APOD: Fly Me to the Moons (2013 Feb 25)

[p1gnone@gmail.com]

Too random a juxtaposition to excite much, but thinking I recalled how fast the Galilean moons orbit prompted search for some time lapse on them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKwcvPGZPPA

[MargaritaMc]

A neat APOD! I decided to look for more! http://www.google.com/search?q=moon+pla ... s&tbm=isch

AAH - but try doing search for " Jupiter, moon, plane"

The field is rather more limited!

Margarita

[neufer]

I estimate the plane to be ~ 6,000 times closer than the Moon and 10 million times closer than Jupiter.

Hence, the Moon is about twice the geometric mean between the plane & Jupiter.

[MargaritaMc]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

I can't believe that this thread has gone this long without someone posting this!
Someone had to do it

[ta152h0]

BOEING 737-700 series Vertical fin extension and the winglets. Thank you for the ice cold one

[neufer]

<<Mare Crisium (the "Sea of Crises") is a lunar mare located in the Moon's Crisium basin, just northeast of Mare Tranquillitatis. The basin is of the Pre-Imbrian period, 4.55 to 3.85 billion years ago. It is the site of the crash-landing of Soviet Luna 15 probe in 1969. A soil sample from Mare Crisium was successfully brought to Earth on 22 August 1976 by the Soviet lunar mission Luna 24.

Mare Crisium is 555 km in diameter. It has a very flat floor, with a ring of wrinkled ridges toward its outer boundaries. Ghost craters (craters that have largely been buried under deposits of other material), are located to the south. The mare has many notable features in and around it. The cape-like feature protruding into the southeast of the mare is Promontorium Agarum. On the western rim of the mare is the palimpsest Yerkes. The crater Picard is located just to the east of Yerkes, and northwest of Picard is the crater Peirce. Mare Anguis can be seen northeast of Mare Crisium.

Like most of the other maria on the Moon, Mare Crisium was named by Giovanni Riccioli, whose 1651 nomenclature system has become standardized. By the 17th century, Mare Crisium had acquired the name 'Caspian Sea', being labelled as such by Thomas Harriot, Pierre Gassendi and Michael Van Langren. Ewen A. Whitaker speculates that it received this name because it occupies roughly the same position on the Moon's face as does the Caspian Sea on Earth, with respect to maps of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The English astronomer William Gilbert's map of c.1600 calls it 'Brittania' after Britain.>>

In the movie Flight (2012), the pilot portrayed by Denzel Washington turns his airliner
upside down to save it from an uncontrolled descent. Is that really possible?

Fact Vs. Fiction: Rolling an Airliner
By Elyse Moody, Popular Mechanics, November 5, 2012

<<In Robert Zemeckis’s movie Flight Denzel Washington plays Whip Whitaker, a regional-airline pilot who heroically rolls the airplane he’s flying to rescue it from an uncontrolled descent. The inversion sequence—especially an extreme long shot of the aircraft soaring, engines up, over a suburban Atlanta apartment building—stuns. But is it real science?

Rolling an airplane, even a big one like an MD-80 (which, by the way, is not recommended by its manufacturer) would involve turning the yoke all the way to one side. The sight certainly would be unusual, but it wouldn’t make for a groundbreaking stunt: In 1955, Boeing chief test pilot Alvin "Tex" Johnson executed two barrel rolls in a Dash 80, the 707 prototype, over Seattle’s Lake Washington as part of the company’s U.S. tour to promote jets as the future mode of air travel. The spectacle worked, notes Boeing historian Mike Lombardi. "Within a month of the barrel roll, the Dash 80 had done its job," he says. "Pan Am ordered 20 of the Dash 80’s offspring—the 707."

Inverting an airplane to regain altitude and balance, as Whitaker does in Flight, would make sense, at least theoretically. Tom Aldag, director of research and development for the National Institute for Aviation Research in Wichita, Kan., explains it like this: If you stick your arm out the window of a moving car and tip your hand up, the air will push it farther up; if you angle it down, the air will push it farther down. When a force pins down a surface (hand or airplane), what’s the last-ditch way to counteract that force? Flip the surface. "In theory, it might work," Aldag says, emphasizing might.

The uncontrolled dive situation certainly complicates things. In the film, Whitaker shouts to his cockpit crew to retract the landing gear, flaps, and speedbrakes, and hit full throttle. But decreasing speed would lessen stress on the airframe, a critical factor. Speedbrakes increase drag and slow the aircraft, says Russ Williams, an experienced test pilot and airline pilot. Flaps do the same, though they’re not designed to deploy at such high speeds. It’d be better to pull back the throttle to power idle while losing altitude, he says.

So now—theoretically—you’re piloting an upside-down airliner. Normally, you’d just keep rolling over until you completed a full 360 degrees, Williams says. Inversion risks engine failure, because fuel pickup tubes draw from the tank’s bottom. But if your airplane had a broken jackscrew and dysfunctional horizontal stabilizer, like Whitaker’s, inversion could help it regain altitude and slow down; its nose would remain stuck pitched down—but now "down" means up, toward the sky. You’d want to increase power if needed, flip, and land quickly; once righted, the airplane would jolt earthward again.

The reaction speed required to execute all that makes this a true Hollywood feat. "If you know what you’re doing, sure, you could roll an airplane," Williams says. "But your timing would have to be pretty perfect to judge all the pitching up and pitching down and touch down at the right attitude."

But airline pilots have a long history of remaining cool under pressure. Consider Sully Sullenberger—or Al Haynes, the captain of United Airlines flight 232, a DC-10 that crash-landed on July 19, 1989, after the catastrophic failure of its tail-mounted engine led to the loss of all hydraulic flight controls. Haynes and his flight crew used the power of the wing-mounted engines to guide the airplane’s descent. (On approach, Haynes stayed calm and collected—he even kept his sense of humor. After air traffic control cleared Flight 232 for an emergency landing at Sioux City, he quipped: "Roger. You want to be particular and make it a runway, huh?") His DC-10 cartwheeled off the runway into a cornfield, but 185 of the 296 passengers and crew on board survived.

No doubt Hollywood wants to craft an exciting visual experience, and Flight definitely achieves that by raising the stakes for Whitaker (in more ways than one, as moviegoers will see). "It’s looking for the dramatic without crossing the line to the ridiculous," says Craig Hosking, a pilot who’s flown at least 300 different types of aircraft and who worked as an aerial coordinator on the film. "Nobody would’ve ever believed you could land on the Hudson River and not hurt a soul. If you’d seen that in a movie, you wouldn’t have believed it.">>

[Faye_Kane]

This image is a composite of two photographs. Who can tell Miss Kane why? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?

[sigh... ] this speaks to the quality of American "education."

The moon image is inverted, as through a telescope, but the airplane isn't.

It reminds me of how the moon phase kept flipping in Kubrick's 2001, but nobody noticed (it was done on purpose; some of the shots of Poole running are mirror images.)

How come y'all missed that? How come I noticed the fakery, yet I'm the one homeless and living in a cave with stolen electricity?

But you have a chance to redeem yourself. Who can tell Miss Kane whether this was actually taken at a Jupiter conjunction? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?

[...hours later] It was not. Zoom in. The great red spot is on the top—wrong side of Jupiter for an inverted image. Plus, of Jupiter and the translucent, expanding jet contrail crossing the moon, Jupiter would be far easier to fake.

There's another way to tell it's fake, but I'm leaving that as an exercise for the student.

faye kane, homeless brain
sexiest astrophysicist you'll ever see naked

[Kentfoley]

Its a Boeing 737-700. It is Qantas. That is all i know!

[pilotmacdonald]

Info discovered so far from various websites:

18 feb 13, 11:40 pm local time, somewhere near central Victoria (200 kms southish of Wagga Wagga where Greg Gibbs currently lives.)
Aircraft type is a widebody twin (probably an A330. Looks too long to be an A320. I don't think it was a Boeing 737-700 because Quantas does not have any. It does, however, fit the profile of a Boeing 737-800 which Quantas does have about 50 of them. But what flights out of Melbourne at the date and time?)
Moon info at MELBOURNE: rise 2:36 pm local, moonset 12:44 am local (on the 19th) This is about 1 hour after the photo was taken. The moon sets in the west.
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/a ... =-11&day=1
On Mondays, there are three flights leaving Melbourne at 2330 (10 minutes to taxi and take off!)

CZ 322
AF 9723
KL 4324

All three schedule A330's. It's actually one physical flight but what the operating carrier was and its flight number gets muddied by codeshare. So, it could have been one of these three.




My guess is that he was near Mansfield somewhere and the jet was out of Melbourne. The active runway 34 (assuming the winds were from the north) would put the climbout in the right place at the tight time.

[Ann]

A neat APOD! I decided to look for more! http://www.google.com/search?q=moon+pla ... s&tbm=isch

AAH - but try doing search for " Jupiter, moon, plane"

The field is rather more limited!

Margarita

I did a search and couldn't find any other picture that showed not only an airplane, but also Luna and Jupiter with (some of) its moons. (I did, however, find the picture showing the plane whose autopilot informed the pilot that the plane just passed in front of the Moon... oh, never mind...)

But congratulations, Greg Gibbs! What a splendid shot, and you are the only one who has managed it!:D

Ann

[neufer]

The picture is a fake. The moon image is inverted, as through a telescope, but the airplane isn't.

Either Whip Whitaker was the pilot... or the photo was taken from Australia.

[DrJoeS]

Will the true answers be posted soon?

[Case]

The third moon (Calisto) was hard to find, but inverting the image made it more obvious where it was.
Also, it seems that the cloud bands of Jupiter are showing in this image: there is a ‘line’ across the disc that is a little bit lighter in color. That could be the whitish equatorial zone in between the two darker belts (of somewhat orange/brown color). A bit to my surprise, magnifying more made the line less noticeable, losing the feature in the image noise. Is it a real feature of this image, or am I seeing patterns that aren't really there?

[BMAONE23]

1) The picture is a fake. The moon image is inverted, as through a telescope, but the airplane isn't.

2) Reminds me of how the moon phase kept flipping in Kubrick's 2001, but nobody noticed (it was done on purpose; some of the shots of Poole running are mirror images.)

3) How come y'all missed that? How come I noticed the fakery, yet I'm the one homeless and living in a cave with stolen electricity?

4) But you have a chance to redeem yourself. Who can tell Miss Kane whether this was actually taken at a Jupiter conjunction? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?

-- Faye kane homeless brain
Sexiest astrophysicist you'll ever see naked

The picture isn't a Fake. It was takes of an Actual Jupiter Conjunction. It was taken Down Under in Australia. To see the same view of the moon in the northern hemisphere, all you need to do is stand on your head outside at night

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

I was on that flight. I looked down and saw this giant globe with an island surrounded by blue blocking the sun. I couldn’t figure out what the heck it was. Sure looked like a nice place though. I’ll have to visit it someday. I’d bet it would be great place to throw a shrimp on the barbie!!

Great shot! Chance favors the prepared mind. Thanks for the preparation. I was able to turn it into a dream. Just hope the dreaming favors a chance. Least it got me on that flight. Maybe one day – Out to the Moons.

[bAntonson]

Boeing 787 Dreamliner with trail of battery smoke

[CapturingTheNight]

Ok. Some more information:

Imaging location
Latitude: -36.31877
Longitude: 146.08490

Someone asked about equipment used or focal length: From original post on the forum-
Canon 60D (Prime Focus)
10inch F/4 Newtonian Telescope
NEQ6 Pro Goto Telescope Mount set on Lunar Tracking
ISO 100
Single 1/200th of a second exposure for The Moon, Plane and Jupiter
Single 1/10th of a second exposure for the moons of Jupiter

The telescope has a native focal length of 1000mm and with the x1.6 crop factor of the 60D I was effectively imaging at 1600mm. Also, because the camera was directly hooked into the telescope (no eyepieces) the image is NOT flipped or inverted. The plane travelled from right to left in the sky just like in the image. The moon was low in the WNW at the time of the image as shown by the behind the scenes shot on my blog post here http://www.capturingthenight.com/fly-me-to-the-moons/. That behind the scenes image was taken a few minutes after the plane transit.

So the plane was flying in an either North to South direction (into Melbourne, not out of Melbourne) or an East to West direction (maybe Canberra to Adelaide).

Cheers

Greg

[owlice]

This image is a composite of two photographs.

That point was made and explained in the APOD text.

[Freez]

why is the plane so small, compared to the moon? wasn't it suppose to be huge?...considering that the photo was taken from the ground, off course.

[orin stepanek]

why is the plane so small, compared to the moon? wasn't it suppose to be huge?...considering that the photo was taken from the ground, off course.

The higher up the plane; the smaller it will seem against Luna!

[neufer]

why is the plane so small, compared to the moon?

wasn't it suppose to be huge?...considering that the photo was taken from the ground, off course.

The higher up the plane; the smaller it will seem against Luna!

More distant than high.

The moon was "low in the WNW" and the plane was over 70 km away (by my calculation).

[orin stepanek]

why is the plane so small, compared to the moon?

wasn't it suppose to be huge?...considering that the photo was taken from the ground, off course.

The higher up the plane; the smaller it will seem against Luna!

More distant than high.

The moon was "low in the WNW" and the plane was over 70 km away (by my calculation).

Very true!

[Warmonger]

This image is a composite of two photographs. Who can tell Miss Kane why? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?

[sigh... ] this speaks to the quality of American "education."

The moon image is inverted, as through a telescope, but the airplane isn't.

It reminds me of how the moon phase kept flipping in Kubrick's 2001, but nobody noticed (it was done on purpose; some of the shots of Poole running are mirror images.)

How come y'all missed that? How come I noticed the fakery, yet I'm the one homeless and living in a cave with stolen electricity?

But you have a chance to redeem yourself. Who can tell Miss Kane whether this was actually taken at a Jupiter conjunction? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?

[...hours later] It was not. Zoom in. The great red spot is on the top—wrong side of Jupiter for an inverted image. Plus, of Jupiter and the translucent, expanding jet contrail crossing the moon, Jupiter would be far easier to fake.

There's another way to tell it's fake, but I'm leaving that as an exercise for the student.

faye kane, homeless brain
sexiest astrophysicist you'll ever see naked

This entire post speaks to the quality of the poster's "education" ( I will not malign an entire country's population as she did...just her, personally ). Well done, simultaneous pomposity and ignorance. Amazing.

[phoenixace76]

Looks like a Boeing 787 Dreamliner to me, those wings are quite distinctive!

[TheNavigator]

Now this was a perfect challenge! First, the plane. My educated guess is 2 engine Boeing, because rather of rather thin contrail. The way to go would be using plastic models of Airbus and Boeing and do a "best fit" from pictures, well, just eyeball fit might be enough.
Then the difficult one. Not so difficult. Enough hints: Australia, New South Wales, so maybe Sydney? Then the date. There is only one possible, 18 Feb 2013. Why, from the
position of Jupiter by the Moon, time, about 12.52 UTC.
Using nice free Stellarium program we find that in Sydney Moon was at an app altidude of 5 deg 44 min and Az was 299 deg 30 min.
And then ? Moon app diameter was 29 min 38 sec of arc, equals 0.4939 deg. I measured the Moon diameter from screen, got 310 mm. Same scale, aircraft was
21 mm, so 21/310* 0.4939 = 0.0335 deg, which is 0 deg 20 min 0f arc. Now You need the aircraft length, and You get the distance. No time for stupid "exactness" so
I gues a lenght of 30 m, and get distance of 51 km or 32 Stat Miles. At this point I lost my interest (it is deep night here in Finland) and leave rest for somebody else.
By the way, Stellarium is not quite correct and it is not possible to find the time exactly, because program shows Jupiter missing Moon lower limb.
Their refraction calculation is not very good (when they finally tackled it, and is it wrong way in Sout Lats ?).