posted on Jan, 10 2008 @ 01:27 PM
I'll probably post an analysis of the controversy for the fifth anniversary at the end of this month.
All the speculation about what the pictures SHOULD have looked like have been hampered by a total lack of knowledge of what shuttle entry pictures DO
look like.
Once that is known, the theory that the start button shook the camera momentarilly makes the most sense.
Here's the missing piece: the flaring fireball of plasma around the shuttle itself leaves a milky-white glowing trail behind it, a trail that
persists and slightly widens over the next 30-60 seconds.
So even an instant photo of an entering shuttle would show a long white trail off behind it.
Add in a time exposure, where the entire tail gets to burn its way onto the optics and the actual fireball is just a dot that dances briefly, then
follows the well-marked trail down its center, and you have a formula to generate an image that looks exactly like the ones that Goldie took.
After each exposure, he moves the camera on its tripod and trips the start button again, recreating the same phenomenon each time to greater or lesser
degrees.
I've been on Coast-to-coast with Sereda (search the archives). Everything he thinks he knows about space technology and operations is wrong. IMHO.
Jim O
www.jamesoberg.com