Strange streak discussion: 2004 Dec 7 APOD

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
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Guest

Post by Guest » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:23 am

Givek wrote:The next question is why there wasn't a huge splash in the water! So, either the object has tremendous manuverability or some type of "cloaking" device that allows it to travel through matter. For our technology, this seems impossible, but since matter is mostly made up of nothing--just space between tiny tiny tiny particles--perhaps some advanced civilization has the ability to move through matter without destroying or altering it. Perhaps the light doesn't work because it was affected in some way by the object traveling through it. If you think this is way out there, realize that in the time it took you to read this, billions of nutrinos passed through you body. Did you feel anything?
I like this theory. Aliens do exist!

M4D

weird picture

Post by M4D » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:23 am

Hahah, maybe its a realy long ROD

http://www.rense.com/general36/rodsbb.htm

KaeserR@earthllink.net

Post by KaeserR@earthllink.net » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:24 am

I have seen this sort of shadow, and it appeared to be the shadow cast by a jet aircraft and it's contrail flying directly into the sun one midafternoon about a year or so ago. It hung around for several minutes.

*gazer

The streak

Post by *gazer » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:26 am

I believe we should agree that the shadow, or streak, is NOT from the trail of a meteorite - mainly because of the acute angle of the streak. An object large enough to plow through the atmosphere and create the angled trail would not create such a puny explosion. Likewise, an object small enough to create the tiny explosion would be slowed down by the atmosphere and strike the earth’s surface at a right angle, or nearly so. So if we can conclude the object is not from outer space, then it must be terrestrial in origin. If so, is it a natural occurrence or artificially made? An there lies the mystery.

tlohr1@earthlink.net

Post by tlohr1@earthlink.net » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:26 am

The dark streak appears to be a shadow cast by the light pole. The source of the light is the ground to cloud lightning feeler that appears as the irregular glowing streak. The flash on the pole may indicate that the feeler actually completed the circuit to a downward growing feeler from an overhead cloud. Perhaps the cloud lacked sufficient charge to cause a lightning bolt bright enough for the naked eye to detect.

leppy

not a metoerite

Post by leppy » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:27 am

im sure someone has allready posted this information.
But from a stand point of reality i can tell you for fact it is NOT a meteorite.

This photo was taken about 5 kilometers from my house. The photo is of the Darwin (northern territory, Australia) "wharf" precinct.

A day or 2 after this photo was published in the paper a "Power and Water" (local energy company) crew were sent to inspect the light and found zero damage to the top of the light or the light pole or the light housing. The globe was indeed blown but that is the whole extent of the damage.

I believe the image has NOT been doctored and is just one of those "lucky shots" with a illusion in it rather than a meteorite

Guest

Post by Guest » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:31 am

I've looked at a lot of the comments and I've had a few similar ideas. The problem with a shadow from a cloud is that it is often seen among other shadows, and from what i've seen of the picture the sun isn't in the right location anyway. I thought about the ionization trail of a lightening strike too, but at 1/20s frame rate, one of the other pictures should have caught the flash. The high energy beam from a plane or satellite does seem the most explainable, as these beams could easily be in the infrared, and would leave a perfectly straight ion trail, though this to me doesn't seem likely (i'm not a conspiracy theorist.) I also wondered about the whitish lines around the pole, which would seem to fit with a bulb breaking, but the bulb itself wouldn't create a vertical shadow that is perfectly colimated (it would disperse very quickly within a short distance.)

Ron

Lewin's Challenge: Strange Streak

Post by Ron » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:32 am

This is a wonderful opportunity to glimpse the limits of human perception and our ability (but gleeful enthusiasm) to interpret ambiguous information.

At the time of this writing, there are 27 PAGES of commentary. Some are frivolous or simplistic. Others are studied and thoughtful. Some are facetious, others, humorous. There are the inevitable instances of name-calling, pooh-poohing and suggestions of government conspiracies.

If a single photo can generate such volumes of speculation of such varying quality, is it any wonder that definitive conclusions regarding 9/11, UFOs, the Kennedy Assassination, Area 51, al Quaida sleeper cells, Iraqi WMDs, voter fraud, FDA incompetence, Gulf War Syndrome, and other controversies are so elusive?

This little exercise in How to Find the Truth involves more than a digital dark streak and bright spot. It includes the 20+ pages of commentary as well, and we are ill-served by the fact that, despite our collective intelligence, we seem doomed to a future of contentious ignorance by fuzzy thinking and an inability to discern fact from speculation.

leppy

Post by leppy » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:34 am

forgot one thing in my post stating the "facts" of this photo

the bloke who took the photo was out at "dusk" taking these shots.

you know what happens at dusk people??

Street lights turn on!!!

knowing that people have inspected that pole and found it to be perfectly intact id have to say the theory to go with is

"lucky trick of light to create the line, a bulb blew when the lights were turning on, and this guy was in the right place at the right time"

Joe Polidan

Post by Joe Polidan » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:35 am

It's actually quite simple...the artifact presented in the photograph can be nothing other than a photon torpedo from an ALIEN warcraft. That's right, we are being invaded...seriously. Fear not, I will upload a virus in the mothership. Ok, gotta go save the world....

Lanark WeatherMan

Strange Streak

Post by Lanark WeatherMan » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:35 am

I have checked the image out for authenticity and cannot find any indication that it has been doctored therefore the images is real. Now, the big question. What is it?

Baesed on the angles and trajectories, I think we are looking at a contrail in shadow. As for the flash, I would say that it is the light itself just at the point of buring out. Most bulbs give a slight flash and/or a brief flare for say a second or two prior to burn out. This may be the case here as the data within the image suggests a very smal flash area, maybe twice the size of the lamp itself which is consistent with a burn out flare.

As for the smoke, this is a water front area and appears to be near the beach. It could simply be smoke from a bonfire on the beach or a rubbish fire after a beach clean up or similar work.

The trail in the sky is not in the forefront of the image so far as I can tell which again would suggest a contrail in shadow from the nearby clouds.

I can't see this being a natural event due to the above information. If you really want to look deep into the image, look at the shape and blend of the pixels within the image. First, enlarge the image using a good software package such as Paint Shop Pro ver 7 or better, or even Corel Draw 10 or up. The resizing of the images shoul dbe performed as a Bicubic Resize which tends to preserve the image information and avoids the ragged edge effect of most resizings. Then resize it 2X and then zoom in on the image until you can discern the individual pixels clearly.

This is the best way to see if something has been added to the image.

Xcott

Possible explanation

Post by Xcott » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:41 am

[Posted earlier to Slashdot.]

The sun is behind the camera, and the light flash is very close to being inline with the sun. Plus, it occurs at a point where a (decently reflective) man-made object happens to be.

This leads me to suspect that the sun reflected intermittently in the glass of the lamp. The tiny "smoke" trail you see around the light looks very much like the light trails that are generated by a point source, such as a candle flame, when a camera vibrates a bit during an exposure.

How could a reflection be intermittent? I suppose if the top of the light pole was moving around a bit, say from wind or waves, you could have this happen.

This does not explain the diagonal streak, but a plausible explanation is that the streak is a lens flare from the point flash.

Caj

Can't use my Bad Buoy

Meteor Strike

Post by Can't use my Bad Buoy » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:42 am

P.S. The blurred V hook at the bottom of the sonic shockwave is likely a reflection of the wave's striking the surface.

To be seeing any of this we must be looking down the wavefront and, it appears, the polarity of the twighlight coming off the water in Darwin's warm, humid Summer climate is enhancing it's viewing.

pauln
Ensign
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 9:45 pm

Need better quality pictures

Post by pauln » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:42 am

Is it possible to get better pictures? We really need a proper bitmap with a 1:1 pixel mapping. These JPEGS are useless for the kind of detailed examination we are all trying to do. Even when you view the picture at it's normal 100% enlargement you can see JPEG artefacts all over the place! It gets four times worse every time you double the enlargement.

I see an apparently straight dark line superimposed across the sky which may or may not also cross the water. I'm inclined to think that it doesn't. I see a white v-shape that appears to be smoke or vapour with its point anchored at the base of the pole in question. One side of the V appears to be disrupted into a bubble or loop by the glowing phenomenon near the top of the pole. The glow appears to consist of a bright region (not point) with a more diffuse halo above and partly encircling it.

Firstly, the dark line cannot possibly be a shadow. It cannot be a shadow thrown by the sun from an object behind the camera because it extends to low. The sun is clearly below the horizon in this shot so it cannot possibly cast a shadow as shown here down to the horizon because the horizon is already in shadow.

It also cannot be a shadow thrown by a light source at the top of the pole. The line is essentially constant in width, which implies that it is cast by an object of width equal to the line. From looking at the before picture and the adjacent poles it is clear that there is nothing that large available to cast the shadow. Even if there were an object of the required size, a parallel-sided shadow could not extend so far in such a well-defined manner. To get a well-defined shadow you need a point source of light, but a point-source will cast a cone-shaped shadow, not a linear one. To get a parallel-sided shadow you need a source of light that is close in size to the object that casts it, but then you would also get a penumbra causing the edges of the shadow to become more diffuse as the distance increased. The penumbra would become less pronounced if the light source were distant from the light, but the light source, obscuring object and shadow would have to be colinear. This is clearly not the case here. If the light were distant (say near the water) then the shadow should project almost directly toward the camera and not away at an angle as is shown.

As to the nature of the light source and its possible interaction (nor lack thereof) with the light pole, the white V and the possible bubble, it is impossible to tell from this picture exactly what we're seeing.

Maybe the photographer could publish a 1:1 true bitmap (like a windows BMP for instance) covering the region vertically from just above the tops of the tallest poles to just below the bottom of the "flash" pole, and horizontally including the two taller poles either side of the "flash".

leppy

facts of the photo

Post by leppy » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:44 am

i live a couple of km's from where this photo was taken.
cant tell you what it IS but i can tell you some facts.

1. Photo was taken at dusk looking out over the "darwin wharf precint" (northern territory, australia)
2. The ONLY damage to the light is the blown bulb (this has been inspected by power and water contractors...the local power company). There is zero damage to the light housing, pole, or anything else in the vicinity.
3. That is a street light you are looking at (the explosion) and funnily enough its right on dusk.

This photo has allready been called as a legit photo, but its definately NOT a photo of a meteorite.

victorengel
Science Officer
Posts: 158
Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:29 pm

Re: streak

Post by victorengel » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:45 am

johnccole@yahoo.com wrote:Here's an explanation, and since I'm unencumbered by knowledge, I can speak freely:

The unexplained image is an insect, close to the camera, flying at speed.
As I say this, though, that doesn't explain the trail.

A for effort, nice try.
Doesn't it? Take the length of the insect and divide it by the length of the trail plus insect. The result is the total percentage of time the insect blocked the view of the camera, assuming the insect was flying at constant speed. I make that ratio to be on the order of 3%, although if you consider that half of the insect might be light, it could be half that. Certainly a 1-3% dimming of the image seems to be compatible with what this "shadow" looks like. The shadow has a level near 150. The difference between "shadow" and not shadow is about 2-3.

victorengel
Science Officer
Posts: 158
Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:29 pm

Post by victorengel » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:51 am

bocab wrote:
bocab wrote:take a look at the first picture (the one just before the picture with the flash) in the sequence in the link below, it looks to me like there is a partial shadow there as well, just above the well defined shadow in the picture with the flash

http://the-light.com/Photography/Discussion/meteor.gif

does no one else see this?
If there is a shadow in a different picture wouldn't that rule out the bug theory?
Please don't use a GIF animation to point this out. The colors have been reduced to only 256 colors for the animation. It's likely that you're seeing an artifact of this quantization process.

bay_houyhnhnm

Sun reflected off the water

Post by bay_houyhnhnm » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:54 am

Is it a sodium vapor streetlamp? Once we know the type of light, the failing bulb hypothesis can be bolstered or possibly disproved by analyzing the color of the flash and comparing it to the known spectrum of that type of lamp. The other lamps off to the right seem to be pinker or greener, while light from adjacent lamps does not appear visible at all. There was no damage to the lamp, so we can rule out a catastrophic explosion or incandescence.

I believe the lamp is unrelated, closer to the camera than the apparent flare. The irregular blue aura right of the flare definitely seems to be behind the lamppost. The color temperature, shape, and brightness of the flare suggests that it's a reflection of the Sun in the water, a concentrated part of the broader reflection caused by 1) a momentary alignment of gaps in the lower cloud layers and 2) a ripple in the water offering a mirror-like reflection directly toward the camera for at least part of the exposure. An apparent flare might not have been noticeable in that location at that instant just a few degrees off-axis. The blurry aura off to the right of the flare is the sunlight reflected in a more random fashion, or possibly an image created by the gap acting as a pinhole aperture, which shows the shape and relative bluishness of the bright Mie-scattering cumulus cloud bank. The color temperature of the flare matches the Sun in those clouds.

The inherent color temperature of the camera and computer displays, which define white rather arbitrarily, could play a role in what we see here--although I don't believe the bright spot itself can be an artifact.

Finally, I speculate that the dark band is an atypical rainbow related to the gap in the clouds and/or the Sun's reflection in the water. The Roy G could be washed out by Raleigh scattered light of the Sun so low on the horizon.

andy J.

The streak

Post by andy J. » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:56 am

I'll bet its a shadow projected from the lamp when the lamp burned out. The bright flash projected the shadow because a support or some opaque object was in front of the lamp. Like a broomstick projects a shadow on a wall. andyj

ukuleledre

the flash

Post by ukuleledre » Wed Dec 08, 2004 3:01 am

i am surprised that some of this discussion still revolves around a blown bulb on a lamppost.

the post that is nearest the "flash" in the photo is not a lamppost. it is a mast on a ship tied up at the dock. masts do sometimes have running lights on them, but it is incredibly unlikely that the running light on a ship's mast could produce a big explosion. someone at the dock would most certainly have been talking about it regardless.

the streak and flash in this photo are reflections on the inside of the window through which the camera is aimed. the "smoke" is perfectly symmetrical and its axis of symmetry happens to be the very straight line of the streak. the "flash" is not a flash but something bright reflected in the window.

it is unfortunate that we cannot recognize the object in the reflection. no doubt it is an everyday object or the features of the room in which the camera sits. a light fixture on the ceiling? the juncture of the wall and ceiling?

spudcon

streak

Post by spudcon » Wed Dec 08, 2004 3:03 am

2 or 3 other posters have hit on the basic idea. Contrails cast a shadowlike streak when in the appropriate position relative to the sun. The sun, visable behind the clouds is not the illumination source. The source is the flash at the lightbulb, there is gas rvident in the photo, and I would guess that the flash of light is bright enough to cast a shadow in a cloud dimmed sky. The shadow could be caused by almost anything in proximity to the bulb/flash including dense gas.[/b]

Guest

What else;-)

Post by Guest » Wed Dec 08, 2004 3:06 am

Judging by the movement of the bushes in the foreground it seems fairly windy. Lamp posts in my neck of the woods sometimes move a fair bit in a strong wind, and even a little in a moderate wind. I also noticed that it gets brighter as the pictures progress, so I assume a cloud is moving out of the way of the sun, so that in the second frame the sun is shinning on the lamp post. The lamp post also seems to have a hat shaped top. If the lamp post moved just right so that the brim of the lamp hat reflects strongly, then the top part of the hat would cast a shadow. As for the smoke like stuff - I've seen ghosts in my telescope that look similar, and that's caused by the lens.

Just my two cents:-)

greg p

artifact

Post by greg p » Wed Dec 08, 2004 3:06 am

Up close, this looks to be some kind of artifact. There is nothing about the "streak", the "flash" or the strange white symbol near the "flash" to locate these with respect to recognizable features of the picture. My guess is there is something superimposed on the image which is out of focus; have a hard time buying the insect hypothesis.

ukuleledre

also

Post by ukuleledre » Wed Dec 08, 2004 3:07 am

the only sunlight in this photo is on the clouds. the sun is BELOW the horizon. the sun is not shining directly on anything in this photo other than the clouds. if there is a reflection off the water, it is a reflection of the clouds.

the position of the sun rules out completely contrail shadows, anticrepuscular light, and any forms of rainbow as explanation for the streak.

this is not my opinion, this is the reality of the photo.

physics. optics.

ManWithNoHead

I cant believe I read all these posts, but here goes

Post by ManWithNoHead » Wed Dec 08, 2004 3:09 am

My only photographic claim to fame was to spot the Man with No Head in the doctored photos the Scientologists tried to get the media to print from their millennia new years party.. http://www.lermanet.com/nohead.htm

Years ago I was president of the high school version of the Nation Capital Astronomers Association

The only thing that nobody seems to have mentioned is the SMOKE rising idly from whatever that thing is on the road.... which is there in the other frames. and is smoking... or its a boat.. but whatever, IT is smoking... exhaust, idling...and

the smoke is rising.... at a very slight angle, at sunset, at the shore, the wind often goes to calm ... so in a calm wind, some guys big mobile home and truck is making a rising column of smoke.

the column of smoke is rising as it drifts UP and slightly to the right....

While this camera is taking its p[icture, the Hi-Pressure Sodium Vapor Lamp tries to turn on, the lamp which chose that instant to LEAK, VENTS the hi-pressure sodium vapor, the hivoltage start pulse comes on to ignite the lamp and the vented gas, is in turn ignited in a brilliant flash,,,much like magnesium burns in air... creating a brilliant, but brief, flash... which brilliantly illuminates the column of smoke, and silightly pushes it forward from the very modest expansion of far less than a gram of elemental sodium igniting in the air....a foot or two right and down from the street light, which, is not now working, because... it has gassed its contents into the night air, and by doing so live on the web, has managed to entertain thousands of people...

Arnie Lerma
Lermanet.com Exposing the CON

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