What Do You Think About This?

[jeanv]

Hello all,

I amuse myself sometimes by visiting conspiracy boards. I know, there are much better things to do than surfing these sites :P.

But sometimes there are some funny things to see there. For instance here (http://www.godlikeproductions.com/bbs/message.php?message=372553&mpage=1&topic=3&showdate=7/6/04&replies=92) is a link with a thread in which a person has taken some photos of 'something' in the sky. The OP hasn't given much info on where to look for it, but maybe you guys can figure it out ;)

What do you think about the pictures? Nicely Photoshopped? You can find a direct link to the pictures here (http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v353/epoch99/Venus%20Rising%20July%206%202004/)

regards,
Jean

[Lomitus]

Hey Jean,
Well, the author "claims" these are not fakes, but I have to agree with the person who noticed the star field. If you use picture "2 of 6" as a reference, you will see there are two stars diagonally above the "object" and 3 stars inversally diagonal below it (sort of like the two sets are almost pointing towards the tip of a triangle). Now if you look at the other pics in comparison, pic 4 the object is way to the left of these stars, pic 1 the object is just above the top two stars...what, did this thing pull a 90 degree turn in mid sky? Very peculiar motion for venus! LOL!!! He also stated that these pics were taken between aprox 5:30a.m. and 6:00a.m....Venus (or most other celestial bodies) would not have that much motion in that short a period of time. If it was a nebula or something, it wouldn't move at all...no matter how badly he swaggled the camera, it would still be located in the same position relative to the stars. Thats another thing I would question...he states that "I did not use a tri-pod so if there appears to be some unsteadiness it is because of my unsteady hand" however regardless of how unsteady his hand was, it would -not- change the relative position of the object in relation to the star field behind it.

I would also like to add that it is -very- easy to create a "star field" in Photoshop...done it myself for a pic I took of the moon thats on BytePhoto.com. Move over, from a hand-held camera it would be very unlikely that you would see any star field in the photo at all. From everything I've read at least, in order to photograph stars (say shoot a pic of a constillation), you really need a relatively long exposure time (i.e. the camera shutter would have to be open for a minute or more) and if this was done hand-held, the star field would be -very- blurry indeed. One of the reasons that people will "piggy-back" mount their cameras to their telescopes. Also, if you look at most pictures of most bright celestial objects (such as nebula) etc., unless their taken through a decent telescope again you don't see a star field (look at pics of Saturn, Jupiter, the moon, etc...you don't usually see -any- stars!). Pics such as nebula's that are taken and have a nice star field around them again are done with long exposures...especially to get the kind of color thats depicted in the object in those pictures. From my meager knowledge, I really don't think what he's claiming is possible from a hand held photo of the sky.

Now as to if these pics are fake...hmmmm. Their certainly not what he claims, so that would cause me to judge the whole thing with a grain of salt. If I were to make a guess without any further data, I'd say it was either something that was photoshop'd or considering the time of year it is (aka 4th of July)...maybe he got a couple of stop action photos of a bottle rocket or firework or something. I guess it's possible that he is photographing -something- there, but I would seriously doubt it. I'm almost tempted to get up that early and take a look for myself, but 5:30 a.m.??? Nope...un-uh...ain't gonna happen because I really don't think it's worth it. I'll tell you this much though, I'm pretty confident that it is -NOT- Venus.

This might be a good one to toss towards the forum at www.badastronomy.com as they love this kind of stuff! LOL! :rolleyes:

Any other takers?
Bright Blessings,
Jim

[Lomitus]

Ok...everyone please forgive me, but after thinking about this thread a little more, I just had too.....

This is of course, the often over-looked "King" nebula! I shot this pic with a camera I got out of a box of Cracker Jacks that I have mounted as a hood ornimant on my 36' Plymouth, taken sometime in the early morning, somewhere in the Northern sky (near Venus maybe?). No...really...I swear this picture is geniune! :lol:

Again, I really just could not help myself and my most sincere apologies to all for this break from serious astronomy (it's good not to take ones self so sirius sometimes). Obviously nothing in this photo...including the star field, is authentic (ok..well maybe the pic of Elvis was at one time!). It took me a total of about a 1/2 hour to do this pic and most of that time was spent looking for a nice pic of The King :-) If those images originally referred to are in fact real, then the author has most most sincere and humble apologies, however I just wanted to take a moment and demonstrate just how easy it is now-a-days to fake a photo.

Bright Blessings All!
Jim

"Elvis isn't dead...he just went home" - Men In Black

[Dave Mitsky]

Depending upon the darkness of the site, the film speed, camera lens, and f/stop used film photographs of stars, and the constellations they comprise, can be done in as little as 10 seconds. (The longer the exposure, the fainter the stars that will be recorded.) The same applies roughly for digital cameras. Shots much longer than 30 to 45 seconds, unless the camera is mounted on a barn door tracker, a driven equatorial mount, or piggybacked on a telescope with a sidereal drive, will result in star trails due to the Earth's rotation.

Dave Mitsky