A Strange Streak Imaged in Australia 825
Koyaanisqatsi writes "Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day presents a challenge worthy of a large audience: as it says, "Meteor experts don't think it's a meteor. Atmospheric scientists don't think it's lightning". An intriguing dark streak and bright flash that defies explanation showed up on some cloud monitoring pictures. The forumsetup to discuss it is currently hosed, so perhaps fellow slashdotters can shed some light over the mystery?"
It's old news... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's old news... (Score:2)
that does explain it (Score:3, Interesting)
It wouldn't reflect directly back, but at a slight angle. The light hitting the lense at an angle would make one side long. In this case....very long.
Re:that does explain it (Score:3, Insightful)
"the spiders can fly by wire, called "ballooning". The spider raises her abdomen and releases a thread
Re:It's old news... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It's old news... (Score:2)
No way (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No way (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, an ancient, alien artifact, pregnant with long-dormant, world-ravaging evil, which will no doubt unleash terrible plague and death and destruction the world over, consuming the entire human race in an unimaginable apocalypse, only possibly averted by some unlikely everyman hero who has heretofore been overlooked by society but who will, no doubt, be immortalized by his deeds on the day the evil is returned to this artifact and banished forever.
Clear as day. It's right there in the photo.
Re:No way (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No way (Score:5, Funny)
My view (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My view (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My view (Score:2)
What was the frame rate?
Re:My view (Score:3, Interesting)
Assuming that the distance between the bulldozer and the surface anomoly site is 100m, if this were a projectile, it would be moving at about 2 kilometres per second.
Note that the flight path appears slightly parabolic (bulges up), indicating that some non-gravity acceleration is involved.
Also, why are we assuming that this projectile originated from the sky and not from under the water?
Re:My view (Score:2)
Re:My view (Score:2)
Re:My view (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:My view (Score:2)
Are we allowed to do that?
IT has to be! (Score:3, Funny)
Um, flaw in the film? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Um, flaw in the film? (Score:2)
Re:Um, flaw in the film? (Score:5, Informative)
uExif
Canon
Canon PowerShot G3
ACD Systems Digital Imaging
2004:11:25 15:20:49
0220
0100
2004:11:22 18:52:52
2004:11:22 18:52:52
IMG:PowerShot G3 JPEG
Firmware Version 1.02
Re:Um, flaw in the film? (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is a very bright event (the failure of the streetlight, probably) causing CCD overexposure and subsequent temporary ill effects on the rest of the CCD scan line. Any Canon geeks in the house who know about the CCD scanning direction of a Powershot G3 and can compare it with the streak "trajectory" angle?
Peter
Re:Um, flaw in the film? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've had all sorts of annoying artifacts like this on my image capture setup at home, but generally overloading the CCD produces horizontal and vertical streaks only, which would follow the layout of the CCD (rows and columns?) The image could still be explained by either:
My theory is the bright flash is actually sunlight reflected off the lamp and either overloading the CCD or causing a lens flare just before the image, resulting in this artifact. I get that a lot with cars going by my camera setup at home, especially at sunrise and sunset. The only difference I get is that they're all perfectly horizontal and/or vertical.
Re:Um, flaw in the film? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Um, flaw in the film? (Score:5, Informative)
The streak angle, BTW, is exactly arctan(2/3) -- the streak goes two pixels up for every three across. (It goes 652 pixels up and 978 across, which is less than 1% different from 2/3, smaller than the error of me pointing at things in the Gimp.) To me this makes it very likely to be an artifact.
Peter
Timestamps on the images (Score:5, Interesting)
$ strings strangebefore_pryde_big.jpg | head
uExif
Canon
Canon PowerShot G3
ACD Systems Digital Imaging
2004:11:25 15:23:11
0220
0100
2004:11:22 18:53:07
2004:11:22 18:53:07
IMG:PowerShot G3 JPEG
$ strings strange_pryde_big.jpg | head
uExif
Canon
Canon PowerShot G3
ACD Systems Digital Imaging
2004:11:25 15:20:49
0220
0100
2004:11:22 18:52:52
2004:11:22 18:52:52
IMG:PowerShot G3 JPEG
$ strings strangeafter_pryde_big.jpg | head
uExif
Canon
Canon PowerShot G3
ACD Systems Digital Imaging
2004:11:25 15:22:47
0220
0100
2004:11:22 18:52:37
2004:11:22 18:52:37
IMG:PowerShot G3 JPEG
$
Re:Timestamps on the images (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Timestamps on the images (Score:3, Informative)
The second set of timestamps are obviously the ones from the camera that took the original time lapse images since they're separated from each other by 15 second
Re:Um, flaw in the film? (Score:2)
The flash and smoke would seem to be what you'd see if the electical system in the lamp (usually housed in the base) got surged and baked itself to death. Seeing as how this l
Source of the line (Score:2, Interesting)
Either that or he needs to clean his camera lens.
Kinetic Probe (Score:2, Funny)
Skeptical view (Score:2)
Ironic username for submitting this story (Score:3, Interesting)
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster. Near the Day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky. A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."
That streak is awful straight (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:That streak is awful straight (Score:2)
Re:That streak is awful straight (Score:2)
Re:That streak is awful straight (Score:2)
Re:That streak is awful straight (Score:2)
Re:That streak is awful straight (Score:3, Interesting)
SAM? (Score:2)
Bottle Rocket (Score:2)
Damage? (Score:2)
UFO? (Score:2)
Re:UFO? (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing to see here, move along folks.
J
Sorry, everyone! (Score:5, Funny)
I was trying out my new death-ray. I had it miscalibrated so that you could see it.
Don't worry about it. When death comes and strikes from the heavens for real, it'll be completely invisible.
-Ming the Merciless
Aliens! (Score:2)
Let us all bow our heads in silence as we remember these small but brave travelers.
Wow... (Score:2)
What a clear photo! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What a clear photo! (Score:3, Interesting)
Possibly but not far off base. The picture was taken by a photographer with a telephoto lense. He was taking pictures of a large area where movement is occurring. I doubt that he would be using a shutter speed as slow as 1/30. I would not take pictures at that distance with less than 1/250 as it would reveal photographer tremors (though he could be using a tripod, but then he would go for 1
Improvements of APOD (Score:2)
Yes I tried contacting the APOD maintainers as indicated in this previous APOD slashdot [slashdot.org] story
Ugly thoughts (Score:2)
Aircraft toilets malfunction.
Has the light pole been checked for bacteria?
Most of the vital parts on an aircraft are built by the lowest bidder.
It's OBVIOUS! (Score:2)
Let's see Watson... (Score:3, Interesting)
Images taken just before and after the above frame show no streak or flash. The light pole near the flash has been inspected and does not show any damage, although the light inside was not working.
Can we reasonably say that it was just a light bulb blowing off? Streak? Boy, for sure when I get a bright lamp in the frame I have all kinds of streaks going off it on the picture. So - I'd say it's either an optical or digicam artifact caused by the flash.
I know what this is... (Score:2)
It's a death ray (Score:2)
A meteor that hit and caused a flash would have left some external marks. Not a meteor thus.
Perhaps a photoshop? A simple answer, but somehow less than pleasing.
No, what we see is the trace of a death ray, shot by a military satellite, able to take out lamp bulbs without any collateral damage. Dear god... these things could be circling above our heads as we sp
Airplane contrail (Score:2)
My solution (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, here's my solution. The light levels are fairly low: the EXIF data from the big image reveals that the Powershot G3 used 1/20s exposure at f/5.6.
I reckon the streak and the blur are very, very close to the camera, and that the intersection with the streetlamp is conincidence.
I believe that the mystery object is an insect flying "north-west" (i.e. towards the top left of the camera). The EXIF data tells us that the flash was fired, although goodness knows why any decent photographer would use a flash for that shot.
The flash on most cameras fires at the beginning of the exposure time, and the insect is captured in flight and out of focus near the middle of the frame. It then continues flying for the rest of the 1/20s exposure causing the black streak.
Where do I go to collect my prize?
Re:My solution (Score:3, Interesting)
You guys have such wonderful imaginations. The fellow who described it as a photographic artifact is as close as any of you get.
Note that a line inscribed from the sun to the flash at the postition of the light pole is at right angles too the black streak.
This is whats commonly known as a ''sun dog'', or lens flare, though it is produced in this case from the reflection rather than the sun itself.
I reached this conclusion after using photoshop CS with the Genuine Fractals scaling plugin on a G4 powermac
Re:My solution (Score:5, Informative)
Careful, sun dogs and lens flares are two completely different things. Lens flares are caused by internal reflections inside the lens. Sun dogs are caused by the sun's light hitting ice crystals in the atmosphere and are visible to the eye.
photoshopped image... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:photoshopped image... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:My solution (Score:3, Informative)
Also, why is the white pattern around the lightpost symmetrical about the axis of the dark streak? Wouldn't a bug flying sideways in the picture be asymmetrical in relation to its flight path?
Wings.
A camera flash lasts very approximately 1/1000s, or 1/50th of the exposure of this shot. You won't see much movement during the flash duration, although some of the blur may be explained by that at suh close range.
Note also that the dark streak does not extend to the edge of the frame. The illusion o
It's a "rod". (Score:3, Informative)
There is a certain class of crackpot who thinks that out of focus pictures of insects flying across a photoframe are evidence of some strange unknown creature.
Fortunately, we can visit their websites and laugh at them. Unfortunately, they can now point at the Astronomy Picture of the Day and say "See! NASA found more evidence for rods!"
Link to roswellrods.com [roswellrods.com] - don't forget your tin foil hat, and yo
Re:My solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I did some Photoshop work (inspired by a previous post), and despite the arguement that it is a perfectly straight line, I tend to disagree. IMHO, here is definately some deviation to it, as the parallel lines in my image show (though it's not very good). See it here [dylanpowell.net].
Cosmic Rays! (Score:2)
A little image processing tells me (Score:2)
Also, the bright artifact has a brighter core that is vertical with respect to the rest of the frame. This could be consistent with a reflection off a cylinder such as a lightpole.
It's probably just the reflection off my tinfoil hat.
Lots of Meteorites hit Australia yesterday (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Lots of Meteorites hit Australia yesterday (Score:3)
Move along - nothing to see here.
I have an answer... (Score:2)
My Questions (Score:4, Interesting)
2. Is it a flash, or is it a steady bright light (like what a meteor head would be). Need to know the exposure time for that info.
3. Is there any sign of the trail in the after photo.
4. How long is it before the after photo was taken?
5. It the flash infront of, behind, or exactly congruent with the pole top.
6. Is the trail wider at the top than the bottom. If it is, is this dispersion of smoke or paralax and the object was moving away.
7. Is the image film or digital.
8. What is the white stuff? Shock front? Something disintegrating? Why is it that funny shape?
9. Was the light working previously? When was it last known to be working? There may be pictures of it from the night before.
Well, thats my questions. I think its a meteor.
Object hitting the water? (Score:3, Interesting)
Those pictures have got to be in the wrong order! (Score:5, Informative)
before [nasa.gov]
"the" picture [nasa.gov]
after [nasa.gov]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
OMG the sky is falling!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Paleontologists don't think it is a dinosaur, NASA doesn't think it is a spacecraft, financial experts don't think it will have an adverse effect on the economy, lawyers could be preparing a lawsuit on behalf of Bigfoot for IP infringement, the FDA has said it could have adverse side effect, the White House has declined to comment. Currently the photo is on sale at eBay with the high bid at $785.
A meteorite fast enough to vaporize on impact... (Score:3, Interesting)
I personally own a similar Canon G-3, and I've never seen a dark streak on the image, even when shooting pictures with a strong point light source (as was speculated for a blowing-out light bulb). In fact, with the G-3, a well known problem is "purple fringing" around bright lights. None of that here, so the bright splotch is probably not that bright.
I personally subscribe to the "bug in front of the flash" theory.
(Question: one post suggested the EXIF data shows the flash fired. Why would a halfway decent photog leave the flash on for a distance shot like this? It just risks illuminating the dust between you and the subject matter.)
Some numbers (Score:5, Informative)
First, EXIF fields in the photos... something you should look at first.
Camera: Canon PowerShot G3
Date and Time (original): 2004:11:22 18:52:52
Exposure Time: 1/19 sec.
Aperture: f/5.6
And for the photo After:
Date and Time (original): 2004:11:22 18:52:37
So the photos were taken with 1/19 sec. exposure, every 15 seconds.
I took the two images into GIMP, substracted them, brightened the result a lot (using Levels) and ran it through despecle. First, the lamps do look perfectly identical between the photos (or there'd be a spot around the lamp where it changed shape). In fact, the only bright bits that remain (apart from the sea reflections) are the flash and the streak.
The streak looks conical, at 1-1.5 degrees (I measured roughly using GIMP). It ends before the edge of the picture. It's about 1200 pixels long, in fact. The street lamps are 60 pixels long... Assuming that a street lamp would be on the order of 5-10 metres high, you get about 100-200 metres streak.
The cloud is VERY visible on the difference image; it has yellow-orange central spot and 2 pure-white spots to the sides; this seems consistent with a central fire and a smoke circle.
Now I substracted the before and after image and brightened them the same way. I *think* there is a visible dark spot at the place where the white cloud was; however, the image is so noisy that it could just be my imagination.
I think that the flash and the cloud were from the blown lamp. They dissipated rapidly, but there could be traces left... I'd have to do much better image processing to be able to tell.
I have no idea whatsoever what the dark streak could be. It doesn't look like a CCD sensor problem - overloaded CCDs leak brightness straight up, as far as I know. I also don't know of any lens flare that can darken the photo. It could be smoke, in which case something would be hitting the street lamp. But that would've caused lots of visible damage.
Impact trama, or lack thereof. (Score:3, Funny)
1) It's bright.
Bright things moving though the atmosphere tend to be very very hot.
2) It's durable.
Things that make it this far down tend to be be fairly substantial in nature.
So now we supposively have a bright, hot, durable object impacting a body of water at high speeds... THAT LEAVES NO TRACE AFTER IMPACT. Steam maybe? A ripple or two? Honestly, would somebody like to run a simulation on a superheated baseball sized rock slamming into the ocean at close to mach? Maybe a golfball to be conservative? Heck, I'm speculating the damn thing might explode just in temperature differential alone when it touches the water, if not angerly boil for a good long time.
The only conclusion I can specuate where it may have been any substantial object falling from the sky is that one in a billion chance it actually fully vaporized a second before impact. Even so, you'd still have some sort of audio event at those speeds, I'm imagining.
I'm going for visual artifact or an environmental lighting glitch myself.
This is an very common phenomenon (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically, what you are seeing is the equivalent of a sunbeam, except that it's a shadow-beam. A sunbeam occurs when there is a small hole in the cloud, and the light going through the hole illuminates the dust particles and water droples in the air along the path of the light. If the light is strong and the background relatively dark, it is easy to see these sunbeams (or God rays.)
Shadows through the sky are somewhat harder to see, because the contrast is not as great. When they are dramatic, as in this picture, you have to have the fortuitous situation of looking through a long, well defined slab of shadowed air, with well-lit air on either side. Airplane contrails are the perfect shadow source for this.
Imagine a 3D volume of a shadow cast by a contrail. It is a long thin slab of shadowed air. If you are within that slab, and looking along it, all the air in that direction is shadowed, for many miles, so the contrast between the shadowed air and the surrounding air is strong.
A good bit of the light around the shadow beam is not light scattered by dust or water droplets, but is just the same Raliegh-scattered light that makes the sky blue. The dark streak through the sky will be noticably darker and especially less blue than the surrounding air.
As you can tell, this is one of my favorite (of many!) atmospheric optical phenomena. Once you start to look for them, they are quite easy to see. Occasionally you can see them from natual cloud formations or even topographical or architechural features when the conditions are just right.
Thad Beier
Re:This is an very common phenomenon (Score:3, Interesting)
Not a flash across the grass (Score:3, Funny)
It's not an artifact: Proof (Score:3, Informative)
Bad Science from "The Bad Astronomer" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It looks like... (Score:2)
I'm coming Princess!!!!!
Re:It looks like... (Score:3, Interesting)
Regards,
Steve
Re:It looks like... (Score:3, Interesting)
Intel SAT 7 [slashdot.org], perhaps?
Re:It looks like... (Score:2)
Re:Streak? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:New Death Weapon Overlords (Score:2)
Uh, oh! A death weapon that can destroy light bulbs! Someone alert the military!
Nope (Score:2, Informative)
Bzzt Wrong (Score:2)
This is from the September 13th APOD. Not the December 5th APOD.
Thanks for playing.
Steve
Re:Solution posted (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Solution posted (Score:2)
Read better. That's the solution to this APOD [nasa.gov].
Re:Solution posted (Score:2, Funny)
1) the slight gray streak of what appears to be smoke in the picutre
2) why the light no longer works
The answer to the second issue could simply be one of those quirks where the bulb had reached its end of life at approximately the same time the picture was taken.
While the author is certainly more knowledgable in the area he talks about than I am, I can't say I can agree with his conclusion. The flash as shown in the photo appears to be mor
Um, holy shit (Score:3, Informative)
*Wow*.
Thanks for a good laugh though.
Re:Solution posted (Score:2)
Troll or karma-whore? You decide.
Re:Space Based Laser (Score:2)
No, that wasn't the Space Based Laser. That was just some ranging fire to make sure the targeting is accurate. The Space Based Laser fire will commence shortly.
Alice Springs! Pine Gap! oh god, it's started... (Score:2)
Re:Oblig (Score:2, Funny)
As long as they are hot attractive females, I got no problem with that.
Re:missing option (Score:2, Funny)
3) a meteorite (to troll the astronomy experts who will have to chime in and explain the difference)
I'll take the bait. For those of you who don't own a telescope or care about the awesomenessfulness of the cosmos, the beauty of Alphi Centuari, or the amazing moons of Jupiter, here's the difference between a meteor and a meteorite, in laymen's terms.
A meteor is a boy space rock, a meteorite is a girl space rock. When a metorite crashes into the ocean it is called an asteroid. Meteorite's t