pane. But in one and the same pane, parts are to be found where the brightest image lies to the right, and other parts, where it lies to the left: in the first case, we have a wedge-shaped region of which the greatest thickness is turned towards our eye; in the second case the greatest thickness is turned away from our eye."

Minnaert is talking about a single pane of glass, but the optics are the same for a double pane, the "wedge" simply becomes the angle between the inner surfaces, rather than the angle between the outer sides of a single sheet.

Of course, we see this effect clearly in the APOD images. The glass is quite good, and I assume the photographer moved only a little between shots. This shows up as a slight variation in the distance between ghost images in each frame.
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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by The Code » Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:11 pm

Guys,,, Chris is completely correct. I have also seen double/triple reflections from the lights in my garden/back yard, at night. caused by our double glazing windows...Its just an optical illusion. light plays tricks on your mind when going through glass on an angle.

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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by Rocco » Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:16 pm

Hey guys,

give this simple but impressive :!: experiment a try:

Wait until it's dark outside and have a look at the moon or a distant street light through one of your windows. Maybe you have to try some windows and/or angles to find one showing a noticeable effect, but if you find one, you get nice ghost images just like these in our corpus delicti here.

But now the impressive thing about it: Move your head around (top, down, left, right) and watch the ghost images moving. You can move them to the left, to the right, up and down. It doesn't depend on the angle of the window or the angle of the two panes - it depends where you or the camera are on the optical line between the viewed object (sun/moon) and the window. -> The ghost images always move to the opposite direction of yours.

So please stop this never ending discussion whether the ghost images should be left or right of the sun - move them where ever you like by trying this little experiment by yourself. :D

Happy watching,
Jochen

p.s. One of my windows arranges the ghost images not on a straight line, but on a circular path - the moon looks quite funny through this window, just like a big comma in the sky.

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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by Chris Peterson » Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:19 pm

green1 wrote:Chris, your experiment shows exactly what i was trying to prove yesterday. The overlapping ghost images are brighter where they overlap, they do not look "stacked" as the contested photo images do.
I don't really understand what you're getting at. I see the same features in both the test image and the APOD images. The discretely separated ghost images are the result of reflections between the fairly widely separated window pane components. The overlapping ghost images (which clearly show a brighter area where they overlap) are the result of reflections inside the individual glass panes.

Image

The slight differences between the two are pretty easily explained by different ratios between the glass thickness and pane separation, and by different glass surface variations. In my experiment, the two were similar. In a typical double glazed window, the glass is thinner by several times than the spacing between the panes.
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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by apodman » Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:31 pm

(I decided this post was more misleading than helpful, so now it's gone.)
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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by The Code » Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:44 pm

The picture was taken of the ''reflection'' from the glass, from the outside the building... easy....


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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by The Code » Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:51 pm

http://apod.nasa.gov/image/0908/IMG_9802.JPG

Take a very hard look at the shadows of light in the tree's.... and then take a look at the shadow on the concrete pillar .. more shadows... pic has been doctored...

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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by Naos » Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:54 pm

Interesting pictures :

from by room, through the double glazing window, looking at the street light (at around 100-150m, can be considered at infinity).
We can clearly see the direct image and 2 ghosts.
The only difference between the 3 photos is that I am looking through different areas of the window from right to left.

edit : sorry, the pictures were too big, i resized them
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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by dockwatcher » Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:01 pm

This forum could sure use a project manager.

It is getting hard wadeing thru all of the arguments that say the same thing.

Do the images change size!

reflections thru a glass don't, marages are inverted.

Going back to the beginning APOD in a vailed statement said it is the camera. This post has gone around the world twice and we have yet to see the next pictures ( as the gentleman from France pointed out). In them you will see the third image disapear and the next two move to one great sunset.

The only question is "How many Polocks does it take to take the camera lens off"

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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by apodman » Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:16 pm

dockwatcher wrote:This forum could sure use a project manager.

It is getting hard wadeing thru all of the arguments that say the same thing.

Do the images change size!

reflections thru a glass don't, marages are inverted.

Going back to the beginning APOD in a vailed statement said it is the camera. This post has gone around the world twice and we have yet to see the next pictures ( as the gentleman from France pointed out). In them you will see the third image disapear and the next two move to one great sunset.

The only question is "How many Polocks does it take to take the camera lens off"
Someone who can't spell "wading", "mirages", "veiled", or "disappear" and confuses sunrise with sunset has a lot of nerve spewing ethnic slurs. Ursa's comment was similarly out of line. Keep it out of this forum.

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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by The Code » Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:26 pm

Naos wrote:from by room, through the double glazing window, looking at the street light (at around 100-150m, can be considered at infinity).
We can clearly see the direct image and 2 ghosts.
Naos

take the pics from the reflection on the glass from outside your window at the same lights,, make sure the lights inside your home are switched off.
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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by andre_geo » Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:36 pm

Hello,

Here is a picture that would tend to show that the double glas window theory can be valid.
If we consider that their is two layers in the atmosphere, the upper one is brighter because it has less particles that filters out light and the lower one is progressively less bright towards the the Earth. Now if ~95% of the light is transmitted through the glass only 5% is reflected in the first reflection and then only 5% of 5% of the light is reflected in the second reflection. As shown in this simulation to the left of the Sun using a drawing program that can divide the brightness by a percentage of brightness. If we take 5% of the upper part of the sun which is brighter, it is well observed in the first reflection but only the upper part can be seen in the 2nd reflection, the lower part of the sun bearely shows up in the second reflection. As this energy adds up to the direct light energy of the image, it is expected that the clouds are overimposed on the reflection. Now you'll ask me why we don't see this atmospheric difference in the direct light of the sun, this is likely because the light is saturating the camera sensors and this difference of energy shows up only on the reflections through the double glass window as the energy is being decreased by the reflection process. Why don't we see all the light of the entire image beeing replicated by the reflection through the glasses? likely because the camera cannot solve such small energy differences, this is beyond the resolution; in the digital world, one bit cannot be subdivided!
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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by The Code » Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:43 pm

I just told you what its is ,, and how to find it... we ent very good if we can not work out a simple illusion are we?

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Re: Cause of Triple Sunrise (APOD 2009 August 4)

Post by dockwatcher » Wed Aug 05, 2009 11:21 pm

doesn't gdansk face west?

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