APOD: Moon Mountains Magnified during Ring... (2020 Jun 22)

[APOD Robot]

Moon Mountains Magnified during Ring of Fire Eclipse

Explanation: What are those dark streaks in this composite image of yesterday's solar eclipse? They are reversed shadows of mountains at the edge of the Moon. The center image, captured from Xiamen, China, has the Moon's center directly in front of the Sun's center. The Moon, though, was too far from the Earth to completely block the entire Sun. Light that streamed around all of the edges of the Moon is called a ring of fire. Images at each end of the sequence show sunlight that streamed through lunar valleys. As the Moon moved further in front of the Sun, left to right, only the higher peaks on the Moon's perimeter could block sunlight. Therefore, the dark streaks are projected, distorted, reversed, and magnified shadows of mountains at the Moon's edge. Bright areas are called Bailey's Beads. Only a narrow swath across Earth's Eastern Hemisphere was able to see yesterday's full annular solar eclipse. Next June, though, a narrow swath across Earth's Northern Hemisphere will be able to see the next annular solar eclipse. A total solar eclipse will be visible at the bottom of the world near the end of this year.

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[Case]

What a beautiful and creative composition!

I watched the webcast yesterday from timeanddate.com with several feeds along the path, and what struck me first was how thin the ‘ring of fire’ was, compared to other recent annular eclipses.

[neufer]

Bright Bailey's Beads Magnify Moon Mountains

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(CNN) "Super cool view of the Annular Solar Eclipse which passed by our starboard side as we flew over China this morning around 07:10 GMT," NASA Astronaut Chris Cassidy said on Facebook. "A pretty neat way to wake up on Father's Day morning! Hoping all of the dads in the world have a wonderful day!"

[orin stepanek]

Amazing picture! God's own spirograph!

[johnnydeep]

Moon Mountains Magnified during Ring of Fire Eclipse

Explanation: What are those dark streaks in this composite image of yesterday's solar eclipse? They are reversed shadows of mountains at the edge of the Moon. The center image, captured from Xiamen, China, has the Moon's center directly in front of the Sun's center. The Moon, though, was too far from the Earth to completely block the entire Sun. Light that streamed around all of the edges of the Moon is called a ring of fire. Images at each end of the sequence show sunlight that streamed through lunar valleys. As the Moon moved further in front of the Sun, left to right, only the higher peaks on the Moon's perimeter could block sunlight. Therefore, the dark streaks are projected, distorted, reversed, and magnified shadows of mountains at the Moon's edge. Bright areas are called Bailey's Beads. Only a narrow swath across Earth's Eastern Hemisphere was able to see yesterday's full annular solar eclipse. Next June, though, a narrow swath across Earth's Northern Hemisphere will be able to see the next annular solar eclipse. A total solar eclipse will be visible at the bottom of the world near the end of this year.

Sadly, try as I might, I'm just not understanding what I'm looking at, nor what imaging processing was done - if any - to create this image Sure, the moon passed in front of the sun and eventually created an annual eclipse, and sure, moon mountain peaks start blocking the sun first, but that's as far as I can get. I think a video might help.

[MarkBour]

Sadly, try as I might, I'm just not understanding what I'm looking at, nor what imaging processing was done - if any - to create this image Sure, the moon passed in front of the sun and eventually created an annual eclipse, and sure, moon mountain peaks start blocking the sun first, but that's as far as I can get. I think a video might help.

Very clever composite, and it naturally creates an exaggeration that is very revealing!

1. Not sure I can answer everything for you, but suppose the Moon is crossing the Sun's face from right to left. Take your first image just as the right edge of the Moon is still barely covering the right edge of the Sun. Take a next image a bit later and a few points of light should be appearing to the right of the Moon. Take another image a bit later when there are more points of light at the right, and some of the points are expanding, and so on. For each of these images, you're just keeping a crescent of light from the right part of the Moon, not the rest of the image. And place these images, each slightly to the left of the last.
   
   (I'm not sure, but if your camera is looking at a fixed position, this is actually the opposite of the direction that this show is moving in the sky, the Sun and Moon both progressing westward, with the Sun progressing faster than the Moon. But I think this experience of mine is dependent on me being an observer who lives in the Northern hemisphere, and I'm watching such things happen to the South of me. For other locations on the Earth and directions of view, this movement relative to a fixed camera on a tripod would be different.)
2. The final image in this sequence is when the Moon is centered over the Sun, so you get a full and symmetrical ring. For this image, keep the entire image around the Moon.
3. Now, start focusing on just the left side of the Moon and take a set of images as the Moon's edge covers more and more of the Sun's left edge. Just the left-side crescent of each of these is kept, and they are placed each to the left of the next one.

So, this is a time-lapse sequence from right-to-left. (As I was saying, this only matches the apparent motion of the two bodies under a somewhat different reference frame than while just sitting in your chair looking up at one spot.)

First, I hope I haven't made any mis-statements of this. Second, I hope it helps!

... Oh, one other thing to mention, perhaps. Unless conditions were just right, I think that if images were taken at a steady pace, there would have been quite a few images between the central image and the ones on either side of it, all of which would have been "boring", because they would have shown a full arc of light. So, probably some images were left out of the sequence, because they would make the image wider, but no more interesting. Then again, they could have been revealing in their own way -- as to how long the full transit process actually took, in comparison to the transition periods.

[johnnydeep]

Sadly, try as I might, I'm just not understanding what I'm looking at, nor what imaging processing was done - if any - to create this image Sure, the moon passed in front of the sun and eventually created an annual eclipse, and sure, moon mountain peaks start blocking the sun first, but that's as far as I can get. I think a video might help.

Very clever composite, and it naturally creates an exaggeration that is very revealing!

1. Not sure I can answer everything for you, but suppose the Moon is crossing the Sun's face from right to left. Take your first image just as the right edge of the Moon is still barely covering the right edge of the Sun. Take a next image a bit later and a few points of light should be appearing to the right of the Moon. Take another image a bit later when there are more points of light at the right, and some of the points are expanding, and so on. For each of these images, you're just keeping a crescent of light from the right part of the Moon, not the rest of the image. And place these images, each slightly to the left of the last.
   
   (I'm not sure, but if your camera is looking at a fixed position, this is actually the opposite of the direction that this show is moving in the sky, the Sun and Moon both progressing westward, with the Sun progressing faster than the Moon. But I think this experience of mine is dependent on me being an observer who lives in the Northern hemisphere, and I'm watching such things happen to the South of me. For other locations on the Earth and directions of view, this movement relative to a fixed camera on a tripod would be different.)
2. The final image in this sequence is when the Moon is centered over the Sun, so you get a full and symmetrical ring. For this image, keep the entire image around the Moon.
3. Now, start focusing on just the left side of the Moon and take a set of images as the Moon's edge covers more and more of the Sun's left edge. Just the left-side crescent of each of these is kept, and they are placed each to the left of the next one.

So, this is a time-lapse sequence from right-to-left. (As I was saying, this only matches the apparent motion of the two bodies under a somewhat different reference frame than while just sitting in your chair looking up at one spot.)

First, I hope I haven't made any mis-statements of this. Second, I hope it helps!

... Oh, one other thing to mention, perhaps. Unless conditions were just right, I think that if images were taken at a steady pace, there would have been quite a few images between the central image and the ones on either side of it, all of which would have been "boring", because they would have shown a full arc of light. So, probably some images were left out of the sequence, because they would make the image wider, but no more interesting. Then again, they could have been revealing in their own way -- as to how long the full transit process actually took, in comparison to the transition periods.

Thanks for that! Still processing...