Strange streak discussion: 2004 Dec 7 APOD

[reflash]

This gives me an idea.

The light, when inspected, was not working. This time of the evening (just after 6PM) is when automatic lights often come on - we can apparently see other lights on in the picture.

When lights burn out at startup, they often flash, briefly and brightly. I can't make out the design of the light, but, is it possible that the photographer captured a light bulb burning out -- and the line is the shadow of the light housing? Depending on the design of the housing, a burnout flash could illuminate everything around it, except for the column of air/mist shadowed by the housing.

smith @ canada.com

This is by far the best explanation that I've seen here. However, if the photo caught the light in the act of burning out, the dark streak could indeed be a shadow of the housing, but a shadow aimed at the camera. Have you ever seen a small semi-bright flash that was aimed at you? The light from the flash seems to temporarily brighten everything behind it (if it's not so bright that it washes the scene out altogether). If there is a support wire between the light source and the camera, it could then make an apparently darker streak like the one in the picture. The dark streak would not be visible from all angles. Just my 2 cents.

[Crimulus]

Has anyone ever actually seen an exploding light bulb cause that much smoke?

If it burnt out on its own there is no way it would explode in such a way to make so much smoke, and if something struck it, it still seems extraordinary that so much smoke would emanate.

The streak does look an awful lot like a contrail shadow but the whole sun-being-out-of-position-for-that theory is compelling.

The trail also seems to be pretty wide for an object that caused no other damage after it hit the light ... let's say a meteor. There should have been a large impact on the ground afterwards.

Given the distance the black streak travels in 1/20th of a second ... say at least a mile, and given the shape of the "smoke" by the bulb, clearly it is just a top secret jet travelling at mach 100, causing enough energy to light the bulb as it passes by with little other trace.

[Guest]

** RJN **
I think we're done.
The only hypothesis with any support is a flying insect, as seen in enhanced images provided by multiple different collaborators. We can't estimate its speed, dimension, or distance from lens (although we may constrain some of these variables).
great demonstration that "Many minds make quick work of uncertainty."
Lewis

Did you read my explanation on page 27?

Best,

Jose Suro

[Guest]

My vote is it is a bug. Four reasons...

1) the "smoke" looks too much like the outline of a bug to dismiss

2) the "trail" is the approximate width of the bugs body

3) the "flash" has the same color in it as the cloudscape which leads me to belive it is the reflection of this criters rear-end and nothing more (an electrical event probably should have someting in tones other than the sunset, green or blue, or bright white perhaps)

4) This is the simplest explanation and that usually work's best

[DC]

I hope this image is useful. I cannot go back and read all the posts.

Looking at the animated before/during/after GIF image that someone posted, I don't think the flare exactly lines up with the top of the post, so I think the flare is behind the post by some distance, and is unrelated to it.

I assume what some people call smoke is what I am calling a reflection. With this straight line over it, the angular part appears slightly bowed, does not extend above or below the water, and the lower edge is behind the tree in the foreground.

I think the circular part of the reflection is clearly on the water, and is clearly related to both the flare and the trail. I expect the circle would be complete if we could see behind the flare. I don't know if anyone answered my long ago question about reflection patterns in the water from light sources just above the water.

[lstrauss]

I did indeed Jose.
Do you also have trouble viewing recent pages due to server overload?
time to signout now
regards

[DC]

I think where the angular part of the reflection is brighter where it intersects the lamppost is just an image processing artifact.

It also appears the angular part of the reflection goes behind the lamppost, and therefore could not be caused by an insect close to the camera.

I don't think the circular part of the reflection could be considered a halo around the flare, as the flare is not in the center of the halo.

[Guest]

** DC **
your image of the bug on pg 12 was better, and see jon418 explanation of it right underneath

[FastArtCee]

The 'light pole' could easily be a mast of some kind of small boat tied up to the wharf. I think it is a coincidence that the flash seems close to the top of the pole, or mast. It is more likely about the same distance from shore as the barge.

I don't think the light-blue 'line' is smoke, or splash. It extends from shore to shore of the water body, and is straight, except for the 'bulge' centered on the flash. Could it be a reflection of the flash from wavelets? I subtracted the 'after' image from the streak image, converted the result to a negative, and then enhanced the contrast. This artifact definitely forms a straight line with a bulge.

As the the insect theory for the streak, no bug ever flew so straight and so fast, right into the image of a flash! (Unless it was a lightning bug, and the flash was its tail light!) Nope... the insect theory makes no sense.

Shadows from contrails show up only if they are cast against some surface, eg, the ground or a cloud. There is nothing here to cast a shadow on. It is also highly unlikely that it is a shadow from a support structure in a bulb that is arcing: to be seen, the shadow would have to form a plane exactly aligned with the camera, and there would have to be enough particles in the air to show the shadow. That confirms to me that the streak isn't a shadow.

A very small meteor might have left a smoke trail, but it's hard to imagine it surviving to hit the water with enough energy to cause a flash; any meteor that did survive would have caused a real streak across the sky, and left a smoke trail that would have survived for minutes, at least. In a populated area, some people would have reported seeing it.

Also, would a small meteor still have such an angled trajectory? It seems to me that the atmosphere would have slowed it sufficiently to allow gravity to cause a more vertical trajectory.

So... I'm still at a loss to explain it. But I sure don't think it's a 'dark laser' from outer space!

[Clevis Jones]

My opinion is:

If you look carefully, there is a vehicle (or something - a pickup truck, a boat?) on/at the bridge just left of the pole where the flash is.

I think the bright cloud high up, reflected sunlight down to the vehicle.

Something on the vehicle reflected (possibly concentrared the light) directly into the lamp pole's lamp globe and at the underside of the lamp's reflector on the pole. All this contributed to intensify the light and cause the flash of light.

The light refelction was so bright off the vehicle it caused a bright line on the water (Note the bright line lines up with the vehicle, not the lamp pole)

The light reflected to the lamp pole globe/reflector was/became so bright it caused a halo of the globe to shine on the water (just right of the flash and slightly right of the bright line on the water caused by the vehicle).

The above said, it is possible, due to water droplets in the air near the lamp pole, that the bright line, and the halo are near the pole and just appear to be on the water form our point of view.

The intense light at the lamp was blocked by some part of the lamp pole structure and caused the shadow that is rising up to the left. The shadow may also be more visible due to water droplets in the air.

The reason these 4 items (flash, shadow, globe halo, and bright reflection line) were temporary is that the Sun was setting. That caused a change in the angle of reflection off the bright cloud. Also, and probably MORE likely is that due to the speed of the passing vehicle, whatever picked up the reflection from the bight cloud and passed it to the lamp pole's light refelctor, was in the exact position to produce the 4 phenomena only momentarily.

Regards,
Clevis Jones

[drix190]

We see shadows like this in the eastern sky as the sun sets here on the Front Range of Colorado. The mountains to our west end up causing a "ray fan" along the eastern horizon. It is actually something that can take a while to get used to, and it is something everyone on the planet should be able to whitness.

Working from the idea that this could be a shadow, I liked the post noting it could be comtrail shadow. If there was enough pollution in the atmosphere, couldn't it play the backdrop for this to lay upon? What, however, could have cast such a shadow?

[Gary Hassler]

To me it looks like the cut edge of the film was toughing this frame during developing, I seen it before.

Now only if this was film

[Guest]

Here's what I think I'm seeing:

Here's why I think that:
1) It's not an insect. Regardless of when the flash went off, the dark trail is never as wide as the white puff around the lighted object. If it were an insect, you'd expect to see some parts of the trail being that wide as the insect flies.

You've never watched a hummingbird or dragonfly, I guess. When an object is blurred by motion, you will only see darkening proportional to the amount of time that the object occupies the space. The primary darkening (in this case, the line) would only come from the body of the object. There would likely also be a very slight darkening from the wings of the object, but in an already grainy compressed JPEG it's likely that such subtle details would be lost.

And if you notice, the width of the line is about the same as the bulge in the bright spot at the end, where the flash would have caught (out of focus, mind you) the iridescent parts of the insect reflecting.

[Engineer-Poet]

(From Slashdot to APOD to here, and suffering through the godawful BBS that won't allow all the comments to be loaded on one page so they can be searched for keywords... ugh!)

These three pictures are from a single position, so there are no binocular or other depth cues. The source of the flash can be no farther away than the surface of the water ahead of the camera, but it could be much closer. Further, the shutter speed is slow enough to allow considerable blurring of a moving object, particularly if it is nearby. Ditto, the interval between frames is long enough to allow a smoke trail to move a considerable distance if it is nearby.

I suggest that the flash is nothing more than a discarded match from a smoker lighting up behind and to the left of the camera, and the straightness of the smoke trail is an artifact of the short length of the match's path that is actually in the FOV of the camera. The lack of broken glass on the pier, ripples in the water, and reports of sonic booms would be due to the fact that none of these things occurred at the time.

[victorengel]

You've got the insect hypothesis wrong. In the insect hypothesis, there is NO FLASHING of the lamp. It is only the camera that flashes. It is no coincidence that the camera's flash goes off when the shutter goes off, by the way.

The astromonical odds of the insect theory, I suppose, fit into the theme of Astronomy Picture of the Day. Although the insect flight coinciding with the failure flash of the bulb appears to fit the image, the statistical odds of actually capturing this image at a point in time are just, well, astronomical.

The coincidence not only involves the flight of the insect timed with the bulb failure and the camera shutter, but also several other variables which several writers here have mentioned. One complex variable is the exact three-dimensional physical position of the insect. Also, the velocity of the insect creates the perfect streak that intersects with a flash failure of the bulb. Are the odds so great to say it is impossible? Or, is this a one in a ten to the twentieth occurrence?

Clearly the before and after images demonstrate that the streak and flash is an instantaneous, short-lived event such as a meteor or lightning strike, both of which have been logically eliminated. But, both of these phenomenon, it intuitively seems, have more favorable odds with regards to the type of image that would be captured. But, certain elements are missing.

The insect hypothesis is certainly intriguing, but I think it would be very difficult to reproduce. Also, the dark streak seems too well-defined to be a close-up, flying insect (in my opinion). I wish I could offer up some kind of explanation, but sometimes it seems easier to refute.

[Pegusis]

Could it be a shadow from a plane passing above the clouds?

[Hunter555]

DC I think the trail is visible below the sky as shown in someones image here:

http://images.isja.org/images/strange_diff_pryde_03.png

[Dude]

For what it is worth, I was able to recreate this in a photoshop style application within about 3 minutes - and I'm not a graphics artist. I took the 'before' picture and quickly modified it - added a streak (actually lots of different ones) that looked exactly like the one displayed. So, as they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinarily better proof. My money is on PhotoShop!

[guest]

Forget the trail for a second and thing about the smoke. They said the light bulb didn't work after it happened. Light bulbs have a tendance to get real bright just before they go out. Some type of power spike cased the wires to heat causing the smoke and just took time before the bulb popped.

[S]

Forget the bug option. No chance. From previous post, I agree and believe the light is on a mast. The high poles look like street lights I am use to and the two smaller ones do not.

The smoke from below is probably from a boat starting its engine and a light on the mast may in fact blink on occasionally (e.g. during startup).

The timing of the light burst and the trail are far too coincidental. This is clearly an optical affect probably due to the light itself. The halo affect around the light again is due to the light itself and possibly the smoke.

While a contrail may look like this, again, it is far too coincidental it shows up exactly when the burst of light shows.

This should clear up everything.

[Guest]

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.

They could tell us these things on the APOD page! OK, the bright cumulus clouds are reflecting light from the setting sun out of frame.

Still, it doesn't look to me like the Sun is BELOW the horizon. Can you point me to any proof of this? The photo was taken at approximately 6:53PM local time. Sunset occurred at approximately 6:55 PM local time. Maybe the Sun was partly ABOVE horizon. Moreover, flashes of light near the moment of sunset are well known. I still think this is an anomalous flash of sunlight resulting from normal reflective/refractive/dipsersive phenomena in the air and water, or possibly an object in the air or water.

S12° 28' 00" E130° 50' 00"
(Using time zone for nearby Darwin, Australia)

For Mon, Nov 22 2004 Australia/North (GMT+9.5)
Local time (above TZ):13:26
Midday at: 12:32
Length of day: 12:45

Civil Twilight Start: 05:48
Sunrise: 06:11

Sunset: 18:55
Civil Twilight End: 19:18


The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. -Bertrand Russell

[Engineer-Poet]

You've got the insect hypothesis wrong. In the insect hypothesis, there is NO FLASHING of the lamp. It is only the camera that flashes. It is no coincidence that the camera's flash goes off when the shutter goes off, by the way.

Flash is not used for landscape photography (it is disabled when "infinity focus" is selected on my camear). You cannot use flash photography with such extreme depth of field unless you have flash energies in the megajoules, and a flash picture would not have the lighting and deepening shadows which are so blatantly obvious in the series.

[0100110-9F3C]

You have taken my picture as I was re-entering this planets hydrosphere... I charge for that. I will accept $36 universal credits or you must turn over all rights of this digital reproduction of me as I was returning from a long holiday from out on planet 5 of what you call Tau Ceti.

[Ed in Oregon]

I originally went with the bulb blowing theory, but after spending two hours reading the thread, seeing all the excellent photo-shop work, seeing the expert analysis, I've changed my mind. Think about the odds. Even if the pictures were taken right through the time period where the street lights were coming on, what are the odds that the shutter would be open during the precise 1/20th of a second that a bulb might blow. Given the life of a street lamp bulb, the odds must be 1 in 10 to the gazzilion. And that theory doesn't adequately explain the dark streak, or the "smoke".

Now, what are the odds that a bug would be flying by the front of the camera at this precise moment? Think, folks, this is Darwin, Australia, next to the harbor, in the evening. I'm suprised that the before and after pictures don't also have bugs! One of the Aussies in this thread even identified the species for heavens sake.

All the other theories are even wilder than the street lamp theory.

[GR]

Maybe it's an airplane flying above, dumping it's "bathroom cargo" in mid-flight. They usually do it over the ocean, but sometimes they get it wrong.