Strange streak discussion: 2004 Dec 7 APOD

[redxeth]

PpUrDoDoIfNG


Well done!

[Guest]

We are interested in a situation where you have a small object close to the lens and the rest of the scene being photographed at what is effectively infinity for a flash.
...
Maybe if you had a darker, non-reflective backdrop and took your exposure from that.

It's not a clever camera, even in manual mode there's no exposure control (except ISO and EV) so that's not really a test I can do (feel free to send me an expensive camera to play with, though ).

I wasn't interested in the fine detail anyway, just in seeing whether a camera set to roughly the same mode as was used in the APOD shot would result in a dark streak with a bright object at the end - and yup, that seems to be the case.

[MadCadmium]

FastArtCeeToo wrote:
Also, the lamp post BLOCKS some of the reflection; that could not happen if it was caused by the wing of a fly close to the camera.

the pole had time to burn into the image from the time the bug was at the left of the image all the way 'til the bug got in front of the pole. some one earlier had posted a picture of a cat with a see-through tail. same type of occurance.

[Tom C]

I'm sorry but this is a trivial contrail shadow.. It's
trivial to look at a contrail and drive to a spot where
you can see this phenomena. (You can also drive to
oportunistic spots to see good rainbows if you know
any geometry!).
Now why is there some bright object at the end?
duhh! Any sunglint artifacts bouncing down the
camera optics will show up at this same angle..
No time to read the 100 pages of mostly alien stories..
Good luck skimming through to find a winner..

[FastArtCeeToo]

You are brilliantly funny!

Some suggestions: If you were to set up in a suitably large room, you could have a wheel that was sufficiently large to have the 'bug' path approach linearity! This would solve your 'infinity focus' and fork clearance problems at the same time!

Seriously, can you put a distant scene in the background (through an open window?), and turn the wheel such that the 'bug' is flying at an angle, away from the camera?

Awaiting your next post, hoping there will be a few new shots!

[Luis]

The experimental apparatus:

Experiment duration was approximately 15 minutes and was curtailed by the smoke alarm (due to unplanned combustion of the experimentalist's dinner). The results were later examined, and the following image selected as representative.

Good work! Someone is finally getting down to the experiments! I'm sorry about you dinner though!

[FastArtCeeToo]

Well, I can put the Manning meteor theory to rest.

The reflection line might be *a little bit* off centered on the water, but it sure looks straight to me. The flash is definitely off center, but that could be because it is above the water surface.

For it to be a bug, it would have had to:
- be flying dead straight
- have its wings aligned with the edges of the water
- have its wings aligned with each other
- have its second pair of wings either aligned with the first pair, or invisible
- be close enough to the camera such that the streak it made during the exposure time was long enough
- be far enough away such that its apparent size did not change enough to make the width of the streak taper perceptibly
- have a suitably shiny rear-end to cause the flash

Occham is shouting from his grave, "GIVE IT UP... IT'S NOT A BUG!"

I hope the man the bike wheel will be able to do some definitive tests.

[Guest]

I don't know if it's just me, or maybe my computer, but I can't seem to find what you're talking about. Can someone please tell me exactly where to look on the image to find the flash?

Thanks!
Kristen
GemsAndBeyond@aol.com

[FastArtCeeToo]

Yep, if it turns out that it WAS an insect, it must surely have been the archetypal 'astronomy bug'!

[FastArtCeeToo]

If you follow this link:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041207.html

you'll see a photo with a grayish 'streak' coming in from the upper left, and a 'flash' that appears to be near a lightpole on the wharf.

You can also look at 'before' and 'after' photos.

The question is: what caused these phenomena.

(Most of us think the photo is real; a few claim it is faked using photoshop or some other graphics program)

[Luis]

Well, I can put the Manning meteor theory to rest.

The reflection line might be *a little bit* off centered on the water, but it sure looks straight to me. The flash is definitely off center, but that could be because it is above the water surface.

For it to be a bug, it would have had to:
- be flying dead straight
- have its wings aligned with the edges of the water
- have its wings aligned with each other
- have its second pair of wings either aligned with the first pair, or invisible
- be close enough to the camera such that the streak it made during the exposure time was long enough
- be far enough away such that its apparent size did not change enough to make the width of the streak taper perceptibly
- have a suitably shiny rear-end to cause the flash

Occham is shouting from his grave, "GIVE IT UP... IT'S NOT A BUG!"

I hope the man the bike wheel will be able to do some definitive tests.

If you see the simulations done by Victorengel of a bee flying, you'll see that part of the body looks like a wing and that the rear part of the bee glows. So the apparent symmetry would not necessarily be related with the wings of the insect. The second pair of wings are most likely blended with the first pair as there is most likely motion blur.

Also someone showed recently that the wings are not aligned with the water.

I did some simulations myself and found out that the distance to the camera for an insect to be about that blurred was between 40 and 60cm, which is consistent with the size of the black streak. Also an insect moving in this range would not change its magnifications significantly, as the depth of focus at f/5.6 is significantly larger, and the object is blurred; consistent with an almost uniform streak.

For this magnification 60 pixels would be something about 1 cm, corresponding for the black streak to around 20 cm of straight flight. This is not unusual for bees, wasps or winged ants.

[Luis]

I don't know if it's just me, or maybe my computer, but I can't seem to find what you're talking about. Can someone please tell me exactly where to look on the image to find the flash?

Thanks!
Kristen
GemsAndBeyond@aol.com

Kristen,

From your e-mail you seem to be using AOL. Someone posted a long time ago that AOL compresses images even more to speed up your connection. This means that you may not be able to see all the detail in the photo. There is a way to setup your AOL account to fix this, but I do not know how. That same post mentioned how to fix it... you may have to search for it, unless some other soul (Dr. Science, can you check if I learned how to spell it, thanks so much!) posts it again.

[Guest]

I don't know if it's just me, or maybe my computer, but I can't seem to find what you're talking about. Can someone please tell me exactly where to look on the image to find the flash?

Thanks!
Kristen
GemsAndBeyond@aol.com

Apparently AOL do something that takes all the subtlety out of being online.

See here for an image by victorengel that ought to make things clearer.

[victorengel]

Well, I can put the Manning meteor theory to rest.

The reflection line might be *a little bit* off centered on the water, but it sure looks straight to me. The flash is definitely off center, but that could be because it is above the water surface.

So.....

For it to be a bug, it would have had to:
- be flying dead straight

If you'd read through the thread you'd know that the path is not, in fact straight. Besides, how much do you expect an insect to diverge from straight in 1/20 second?

- have its wings aligned with the edges of the water

They're not, something I showed just a page or two ago.

- have its wings aligned with each other

They're not. I just measured in Photoshop, and they are conservatively off from being aligned by at least 10 degrees. Besides, don't forget the passage of time. The left wing at time x could be aligned with the right wing at time y, where x and y both occur during the camera's strobe. This is actually quite likely.

- have its second pair of wings either aligned with the first pair, or invisible

I think the insect is most likely a hymenoptera, which typically fly with rear wings aligned with front wings, so they'd appear as a single pair, especially when blurred.

- be close enough to the camera such that the streak it made during the exposure time was long enough

Or farther away and fast enough.

- be far enough away such that its apparent size did not change enough to make the width of the streak taper perceptibly

Or flying at constant distance from the camera.

- have a suitably shiny rear-end to cause the flash

Rear end or head. I also wouldn't say shiny, but bright when illuminated by flash -- not difficult for a nearby object. What's really important, actually is a high contrast from one end of the body to the other.

Occham is shouting from his grave, "GIVE IT UP... IT'S NOT A BUG!"

Sorry, but your list doesn't pass muster. Occam's razor asks us to choose the simplest explanation from a set that explain the data. So what's your simpler alternative? Since you appeal to Occam, you must have one....

[FastArtCeeToo]

Okay, the ends of the reflection line might or might not be *perfectly* aligned with the water, and the sections of the reflection line might or might not be *perfectly* aligned with each other, but if you look at your own stretched image that you posted for kristen, you will see that the alignment is better than you could ever get if you were to *hold* an insect in place, stretch its wings out in line with each other, and then photographed it!

Streak thickness: Point taken, the purported bug could have been moving parallel to the focal plane. But that would still be a coincidence, because if the conjectured flight path was at any significant angle, the streak would have been tapered, one way or the other.

The bug theory (as I understand it) is that the streak was caused by the moving body of the insect, the flash by camera flash illumination of the body, and the line of reflection by the camera flash reflecting off the wings.

The wings, the theory goes, wouldn't show up at all in the streak because they are transparent, so there is not a lighter zone on either side of a main streak. But... when the wing angle (toward the camera) was relatively flat, the wings would have effectively been solid, in terms of transmission of light, and should have blocked the background light. Therefore the streak should vary in width periodically, and I see no trace of periodicity.

Furthermore, if the insect was a hymenoptera, unless the pairs of wings were closely aligned, there would have been two reflection lines, not one, on either side of the flash.

If a small meteor (or any kind of munition or high-speed flare) can be absolutely ruled out, then I do not know what caused the phenomenon in the photo. But the discussion thus far does not convince me (or Ockham!) that it was a bug. Too many just-so coincidences.

It had to be some natural phenomenon, however, because the photo isn't a fake as far as I can determine. It isn't an artefact in the CCD, it didn't have anything to do with any lamp bulb, it isn't a teensy alien ship, and it *most certainly* isn't a flaw or glitch in some non-existent negative !

[perryd]

mmmm... my theory is that there was some kind of energy field that was building up nearby the lamppost and some sort of trigger caused a reverse-time event starting with a flash and then streaking out towards the skies. Of course, since it's a "reverse-time event", we see it as coming from the skies. It would be interesting to know towards what the streak leads to....

[Guest]

I'm sorry but this is a trivial contrail shadow.. It's
trivial to look at a contrail and drive to a spot where
you can see this phenomena. (You can also drive to
oportunistic spots to see good rainbows if you know
any geometry!).
Now why is there some bright object at the end?
duhh! Any sunglint artifacts bouncing down the
camera optics will show up at this same angle..
No time to read the 100 pages of mostly alien stories..
Good luck skimming through to find a winner..

And how does a contril shadow appear, along with a flash of sunlight when the sun is below the horizon. The top of the clouds are illuminated, not the bottom because the sun has set.

This has already been discussed and discarded, but I guess we are all just stupid. Duh! Or is it the person who won't open their eyes and mind to all possibilities?

[Guest]

If a small meteor (or any kind of munition or high-speed flare) can be absolutely ruled out, then I do not know what caused the phenomenon in the photo. But the discussion thus far does not convince me (or Ockham!) that it was a bug. Too many just-so coincidences.

All of the conditions you stated, even if they were true, have non-zero probabilities. Thus, you have not eliminated the bug theory. If you want to eliminate the bug theory you need to propose a testable hypothesis and demonstrate why it is false. Most of the other theories have been eliminated this way, including a small meteor.

[Guest]

I believe it was some debri caused by an EMP type weapon. hence the broken light

[H0meAl0ne]

Well, I can put the Manning meteor theory to rest.

Can everyone please put any and all explanations involving meteorites or space debris to rest. We've shown time and time again that the physics doesn't work.

The reflection line might be *a little bit* off centered on the water, but it sure looks straight to me. The flash is definitely off center, but that could be because it is above the water surface.

Even if you dispute victorengel's assertion that the 'reflection' extends beyond the water, I have a problem with any explanation that involves or requires a reflection.

The reflecting surface is the water of the bay, an essentially flat plane approximately 15m (50') below the lens.

It can therefore only reflect something above it.

A point source of light would produce a point reflection on a line drawn between the source and the center of the lens. This reflection would be smeared out into an elongated ellipse by the waves and ripples. The major axis of this ellipse would be the same line between the point source and the center of the lens. It would not be inclined towards the top right and bottom left corners like in the picture.

Likewise, an essentially vertical object would also produce a smeared out reflection with a major axis of the reflection ellipse pointing directly from the object into the center of the lens.

The only way you can get a reflection not to appear to point directly into the lens is for the reflection to be of an object that is a) linear (ie not a point source) and b) not vertical.

If you want to claim that blue-white thing is a reflection, what is it a reflection of? Where is the original object? It should be sticking up above the horizon towards the top left.

Or do you claim the object itself is very close to the water and therefore the object and its reflection are effectively merged? In which case stop referring to it as a reflection and start explaining why it has the same apparent width and density regardless of its apparent distance from the camera.

[H0meAl0ne]

I believe it was some debri caused by an EMP type weapon. hence the broken light

You are completely correct, except for the fact that a) there was no debris, b) an electromagnetic pulse would have fried all unprotected electronic circuits including the digital camera's and c) the light wasn't broken.

[Ed in Oregon]

Well, I can put the Manning meteor theory to rest.

The reflection line might be *a little bit* off centered on the water, but it sure looks straight to me. The flash is definitely off center, but that could be because it is above the water surface.

For it to be a bug, it would have had to:
- be flying dead straight
It wasn't flying dead straight. Go back a few pages for some nice measurements of the degree of crookedness. The kinks even reveal the wing beat frequency.
- have its wings aligned with the edges of the water
They are not aligned perfectly. The upper wing overlaps the far shore. Go back a few pages for the illustration.
- have its wings aligned with each other
Not a problem for creatures that are bilaterily symmetrical.
- have its second pair of wings either aligned with the first pair, or invisible
Who says there is a second pair? Flies, bees, and flying ants have only one pair.
- be close enough to the camera such that the streak it made during the exposure time was long enough
It has been measured. For a 1 cm insect wing span the distance is 50 cm.
- be far enough away such that its apparent size did not change enough to make the width of the streak taper perceptibly
The streak tapers about 1.5 degrees. The distance change was on the order of 10 cm during the path.
- have a suitably shiny rear-end to cause the flash
Or front end if the flash was at the beginning of the exposure. There are at least two bee species in Australia that fit that description. There are several others that carry their pollen under their abdomens, if the flash was at the end. Pollen is quite yellow, you know. There is also a species of ant common in the Darwin area that has yellow or orange abdomen.

Occham is shouting from his grave, "GIVE IT UP... IT'S NOT A BUG!"

William of Ockham would agree with Victor and myself.

I hope the man the bike wheel will be able to do some definitive tests.

[Can't use my Bad Buoy]

Okay, I've tried to keep up all week with all the posts, boy what a job!

NOTHING has been ruled out except contrails which would not:
1] Appear and disappear in the 15 sec between shots.
2] Appear either itself or a shadow as an unbroken line under the clouds, across the sky, in front of the distant shore, and terminating at the event regardless of whether the event is either offshore and just above the water or at the top of the pole.

And contrails would speak nothing to the investigation of the prime event of this photo.

But what of the other element, the smoke/fog line?
Can some experts in optics, maybe specifically from Canon or their G3 team speak to the possible optical artifacts of this camera's lenses? Any bright event may have caused artifacting, the death burst from a lamp or an object falling to Earth.
I note the long, shore to shore, trace has a slight arc which could coincide with a lens grind. Also the central semicircle seems bisected by the larger arc. This is VERY suspicious of any natural phenomenen and I would suspect to also be an artifact.

It's so hard to do any detail work with a JPEG image. And indeed the fog/smoke may not have been nearly so pronounced as after JPEG automatically brought up the contrast.

But answers as to this specific camera's optics would sure help.

I also note that the street light immediately to the left on that row has it's bulb just barely to the left of the pole. As we come right to our pole it would be normal perspective for the lamp to appear even more to the left of the pole. That, the fact that the flash appears lower than the light fixture, and no reasonable explination for the dark streak keep me from the 'lamp burn out' theory though it seems, to me, the most probable.

[GandalfTheWite]

Ok, I don't call myself a scientist, so I'm just going to put in my two beans worth.

Since when does a contrail stretch across the sky without any increase in width? Unless the plane in question had been traveling extremely low, or flying extremely fast, there should be some difference between one end and the other end of the contrail.

I didn't have time to read all 100 pages of this topic, so I'm not sure if the exploding lightbulb theory was put to rest, but I have my doubts about that one as well. Assuming that the light bulb exploded, wouldn't the shockwave from it be spherical in nature? And would a shadow cast by the housing not diffuse more? It appears to me that the dark streak, whatever it may be, does not diffuse at all.

If the streak were caused by a bug, then the bug would have to be moving close to the speed of sound to create such a clear shockwave! And where did the bug go? Do you really think a reflection off the bug would have created such a bright flash? Also, as was pointed out, the bug isn't attached to a wheel, but flying around, so why would it follow a perfect arc? If it is flying at the speeds suggested, then wouldn't it follow either a straight path, or have some irregularity to it's path?

For those reasons, as an uninitiated layman I would tend toward the theory of something falling out of the sky, close to the speed of sound, causing the distinct shallow parabolic pressure wave visible in the picture. This would also explain why the path traced by the object was an obvios arc, and not a straight line. Of course, this does not explain the streak of darkness at all, since if it were smoke of an object burning up, then it should be visible in the "after" picture. As far as the chances of it hitting passing close enough to a light filament to cause it to burn out....well, the odds of that happening are a lot greater than those needed for just one stage in the theory of evolution, yet science doesn't discount evolution!

So why could it not be a small piece of space debris? I'm really curious to know, and I haven't read a compelling argument against it.

[FastArtCeeToo]

By self-admission I do not know (yet) what caused these phenomena, but I hope someone will come up with the answer.

But, in any analysis, it is not necessary to reach ZERO probability before discarding some hypothesis. It is quite sufficient to exclude causes that have a vanishingly small probability.

For a bug to have caused the phenomenon:

- It would have to be flying more-or-less parallel to the focal plane of the camera, within a narrow range of distance. (Surely 19 out of 20 bugs would have been flying at some angle to the camera.)
- It would have had to be closely aligned with the body of water.
- It would have had to have its wings aligned in a nearly straight line at the moment of camera flash.
- If it was a hymenoptera (four-winged) the pairs of wings would have had to be lined up at the moment of the camera flash.

It seems to me that if you compound these probabilities, you'd be down to vanishingly small.

On the other hand, something that would seem to support the insect hypothesis (or a kindred hypothesis) is the fact (?) that the streak starts and ends within the frame of the photo. Any sort of smoke trail from, say, a small meteor, would extend to the left edge of the photo frame.

And, the fact that the 'flash' seems to occur out over, or at the surface of, the body of water could, of course, be an illusion. A reflection flash off an insect could have occurred anywhere within the frame. But it's interesting (and a bit puzzling) that the flash and the reflection line seem to geometrically fit the body of water so well.