Starship Asterisk*

Can't use my Bad Buoy wrote:If you can show that given a bee's body width is the width of the streak, would he have covered that distance in 1/20 sec.

and what is the distance? if you want to say: the streak is 40 times longer than the bee, so it has flied 40 times more of it's own length - no, because we have to consider three (unknown) angles. it might fly away from camera, so the length of the streak is affected by perspective distortion. I don't say here that it flied 10cm or less, I say we don't know what length it flied.

Can't use my Bad Buoy wrote:AND, given the straight trajectory of his path we know he was not doing any aerobatics, stricktly a beeline for home by sundown [now]; hence he is in level flight. So we are looking at one side. 2 wings or 4? Would a bee in cruise mode have that wing pattern on one side?

It has already been demonstrated how easily a flash will reflect from only one wing.

why wing? maybe it were leg bags full of honey?

Congratulations. This is the only picture of us we have seen. As Your government knows, there are millions of civilizations beyond your Earth. About five or six thousand of them currently have Earth Research programs. They all have crafts orbiting your planet at amazing speeds, almost impossible to detect let alone capture on film. There is always one of these ships over every country at any given moment. That is simply the tail left behind by one of our crafts. We are infact almost prepared to let one of the crafts go. It will fall through your atmosphere and if everything goes as planned, will fall just to the north of Las Vegas in Nevada. We wanted to make sure Area-51 had the responsibility for picking up the remains. Wait about twenty four hours before getting to close to the remains. They may be dangerous. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Also in the opinions of almost every civilization doing research on your planet, we recommend that your governments release the information about us. While it is your planet and it is under the control of these governments, you would advance much faster if you alerted the public of our presence and joined the rest of the Universe in our search to survive the death of our Universe. We know it has been something on your minds for a while and with your creative minds perhaps we can find a solution faster. Tell your public about us and join the rest of us. It is not healthy to remain an isloated planet like this. We can help protect you from asteroids, ice ages, and perhaps your worst mistake; global warming. Mars' previous civilizations suffered a similar fate in using up the natural resources and ruining the planet. Earth will follow the same pattern. We would be happy to help you evacuate your planet and find you a new place to inhabit. You would have to stay in a refuge camp on one of our planets. Of course we have nations willing to loan you land. Consider our offers and advice. I apologize for any grammatical errors, english is a difficult language to master, but it is becoming quite popular among the civilizations. We have a nation on our planet where the capital city speaks mostly english. Everyone seems to want to speak "the language of the ignorant ones." Good luck with April 13, 2029, assuming you don't except our help. Our calculations suggest it will hit somewhere in central Europe.
-Head of Earth Research-
-Nation of Victoria, Luna Portola, Andromeda sector 6-

wombat wrote:Thank you for that very quick update, Guest, you seem to have much more time to search the net than I do. Bumblebees at 30 mph, carrying transponders yet?

The program was advertised for quite some time on the Animal Planet station. It was more a matter of scheduling than having copious time. Here's a website showing a picture of a decked out bee. The transponders are as light as a normal nectar/pollen load so don't encumber the bee much.

http://www.rgetter.com/pages/ns_articles/bee_radar.htm

In searching for this link I found another site that lists the bees' speeds as typically ranging from 3.0 to 15.7 m/s.

Can't use my Bad Buoy wrote:If you can show that given a bee's body width is the width of the streak, would he have covered that distance in 1/20 sec.

okay, assume the streack, 40 times longer than the bee, represents bee flight in the plane exactly ortogonal to camera axis. assume the bee is 1.5 cm long. that gives us 60cm per 1/20sec, or 12m/s. that's quite fast, but falls into this range :

victorengel wrote:In searching for this link I found another site that lists the bees' speeds as typically ranging from 3.0 to 15.7 m/s.

high speed also is consistent with streak straightness.

(excuse moir poor english - the point is what matters)

1)For the streak to actually be the trail of something in the far distance the shear size of whatever was falling if anything was falling at all would have to be enormous.
2)Item is most likely closer too the camera due to the large trail
3)Why is the smoke if smoke located in from of the item as it explodes instead of behind it, especially if going at such a high speed
4)Looking at the item (bee,wasp, whatever) there seems to be a gap with visible ocean between what was thought to be the flash and smoke.
5)Why would the object be transparent? I understand speed and trails especially when it comes to photography but if this was the trail or the actual object itself wouldnt there be something more concrete. Like looking around the picture wouldnt there be a more visible darker more pixelated object coming from the projected path.
6)Analyzing the water there seems to be 2 abnormalties that would come close to the projected trajectory but being too far apart from the visible path leads me to believe the object could have struck the pole maybe at top, grazing it leaving no more then a slight scratch and split into 2 or more peices slamming into the water causing nothing more then a large visible ripple.
!)Based on the trajectory, the size of the trail at that distance, if a meteorite, would seem to be proportional. The small fragment ricocheting or just skimming and breaking up could cause the flash if hitting at a sharp enough angle to almost grind and break up instead of smashing and shattering. A direct hit would probably produce less spark or flash then a ricochet.. I think we have all seen what happens when bullets an other objects hit something solid enough. Thnk of the item as a bullet but less dense and more poreous and skimming a strong pole, the hit could produce enough force to dislodge the bulb or break the peices that actually produce light yet not destroy or even make a huge mark. I do not know how closely examined the top of it was or what types of marks were on it. Based on the picture itself, not theories based on bugs and how a camera works when something close flys by but on the picture itself looking at both from far and close distances something coming from the sky and striking the pole seems to be most logical. Further examination of the pole itself to show any types of damage whatsoever can change the theory but for the most part being unbiased and all the general conditions seem to favor it being a meteorite. The smoke could very well be dust and debris dispersing away from the point of impact considering that and peices of the object would most likely be in front of the visible smoke instead of behind it. Thanks for listening, time for bed spent too much time as it is. Hope too find out what it really was!

MikeH aka Voo wrote:1)For the streak to actually be the trail of something in the far distance the shear size of whatever was falling if anything was falling at all would have to be enormous.

That would be compatible with the contrail theory. Contrails are, indeed, enormous.

2)Item is most likely closer too the camera due to the large trail

So you discount a large object for no apparent reason?

3)Why is the smoke if smoke located in from of the item as it explodes instead of behind it, especially if going at such a high speed

I think you're jumping to conclusions again. Where is the object, and where is the smoke? Also, which direction is the object traveling. The answers to all these questions depends upon the theory, so you can't just dismiss it all with one statement like you did.

4)Looking at the item (bee,wasp, whatever) there seems to be a gap with visible ocean between what was thought to be the flash and smoke.

Actually, no. If you look at a properly developed difference or subtraction image, there is no gap. Bear in mind that the water changes quite a bit from frame to frame because of wave action, so a difference image is expected to have some data wherever there is water. This tends to obscure the trail somewhat, but it's nevertheless clearly visible.

5)Why would the object be transparent?

This is perhaps the easiest question to answer. It's transparent because it is not there for the majority of the exposure. For the part of the exposure where it's not there, whatever is in the background will be exposed on the sensor.

I understand speed and trails especially when it comes to photography

Perhaps not if you don't understand the transparency. This is very elementary photography.

6)Analyzing the water there seems to be 2 abnormalties that would come close to the projected trajectory

Where?

Based on the trajectory, the size of the trail at that distance, if a meteorite, would seem to be proportional.

What are you basing this on? What are you measuring? With the insect theory, the width of the body of the insect explains the width of the trail. Or are you talking about its length? How do you explain the fact that the trail suddenly ends at upper left, prior to the edge of the picture? How do you explain the angle of 33.6 degrees for a meteor?

The small fragment ricocheting or just skimming and breaking up could cause the flash if hitting at a sharp enough angle to almost grind and break up instead of smashing and shattering.

I challenge you to calculate an approximate speed for the meteor using your proposed scenario. Then, assume the object splits up as you suggest. What sort of acceleration would be required to get the various pieces to diverge as far as you allege (note that I don't know where the alleged landing spots are yet).

A direct hit would probably produce less spark or flash then a ricochet..

Why? Also note that any energy used to accelerate the object to its ricochet trajectory would have to come from the object that it ricocheted off of. That would cause damage. Where is the damage?

I think we have all seen what happens when bullets an other objects hit something solid enough. Thnk of the item as a bullet but less dense and more poreous and skimming a strong pole,

If it was more porous and less dense than a bullet, then how could it be a meteor at 33.6 degrees? You need an explanation for how it overcomes the atmospheric resistance.

the hit could produce enough force to dislodge the bulb or break the peices that actually produce light yet not destroy or even make a huge mark. I do not know how closely examined the top of it was or what types of marks were on it. Based on the picture itself, not theories based on bugs and how a camera works when something close flys by but on the picture itself looking at both from far and close distances something coming from the sky and striking the pole seems to be most logical.

I think logical is the wrong word here, since logic was not used at all. In fact, you through out logic in favor of first impressions.

Further examination of the pole itself to show any types of damage whatsoever can change the theory but for the most part being unbiased and all the general conditions seem to favor it being a meteorite.

According to previous posts, the pole was examined and found to be free of damage, except the lamp was nonfunctional.

The smoke could very well be dust and debris dispersing away from the point of impact considering that and peices of the object would most likely be in front of the visible smoke instead of behind it.

Please explain how this debris cloud vanished without a trace in 15 seconds. Please consider the relatively calm conditions and the size of the cloud in your answer.

How come people are still discussing this? I think it's mostly because they can't/won't read 137 pages of debates, so they suggest same things (both wrong AND right) over and over...

Me guilty, too

I think it is time to lock the thread.

Following on from earlier work on better-determining the shape of the trail, and with a bit of time on my hands over the holidays, I've put the bicycle wheel away and finished off my image processing code (just for completeness). Anyway, the result is shown below - the best-fit to the trail overplotted on the original image, with the wobbles scaled up by a factor of 4.0

[Click image for larger version]

Hopefully this makes the wobbles and general shape of the trail more visible. Also, as part of this work, I carried out a number of checks to make sure the wobbles really are there, and not an artefact of the image processing. To do this, I rewrote the code that does the trail fitting to avoid using a rotation (so the wobbles can't be caused by that). Also, I added a simulated streak to the main image, parallel to the actual streak, generated mathematically to have as similar a profile as I could manage, then ran the image through exactly the same image processing software. In other words, both trails are treated the same - so if the image processing distorted one/added wobbles whatever, it's highly likely it would have the same effect on the other.

First, here's the APOD image with the simulated streak added.

[Click image for larger version]

And below is the intensity profile for a cross-section across the actual and simulated trails. As can be seen, the simulated trail is a close match (the actual one is a bit broader as a result of its overall curvature). Note the cross-section is taken at right-angles to the trail and starting above it, hence the simulated trail is seen first, on the left, followed by the actual trail.


Finally, running the same trail-fitting software used to generate the first image above on the image with the simulated trail added results in the following image.

[Click image for larger version]

As can be seen, the wobbles and deviations are quite apparent on the actual (lower) trail, but not on the simulated (upper) trail where deviations off the centre line appear both small and random. That means I can say, with a reasonable degree of confidence, that the wobbles and curves are really present in the actual trail and are not introduced by the trail-fitting algorithm.

There's more information available here, along the latest version of the source code (see the 'Methods and Materials' page). It's been a lot of fun hacking about with these experiments, both physical and computer-based, but it's time to move on to other things so I won't be around here so much (I'll continue to answer emails, though).

Have a good 2005!

hazeii3 wrote:(I'll continue to answer emails, though).

There's no email link provided in your profile, so I hope you read here one last time at least. It looks to my eye that the curve is at least sometimes following cloud margins and other such features. I'd like to see a comparison of the following:

Use your simulated trail, but place the trail exactly in the position of the actual trail. Do this for the before and the after images individually. Then we can see whether the jags in the trail move as the clouds evolve. I'd also like to see a single image with no exaggeration. And I'd like to see the images full size.

victorengel wrote: There's no email link provided in your profile, so I hope you read here one last time at least. It looks to my eye that the curve is at least sometimes following cloud margins and other such features. I'd like to see a comparison of the following:

Use your simulated trail, but place the trail exactly in the position of the actual trail. Do this for the before and the after images individually. Then we can see whether the jags in the trail move as the clouds evolve. I'd also like to see a single image with no exaggeration. And I'd like to see the images full size.

The mail address is hapod <at> hazeii.net, and is on the relevant web pages (at the bottom).

Ref. putting the trail on the before/after in exactly the same place as the actual trail, wasn't this where you put your simulated trail (and which didn't show the wobbles)? Anyway, I can do that easily enough and will post images (or links) in due course. Also, I'd agree that in places the reason the small deviations in the simulated trail appear to be caused by cloud edges - note though the effect is small, much less than the size of the wobbles.

Ref. full size images, the inline images are half-size to save cluttering the forum too much, but you should be able to click on them to get the full-size version (albeit clipped to only show the trail area).

Okay, hazeii - how did you complete it?

I note: hazeii3 Joined: 23 Dec 2004 Posts: 2

Curious as mine still doesn't work.

victorengel wrote: According to previous posts, the pole was examined and found to be free of damage, except the lamp was nonfunctional.

Is this the only one that isn't function?
If so a hoax is starting to seem likely to me again.

Can't use my Bad Buoy wrote:Okay, hazeii - how did you complete it?

I note: hazeii3 Joined: 23 Dec 2004 Posts: 2

Curious as mine still doesn't work.

I realised the message saying "email registrations have been disabled" actually meant "now when you register, the email registration step no longer occurs", so I just went through the registraton process again (if you want to activate an account you previously registered, I guess you could create a new one, then PM the moderator asking him to activate the old account).

hazeii3 wrote:the email registration step no longer occurs

YEAH, Thanks

Bob and Jerry of APoD:
If you can still be bothered to visit this bulletin board, how do you feel this experiment has turned out? And wot about the future? If you are sent more "strange" photos, would you go down this avenue with them again?

Bob and Jerry of APOD:
Wot do you think of the results of this experiment? Has it been worthwhile? If you were sent another mysterious or strange photo, would you try this bulletin board method again?

I have seen such streaks many times already: In those cases I could assure that they were shadows of condensation trails of high flying aircraft that were running im parallel to the view direction and in high altitude. The depth of the shadow is then large enough to produce less optical scattering in the atmosphere, so it seems that the air is darker within the shadow.

Regards - Dudelman

Here we have a similar effect: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010219.html

-Dudelman.

Dudelman wrote:Here we have a similar effect: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010219.html

-Dudelman.

Oh good gracious! Not the contrail theory again!

Dudelman wrote:Here we have a similar effect: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010219.html

-Dudelman.

There is a problem with your image:

- in our image the streak is very straight, but slightly visible, and is darker than the sky;
- in your image the streak is curved, pefectly visible, and reminds me the trace of the spaceship (a comment on the right supports this theory);

could it be the shadow of a contrail from a jet? Not sure what time of day it was and how High the sun was in the sky but I have seen a similar sight in the north pacific ocean that was a shadow.

Hi Luis

If you are still there... This was posted to help out a beginner in the southern hemisphere. The links are largely relevant for the northern hemisphere as well.
http://www.tvaus.com.au/viewtopic.php?t ... c&start=21

enjoy

MLB

After reading the APOD, discussions and your explanation I support your explanation.

It appeared to me that the white 'wire' thing around the light is the outline of an insect. The yellow flash is maybe a droplet on the body of the insect.

Look closely to the white thing at the end of the streak.

It look like this (ASCII drawing format), slightly rotated for ASCII drawing:

[__ b __]
|_|

The square brackets looked to me the edges of the wing. The 'b' is the droplet (?).
The 'blocky' thing under the 'b' is the outline of the body or maybe the reflection from the flash from the hairs on the insect body.

I am sure the position of the insect relative to the light is really coincidental and led to the interesting debate.

Groete / Greetings

Guest from South Africa!

Please frogive me for not haveing time to read all 100+ pages of posts. If my idea has been already been posted, then sorry.

Did anyone notice the vehicle sitting directly under the flash and puff of smoke? I zoomed in as close as I could to still be able to make out the images in the pic. The vehicle appears to be some sort of SUV. My guess would be military. I think this is the flash, and smoke left over from the launch of some sort of weapon. The dark trail is what is left from the track the weapon traveled. There are two things, however, that do not support this theory. Why is the device not at the launch point. What could possibly move so fast that it is already out of the screen while the flash is still present?

I also have to ask if this picture is film or digital, and is there any evidence that it has been altered in any way?

I do not think this is a bug.

kajuroe wrote:Please frogive me for not haveing time to read all 100+ pages of posts...I think this is the flash, and smoke left over from the launch of some sort of weapon...however...Why is the device not at the launch point. What could possibly move so fast that it is already out of the screen while the flash is still present?...

oh, they remove it very fast, so people could actually believe that is a bug. clever militaries.