Starship Asterisk*

3:07: Baja penninsula come over the horizon. You can see the pointy bit where Tortugas is, and then Isla Angel de la Guarda and Tiburon.

badskfjlhalerhjkfda, i'm an absolute idiot — 3:47 is definitely flying eastward over the (distinctly orange) india-pakistan border. thank you google earth.
this may be a stupid question, but does anyone have an actual explanation for the border being so distinctly lit up? is there an actual wall/fence with floodlights every 10 yards or something?

If you go to Coordinates 26.78, 69.4965
In Google Earth you will see both the fence that you mention and a Guard Station overlooking it

matthewfdoherty wrote:... does anyone have an actual explanation for the border being so distinctly lit up?

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/EarthObservator ... tNight.htm

really pretty movie, but the sound track got annoying after some time.

Some of the most breathtaking footage I've ever seen, accompanied by the ugliest music (if it can be called that) ever created. Who would ever associate such splendor with glorified static? Ugh. I finally muted the sound and let the silence of the heavens be heard.

Here's a few, sorry if they've already been pointed out.
00:20 - Great Lakes, USA
00:30-00:40 NW USA to SE USA
02:00 - Straits of Gibralter, Africa on left, Spain on right, then eastwards over the Mediterranean, Italy at 02:03,
02:20 across central Africa, Nile appears at 02:23, across Israel, Syria etc.
02:38 again across central Africa, Nile 02:40, with Israel, Red Sea etc. Then Eastern Turkey, to the Caspian Sea, Baku is the city on the headland into the Sea at 02:46.
02:49 across the USA, I think Atlanta is the last large city in the centre at 02:56 before crossing the coast, with Florida on the right. I think Puerto Rico is the rectangular looking island with brightly lit edges at 03:02.
03:07 Baja California,
03:19 Hong Kong ? with Taiwan the bright edged island on the left. Then over the Philipines and Manila at 03:21.

Noticed a good number of major nations and cities. Here are a few...

At the 2:03 mark, you're flying over the Mediterranean and can see Italy perfectly.

At 2:42, ISS is over the Suez Canal and you can not only see lights along the Nile River but also a great cluster of lights around Israel and Jerusalem.

Also, the clip starting around 4:10 is coming over the middle of the USA and ends up in the Gulf of Mexico. If you pause it at the 4:12 mark, there are three BRIGHT clusters of lights, the one on the bottom-left of the picture is DALLAS-FT. WORTH while the one in the middle of the shot is Houston and San Antonio is to the West of it (bottom of the picture). The shot ends flying over the gulf with Florida just passing by on the left.

What you see at 2:02 is Italy. It's interesting to notice that Northern Italy looks like one single big town - in fact, that's where the maximum density of population is - in the Po valley - and where you find large towns like Turin, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, Padua, Venice. Then the two coasts - Adriatic and Thyrrenian - look again as a continuous settlement (the two big spots on the Thyrrenian coast are Rome and Naples), while the mountainous center (the Apennines) is darker. It's interesting to compare the quantity of light on the Italian and Croatian Adriatic coasts - the latter being darker, as the population there is less.

Can someone please confirm (with evidence) what the bright flashes are? I first thought lightening, however maybe meteors, and or reflections?

i would like to see real time of this video. a full 90 minutes long at the real time speed. that would be cool!

I like all the locales identified. I think what needs to be documented are the clouds. What kind? What altitude? How many different ones in a single view? As far as locales go, I was wondering if the lightning was always in a different location or was one location being electrified "with a vengeance." Identify clouds.

I'm thinking perhaps silence is the most appropriate soundtrack that could accompany this astonishing work and then I thought what kind of sounds could be a metaphor of what we sense as silence and wondered how a melody of humans softly breathing might work...

I kind of liked the electronic music. Then again, I'm one of those young whippersnappers and I like some of these newfangled things. The most interesting part is the faux record player noise. Or it could be real record player static recorded and then mixed in with the music? I'm not sure. I do think it's interesting that in a world where perfect sound quality is possible a lot of people admire the imperfections of vinyl.

at 3:29, could the orange light on the right side be Darwin in Australia?

:21-22 Toronto, Buffalo, and Rochester are the three bright spots. Ottawa and Montreal shortly thereafter.
1:15 Cali coast and then Mexico.
4:38 I believe is Ahmedabad, as you can see the India-Pakistan border go by once again. Then the Indian peninsula passes, and Sri Lanka (Colombo is the brightest spot).

This is absolutely the best site on the web. With one exception I never bother frineds and family with "links" to anything, this one site being the exception. By the way, at 0:33 that's me looking up wondering what that object is going so fast, and at 4:16 that's a guy in a wife-beater tee shirt in Louisiana looknig at the same object and calling 911 to report a UFO . . . but then again, I could be wrong.

At around 2:40 in the video, Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula are the reddish land. Lighting is also visible several places in the video (blue flashes in the clouds)

At 3:02 you can see Puerto Rico, in the Caribbean Sea.

A little bit of atmospheric optics, instead of geography for my part:
Between 4:20 & 4:22, there seems to be a part of a Moon cloudbow, on the bottom right part of the image. (Orion star constellation is at the horizon, this day the Moon was somewhere in the Sagittarius at the opposite of Auriga star constellation, where the center of the bow seems to be).

I wonder if anyone would appreciate me pointing out many of the clouds that appear in this video...

0:30: cirrus clouds (light can be seen through them
0:37: cumulonimbus (lightning clouds)
1:07: altocumulus (look like white spots), altocumulus undulatus (lined pattern)
1:15: cirrus, cirrocumulus (similar to altocumulus clouds, but smaller and light seen through them)
1:22: cumulonimbus
1:31: cumulus humilis, stratocumulus mid-right (have a jagged appearance), stratocumulus undulatus (lined pattern), cirrocumulus to the right, thick sheet of cirrus in center
1:45: cumulus clouds, sparse altocumulus clouds, stratocumulus, thick sheet of cirrus
1:55: stratocumulus undulatus, altocumulus
2:00: altocumulus, altocumulus undulatus
2:04: cirrostratus, cirrostratus fibratus
2:11: thick sheets of cirrus
2:15: thick cirrus
2:20: cumulonimbus
2:30: thin sheet of cirrus
2:40: thick cirrus
2:50: cirrostratus
2:54: cirrus, cumulonimbus
2:59: thick sheet of cirrus
3:01: stratocumulus, cirrus uncinus
3:06: altocumulus
3:10: altocumulus castellanus (vertical growth from altocumulus)
3:14: cirrostratus
3:18: cirrostratus, stratus (thick blanket-like cloud), cumulonimbus
3:32: altocumulus castellanus, cirrostratus
3:49: cumulonimbus
3:57: thin sheet of cirrus
4:02: altocumulus, cirrus
4:05: altostratus undulaatus
4:08: altocumulus castellanus
4:17: thick sheet of cirrus, cirrocumulus undulatus to the right
4:20: cirrostratus (ocean currents create these cloud formations)
4:25: altocumulus, altocumulus undulatus
4:31: cumulonimbus, thin sheet of cirrus
4:40: cumulonimbus

This is a really long list!

Wow, TNT! It's amazing that you know all that!

What is that huge brown dimly-lit patch in the middle of the screen at 0:34?

SuperStargazerScott wrote:What is that huge brown dimly-lit patch in the middle of the screen at 0:34?

The bright spots I identified with Google Maps:
0:31 :from north to south: Edmonton, Red Deer, Calgary
0:32 : from west to east in nearly one line above the brown patch: Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Swift Current, Regina and far east Winnipeg
0:33 : the dotted line directly leading to the brown patch from west to east: Highway US2: Shelby, Havre, Malta, ..., Williston, which lies on the left edge of this brown patch. The 2 bright spots right of the patch are Minot and Minot AFB.
Maybe this helps to identify what this brown patch is.

Hi guys - My first post.

At 2,02 - What an amazing sight! The unique shape of Italy unexpectedly emerges with Sicily and Sardinia, and lights of Milan, where I live, can be clearly seen. You are heading East towards the Balkan peninsula.

At 2,26 - Unmistakable images of Nile and Egypt.

At 2,32 - Sinai Peninsula.