Strange streak discussion: 2004 Dec 7 APOD

[Diffit]

The animated gif below shows three frames: 1st shot, 2nd shot, and the diff of the two, for 1 sec. each. It's very likely that whatever occurred was caused by the lamp turning on.



The three crops in jpeg format are:

http://members.cox.net/dr650/1.jpg
http://members.cox.net/dr650/2.jpg
http://members.cox.net/dr650/3.jpg

[BrainBug]

Morons.
Ist just a little, tiny bug in front of the camera.
Not an cloaked us airforce plane, not an atomic explosion on a russian Submarine, not an meteorite hitting a lightbulb, not even an UFO with little green men.

It's a bug.

[Rick]

OK I'll take a shot at this... it's a chunk of frozen airplane waste falling to earth leaving a vapor trail as it melts and the small piece that it left hits the light and causes a flash. Or it could be some of those incorrigible kids on a UFO shooting out our lights with their death ray toys.

[Norval]

The images are in the wrong order. Clouds and boat confirm this.

The "smoke" in front of the anomoly is very similar to the vapor that surrounds a jet at the breaking of the sound barrier.

There seems to be the remains of a dissapation of some kind in the true last (before) picture just above the water in the for ground.

Most interesting.
norval@craterchains.com

[Guest]

I havent seen something like this since my youth on vulcan. Its clearly a romulan probe. duh.

[guest: Pfields]

What is the strange streak and flash on the 2004 Dec 7 APOD found here: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041207.html ?

In an email from the photographer who took the picture, Wayne Pryde, Wayne said:

I had taken 38 shots at 15 second intervals at a shutter speed of 1/20 and aperture of 5.6. I can confirm that there were definitely no fireworks happing on that evening.

As stated in the APOD, I am not sure what caused the streak and flash. My hope is that this discussion will zoom in on the correct answer or narrow the realistic possibilities.

- RJN

Before I jump into this one I would like to ask some questions of Mr. Pryde. First was there any kind of report or sound that was evident prior to the shot with the flash? 15 seconds is a long time when taking pictures and I notice that your shutter speed is rather slow as evident by the boat on the far right side of the pictures. Could that boat or the other ones in the pictures set off some fireworks or possibly a flare? I also notice that the picture is taken at what appears to be a crude oil offloading facility. I have worked in the petrochemical industry for a few years (15 to be exact) and I know that in the past that flare stacks were lit off by flare guns. Also I know from my work experience that pipelines tend to build up electrical charges and then discharge in very peculiar ways could the one offloading in the background done something to setoff this flash? As for the shadow streak this could be a shadow caused by the flash or it could be a contrail. I discount the contrail theory because if you look and the angles of the other shadows in the picture there is differences in the angles of the shadows of the stationary objects so a contrail would have to be exactly in the right position and then would probably be evident in the subsequent pictures. Also most of the contrail shadows I have witnessed did not come to a point on the ground such as this, they just seemed to trail across the sky unless a distant hill or mountain intersected them. I believe the shadow was caused by the light pole somehow but I believe that some other shadows from surrounding poles and objects would be evident as well. I think a closer look at those poles and objects may give some clues to what this is.

[happy]

I agree with smith @ canada.com

meechamw@ptd.net

[Guest_itsabob]

Final thought: Who says there was a flash on this camera? What professional would be taking pictures of clouds with a flash!!?? That bright spot is not an insect.

The EXIF data from the digital camera images says, that's who. The flash on the camera fired. It does not mattery /why/ the photographer did it, what is important that the flash DID FIRE.

No, the EXIF data says "Flash:undefined value"

[Guest]

Time to check with the SETI project?

[aplewe]

The streak observed in the photo is, in my opinion, not a contrail shadow. Here's my reasoning:

Follow the streak from the lamp post/blast area upwards. Notice as you do that that the streak is imposed over several layers of clouds. Unfortunately I've forgotten the names of the various types of clouds, but in this photo there are several and they're in layers. Most pictures of contrail shadows only show the shadow visibile through a thin layer of clouds, not through a very dense arragement of several layers and types of clouds. Also of note is the evenness in the intensity of the streak. Consider what this indicates; at the top left of the photo there are no clouds at all, meaning that the shadow cast by a contrail would be more pronounced. As we move towards the flash point, the corresponding trajectory of an airplane would take it over and past all these clouds in the background, and we would therefore expect that the contrail shadow would be harder to see as more and more clouds diffused the light and the plane got further away.

Incidentally, the differing altitudes of the clouds in the path of the streak also rule out the possibility that the streak was a shadow from something on the ground. The shadow would cast at different intensities and would not appear straight to an observer on the ground because of the differences in the altitudes of the clouds.

[Jimmy]

Please, a thousands pardons, but can it be that so many people are so easily fooled? One person even said this puts the photographers reputation on the line. And.. SO? NOT!!! Like he's going to get fined or something... get real.

Let's see: Ball lightning, lighning, dark matter, lasers, bulb, shiup mast, meteorite, bug, hahahahaha.... so many posts -- so many posts -- so many wild ideas!!! Yet NOT ONE of you entertains the huge possibility that this is simply a hoax. You'd rather entertain exotic and near impossible odds than face simple 'hoax'. Jeeezzz... I have a bridge for you folks to buy. Hey.. how about them crop circles... hahahaha sure sure, they HAVE to be aliens huh!?? HAHAHAHAHAHA

OK, I'm a reputable guy, except when I'm having a bit of fun. So, I'll create a picture too and post it... and I can't wait to hear all the "I'm so knowledgeable, I know know for sure" explanations! You'll know it when you see it - soon!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA.... what a riot!!!

[JonSmith]

i think its an alien

[CurtC]

How can anyone look at the following picture, created and posted by Diffit on the previous page, and deny that it's a bug?



Lasers? Spaceships? Judgment day? Boy, this topic, combined with an anonymous message board, has really brought out some kooks.

[Harry Law]

How can anyone look at the following picture, created and posted by Diffit on the previous page, and deny that it's a bug?



Lasers? Spaceships? Judgment day? Boy, this topic, combined with an anonymous message board, has really brought out some kooks.

Simple. Judging from the header information, the shuttle speed were too fast to have a bug creating such a long shadow behind it.

[twolastcents]

At the risk of another personal attack by "guest" (who claims I know nothing about basic biology, or physics) , let me throw one more thing out to discount the bug theory, and I'll go away for good.

I'd like someone to identify a bug that flies at a 90 degree bank in open air, even when changing directions (not counting landing on a wall or other surface). They don't fly like airplanes fellas. There's just nothing realistinc about this bug flying fast, arrow straight, sideways, or circling the camera in a plane cutting right through the center of the image plane.

A valid explaination has to be naturally plausable. To me, the chances of the straight path, flying sideways, at the exact orientation to the camera... are just as likely as randomly catching a meteor just at the right instant. It just doesn't add up to a realistic bug.

See ya

[tx rig diver]

It really doesn't matter what filter you stick on it or not, humans want to find a pattern. The people here that are calling this a bug are the same people who see faces on the martian landscape with a resolution of how many hundreds of kilomweters per pixel.
Wouldn't it be fun if........

[http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031214.html]

IMHO this is simply an artifact of light and shadow, digital camera receptor and a ground glass lens.[/url]

[tx rig diver]

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950722.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990315.html

we see what we want to see and we hear what we want to hear.

You can't teach anything to someone who knows everything already.

I obviously don't know how to add links so you have to cut and paste.[/url]

[lamb of god]

lamb of god is the best band ever

[bob da builda]

no way

[victorengel]

At the risk of another personal attack by "guest" (who claims I know nothing about basic biology, or physics) , let me throw one more thing out to discount the bug theory, and I'll go away for good.

I'd like someone to identify a bug that flies at a 90 degree bank in open air, even when changing directions (not counting landing on a wall or other surface). They don't fly like airplanes fellas. There's just nothing realistinc about this bug flying fast, arrow straight, sideways, or circling the camera in a plane cutting right through the center of the image plane.

A valid explaination has to be naturally plausable. To me, the chances of the straight path, flying sideways, at the exact orientation to the camera... are just as likely as randomly catching a meteor just at the right instant. It just doesn't add up to a realistic bug.

See ya

You throw out some valid concerns about the bug. However, I will respond with some things I noticed in investigating because of similar concerns.

The tragectory is not straight! In fact, it curves first one way and then the other, and then a curve again right close to the bug position (see my horizontal compressed picture a page or two back).

The symmetry is not quite right for a 90 degree bank that you propose. Consider also the possibility that it might be a beetle. Beetles fly with their wing covers up. If the wings were down while the wing covers were up, it might make a pattern as shown.

The tragectory also changes a bit in diameter. Assuming the bug theory is valid, that means the bug was changing distance with respect to the camera, zigzag style. The viewpoint evidently is nearly (but not quite) in the same plane as the zigzag. I do recognize my explanation is tenuous considering the low signal to noise ratio of the image, but that is what the data show. I would compare this to a poll showing one candidate is ahead of the other by 2 points with a statistical margin of error of 3 points.

Insects don't actually fly at all. They swim through the air. Actually, it's probably somewhere in between.

[New Mexican USA]

Very strange because I saw one of those super straight black shadows on the same day in Albuquerque New Mexico USA. It was very cloudy that day because it was raining and the black streek whent from Easy to West, Or was it West to East (couln't tell where it started from or ended)

[onus]

I'm not sure this could a shadow of a contrail. If it was, then why would it disappear in 15 seconds? Contrails last a long time and they don't "move at jet speed" they are "created at jet speed" but the move at the same speed as the prevailing winds. Their shadows would move due ot a combination of the winds plus the change in sun angle. Less than 15 seconds of this "shadow" seems unlikely given the small change in the cloud formations that are visible in the photo.

Plus, The sun seems to be behind the large cloud in the top center of the shot. If this were a shadow, we should be able to spot the "thing" casting the shadow, if I'm reading the sun position properly.

There's a strange aberration surrounding the flash. What is that? At first I thought it might be a splash from something entering the water, but it does not look right to be a splash. It has a center and an upper and lower "wing" that appear in a line perpendicular to the direction of travel (apparent travel) of the object. It's not a splash. I think it's more like a bad reflection off of a lens filter or something.

So...question #1 -- was there a screw-on filter over the lens? If not that, then does this lens have a propensity to show "ghost" images when bright objects are in the field of view? Cheap lens?


The smoke trail is nearly, but not exactly a straight line. It looks more or less "ballistic" in trajectory. Like an object was thrown from behind left of the camera and was caught in midflight by the automatic shutter's firing.

What kind of object? Small and bright. Too bright to be a cigarette butt, but something on that order or smaller. Or something very white that reflected ambient light back to the camera.

In fact, the more I look at the weird glowing "halo" the more I'm convinced that this was something VERY small relatively close to
the camera.

The trail could be smoke if the object is relatively further away (a few feet at most) or it could be a fine piece of string or a hair if the object is relatively close (well inside the lens' focal length).

Maybe someone tossed a match?

Maybe it's a dust mote reflecting a car's lights.

[Ruidh]

I'd like someone to identify a bug that flies at a 90 degree bank in open air, even when changing directions (not counting landing on a wall or other surface). They don't fly like airplanes fellas. There's just nothing realistinc about this bug flying fast, arrow straight, sideways, or circling the camera in a plane cutting right through the center of the image plane.

I've read the nearly 1,000 messages so far on this topic. The bug proponents have image analyisis. They have a model which accounts for the streak, the flash and even the shape of the flash. Plus is's a rather mundane explanation which is certainly more probable than a chance capture of a meteorite strike.

And then they are faced with objections like this one which just don't make sense. (Who has claimed a "90 degree bank" or "flying in the plane of the image"? or even "circling the camera"? I have no idea where that flight of fantacy comes from.) We have estimates of the speed of the bug flying through the air. Why haven't you addressed those. They seem to give values in line with the speed of bugs. Why is it so hard to believe that a bug flew a few cm in a nearly (but possibly not quite) straight line in the 1/20 sec it took to take the picture? Is it so hard to believe that the wings are nearly invisible except when caught in the flash?

There isn't even a claim that the bug is flying in the plane of the image as you seem to think. Not that that would be implausible if the bug is flying just outside of and parallel to the window the camera is shooting through.

I have to say, the bug explanation at least has some science behind it. The other explanations I've seen are no better than bare assertions. (It's a contrail shadow/it can't be a contrail shadow) If you want to debunk the straight line explanation, you have to tell us why a bug couldn't fly in a straight line (ar what appears to be a straight line when the subject is so out of focus) for a few cm?

I think the fact that the bulb was found to be burned out is a red herring. It could have burned out a week earlier. The explanations that the line is a shadow fromt he bulb burning out are just nonsensical. If the bulb burning were bright enough to illuminate all the clouds except for a narrow shadowed area, it would have completely overexposed the direct view with tons of blooming.

I have to say, the bug explanation looks to be the only one in real contention unless someone can either (a) blow some holes in the calculations or (b) provide some science behind the other explanations.

[fpj]

I have made a few observations and made some conclusions based on them.

All 3 photos where taken with the same aperture and the same exposition time. Now if you look at all the photos, ignoring the streak, you can see that all pictures have roughly the same brightness. So the streak is darker then the rest of the picture and darker then the same areas in the other 2 pictures.

The first conclusion from this observation is that the streak could not be caused by the shadow of an additional source of light. If that was the case then the whole “target” photo would be brighter and the streak area would have the same brightness of the same areas on the other 2 photos (remember that all the pictures ware taken with the same aperture and exposition time).

So the streak can only be caused by less light reaching the camera from that area. The only 3 ways I can figure out to explain that is:

1) the shadow was in fact there, caused by some phenomena
2) something blocked light coming from the scene in is path to the camera
3) the streak is a camera artefact

I believe that the hypothesis 2 is the most plausible and that the bug theory is the one that best explains both the streak and the flash.

[Guest]

Final thought: Who says there was a flash on this camera? What professional would be taking pictures of clouds with a flash!!?? That bright spot is not an insect.

The EXIF data from the digital camera images says, that's who. The flash on the camera fired. It does not mattery /why/ the photographer did it, what is important that the flash DID FIRE.

No, the EXIF data says "Flash:undefined value"

No it doesn't.

It says "Flash Used: Yes"