New Analysis Video of the STS-75 Tether Incident

Originally posted by JimOberg
Does that make the source of your confusion clearer, that you fundamentally misunderstood the situation from the start? Feel better now?

wow... you must be gettin damn desperate with this thread.... to JUMP at anything to make a point.... cool down....

Originally posted by mcrom901
wow... you must be gettin damn desperate with this thread.... to JUMP at anything to make a point.... cool down....

Good advice. Sorry, I'd had my fill of puerile "pee jokes" back in the 5th grade or so. But far be it from me to shower on somebody else's parade, golden or not...

The answers to your questions were offered in all seriousness. The ice explanation for many of these favorite 'space UFO videos' is often mocked mercilessly with 'pee jokes', rather than rational debate, but I guess that only splashes back on the mockers, not those trying to figure out the real events.

You're in good company.

[edit on 8-12-2009 by JimOberg]

Originally posted by JimOberg
You're in good company.

yuks.... thanks but no thanks......

i have nothing to do with people who are in the golden shower business.....

ARE these reports that things about the satellite deployed on this Tether test changed unexpectedly?

Was the Nitrogen tank supposed to empty in a short time? What was it's purpose?

If the nitrogen tank operates like the light in your refrigerator, then who opened the door?

Originally posted by Mr_skepticc
It's well known in the NASA community that what you see are called "space critters" Astronauts and Nasa have been seeing them for years.

Jim, are you willing to give me your opinion or thoughts about this?

Originally posted by poet1b

ARE these reports that things about the satellite deployed on this Tether test changed unexpectedly?

Was the Nitrogen tank supposed to empty in a short time? What was it's purpose?

If the nitrogen tank operates like the light in your refrigerator, then who opened the door?

Poet, the engineers figured out that the power surge at tether break threw a cascade of random bits into the satellite's command system, resetting a lot of the status flags and command buffers. Once they figured out the true status they were able to command the satellite for several days, including during the video pass four days after the break. This is all written up in real world literature, there was no need to imagine alien influences.

As for the N2 tank, it supplied roll thrusters that controlled the satellite's roll around the tether axis, to keep it pointed in the proper direction (the tension from the tether attach point controlled it in pitch and yaw). Once the satellite/tether broke free, it would have been wobbling wildly. Even if the autopilot was still functioning properly it would have been furiously firing the roll jets to try to push the satellite back into an attitude that, without the tension tug of the intact tether, was no longer possible to achieve [no pitch or yaw jets, as I recall). Under such circumstances, autopilots keep trying until they run out of propellant gas. What's so mysterious about that?

If the nitrogen tank operates like the light in your refrigerator, then who opened the door?

The tether break.


[edit on 8-12-2009 by JimOberg]

Originally posted by spacevisitor

Originally posted by Mr_skepticc
It's well known in the NASA community that what you see are called "space critters" Astronauts and Nasa have been seeing them for years.

Jim, are you willing to give me your opinion or thoughts about this?

I thought it was a joke. Don't you have a sense of humor?

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by spacevisitor

Originally posted by Mr_skepticc
It's well known in the NASA community that what you see are called "space critters" Astronauts and Nasa have been seeing them for years.

Jim, are you willing to give me your opinion or thoughts about this?

I thought it was a joke. Don't you have a sense of humor?

Of course I have a sense of humor, I am convinced that everyone has one to some degree.

But I must admit, that after quite some glasses of port, my humor level rises to a dramatic level.

Originally posted by JimOberg
Even if the autopilot was still functioning properly it would have been furiously firing the roll jets to try to push the satellite back into an attitude that, without the tension tug of the intact tether, was no longer possible to achieve [no pitch or yaw jets, as I recall).

Did the satellite had an "autopilot"?

Originally posted by ArMaP
Did the satellite had an "autopilot"?

If I recall correctly, it had an active attitude control system that maintained its position in roll (about the tether-direction axis). Hanging from the tether gave it stability in two other axes.

Loss of stability in those two axes, a consequence of the tether break, would probably have been enough to prevent the roll thrusters from ever achieving the commanded attitude, exhausitng propellant gas very quickly.

We've seen that happen with other spacecraft, appallingly often. It even happened with a few manned Soyuz capsules during reentry, although deceleration forces eventually kept the heavy-end (shielded) forward. With thruster fuel exhausted, the capsules rotated around their long axes, creating random lift in unpredicted directions, and landing the cosmonauts hundreds of miles off course. Bad day.

reply to post by JimOberg


That makes good sense to me. I just couldn't resist the "who opened the refrigerator door" comment.

Um, second line, wouldn't it be funny if the plasma critters helped the tether satellite straighten up. Was this anytime around Christmas? Maybe they thought it was a gift they could use to decorate for Christmas?

Edit to add, I think the rum is starting to kick in. Just got the Christmas tree decorated. My daughter did most of the decorating this year, and she did a great job. Charlie Brown's Christmas tree doesn't look so bad this year.


[edit on 8-12-2009 by poet1b]

Remember the direct evidence from sts-75 video, when camera is shortly changes focus from infinite to closer, and then back to infinite...


First, a part from well known video, including the sequence with adjusting focus:





At sec 19, there is a brief focus action on the lens done probably from the guys on the ground controlling the shuttle camera, in order to be sure for the sharpest (best focused) image on the tether.

Here is an animation with this brief focus action:

GIF animation:


I marked on the image different stages of the focusing action, in order to have a better correlation between focus plane changing and how objects appear.

What's happening there?

Well, first, before or after this action, camera lens is focused to infinite, in order to make a sharp clear image of the things on big distances, like stars and tether, assimilated with infinite position of focus on every lens. (This "infinity" term is a technical fact from optics and photography, every photograph or optics specialst knows about it)

The object situated on that infinite distance relative to the camera, making the point of interest, is the tether. Also stars are visible, again they are on infinite.

I identified the stars visible in the frame:

For better signal/noise ratio and to remove our UFO's in order to better see the stars themselves, i made a short stacking of multiple frames (using Registax).

Here is the result of the stacking:



(showing the stars, but also some faded trails because the "ufo's", but my interests was on the stars )


Next, i've matched the stars seen on the frame, with a sky chart, from Stellarium, here is the perfect match:

GIF animation:


note: there were some stars not visible on NASA videos, but visible on Stellarium, but those stars have even lesser brightness, beyound what NASA cameras were capable to see...i have no option to directly limit the magnitude of the stars in Stellarium in order to match the senzitivity of NASA camera, just some indirect settings (because, Stellarium's database have many more weak stars, going beyoung 10 magnitude . Nevertheless, all the stars with brightness greater than about 8 magnitude are in perfect match with nasa recordings.



And finnally, the stars, from Centaur Constellation, labeled directly on the NASA frame:

GIF animation:


or simply





Also, next is a more long but speeded up sequence, showing how tether is drifting across those identified stars, all in focus:

GIF animation:







What was the purpose of this star chart matching and identifing stars?

Simply: we see for sure now, that the stars appearing as points of light, are well focussed before and after the focusing maneuver, evidence for properly focus of the lens to infinity. Only at the moment of focusing maneuver, the stars lose the focus simultaneous (logicaly), mostly complete dissapearing.

Look again:

GIF animation:



Since the lens was an infinite setting, we have the stars in focus, together with the tether.

Reminder for those which are in trouble understanding what depth of field is: For lens focused on infinity, because limited resolution (concept of circle of confusion) actually the lens will produce the image in focus for any object beyound the hyperfocal distance. And the hyperfocal distance, is about tens or maybe hundred of meters (depends of lens, iris, senzor resolution).
Tether which is >70 miles distant, much more than the hyperfocal distance, is seen by the lens as being an infinite - this is basic photographers level of knowledge)
In one next post, i will estimate the hyperfocal distance of NASA camera C which took those videos.


next....

___________
note: in this post are some GIF animations, a little bigger files, which can take some time to load in your browser (or load partially). Please refresh your browser if animations are not complete

..continued:

Returning at the focusing maneuver...

At 19 sec mark on the youtube sequence (www.youtube.com...), the operators of the camera, somehow feel that the camera is not well focused, because judging the thickness of the tether on the image they see on the monitors (actually the thickness is a image artefact of the senzor or recording device used, not a property of the tether itself), so they decide to check the focus, maybe they can aquire a better focus..this is a natural action when using a lens (amateurs may not feel this need, since ussually they have automatic focusing camera and don't care a bit about technical stuff...but in the land of manual adjusting, this checking of focus is just natural). So the operators, briefly adjust the focus. They move the focus plane closer (can't move further than infinite, since infinite is the limit) to the camera for a few moments.

We can see how the tether briefly grows in thickness as a result of out of focus state.

Also, all the stars goes out of focus and almost all fade and then dissapear during the focusing maneuver.

But we can see also, in the same time, that many "orbs" there, actually shrinks down and raise their brightness and many of them became extremely sharp, points of light, well focused bright points of light. Look below:



Let's identify the "objects" and their behavior before, during and after the focusing maneuver, also i named the stars:

GIF animation:


(a more slowed version is this: files.abovetopsecret.com... )


or, another version, which shows the forward - reverse motion of the focusing maneuver, to even better see the shape of the objects in relation with the focusing maneuver dinamics:

GIF animation:


(a more slowed version is this: files.abovetopsecret.com... )


And next, 3 frames:

frame1, when the lens was focused on infinite, before the focusing maneuver, stars visible:




frame15, when the lens is focused at closest distance, stars not visible:




frame27, when the lens was focused again on infinite, after the focusing maneuver, stars visible:








Facts:
1) We can see how the tether briefly grows in thickness as a result of out of focus state, during the focus maneuver.The greatest thickness is on frame 15, when the lens is maximum unfocused from infinite (closest focus)

2) ALL the stars (which now are identified) in the image are in focus before and after the focusing maneuver, when the lens is focused to infinite, because we see all of them as points. (for example frame1, frame 27, and of course outside this interval)
ALL the stars in the image lose focus, almost or fully dissapearing when focus is changed to closer. Exception the brightest star HIP67819A, which because its brightness still is seen as a faint DISC (bokeh), sign of out of focus status. The other stars, while logically are also faint discs, are not seen anymore, being too faint for this poor image to show them anymore (i expect some of them to be seen in the original better images). NAMED FACT: the stars goes out of focus during focusing maneuver.
Look for frame15, when lens is in closest focus, stars are not visible anymore (except HIP67819A)

3) MOST if not ALL of the "UFO's" gain more or less in focus during the focusing maneuver, let's see:





Well, every photographer and optics specialist recognize this "shrinking" shape of the discs, together with increasing brightness, and even transforming in sharpest points for many objects there, as a result of those objects acquiring FOCUS in those moments (for the others, amateurs...well...is a matter of experience). Simply, basic laws of optics, tell there is not any posibility that when an object is more defocused, the object to shrink and become more bright. No, shrinking and gaining brightness or becoming a bright point, is a property of a increasing in focusing.

Now, as the camera focus closer, and many "critters", or alien ships" became more or even best focused in exactly that moments... What that it means? It means that those objects aquiring sharpness and getting good focus, INDEED ARE CLOSER TO THE CAMERA, and when the lens is focused on the tether (=infinite), those discs are out of focus images of the same closer objects! Essentially the continous focus changing from infinite to closer and back to infinite really describe a good 3D depth perception of the space near the camera. You can get the same when changing focus when filmimg how snow flakes are falling in front of your camera on winter (i can't do it right now, but it is a simple experiment)

One of my next post will be to calculate the distance to the "UFO's" knowing the formulas of the blur related to lens parameters. But this is not yet finished...but soon.



___________
note: in this post are some GIF animations, a little bigger files, which can take some time to load in your browser (or load partially). Please refresh your browser if animations are not complete

Wow! This thread is full of NEW analysis in a big way, thanks to ATS monitors, easynow, the posts from everyone & Luna's setting the table with his amazing video. The advice I got from a great man was never go to a party where you are the most interesting person there. I am at the right party here. I have heard, read & seen every analysis since I first released this STS-75 "tether incident", on March 11,2000 (streamed free via the Web). This thread is a truely unique debate & this is a huge help to me...all of it..the good, the bad, & the ugly!

I am learning new things, watching amazing illustrations that are humbling. And the best part is that NO so-called UFO researcher has joined in, using their real identity, & so it is all the more valuable for that. Less hidden agendas & better back & forth debate. The skeptics here are niche skeptics who have demonstrated that they are not crazy glued to a single position & that is OK..Even I have a skeptical side..

.Great posts all help lead to better understanding of this complicated space experiment.... the skeptics are wrong about the tether..(!) but they demonstrate very good reasoning. The only B&W (no-grey-area) skeptic here is Jim Oberg & he is what he is...yet we need him too. Kudos to Jim for being the only world famous skeptic to reveal his true name, & for hanging in there.

...but congratulations to ATS members for having a very amazing passion that stands out. I have received E mails from friends around the world who are now watching this thread. They are not members...but they are now reading this thread daily. And to those who are not members...you are missing the amazing pictures we use to represent our secret identities! My current fave is the 3D upload. I don't know how you got that effect. Hollywood says we should need those funny glasses!

I just had to chime in, but don't let my post stop this current phase of this new STS-75 analysis...it's all dazzling....And the bottom line for me is that I will include many of these new points made in posts to my interviews & talks... & all because of the HARD WORK done by so very many here. If we all start to agree with each other...well..were's the fun in that?

First of all, lets explain infinite focus. Infinite focus is the setting for any lens at its maximum range of gaining a clear focus of distance objects. This concept of infinite focus is based on a 8x10 sized photo, where objects out of the range of the lenses capability to accurately reproduce a sharp picture are too small on the picture for the eye to recognize that the distant objects are in fact blurry when looked at on a close examination. When you download the image onto your computer and zoom in on distant objects, it is easy to see that they are blurry, so not in focus. If you blow up a picture larger than an 8x10, say to a 32x40 inch sized photo, it becomes vary apparent that distant objects are not in focus for infinity settings.

If every lens actually had infinite focus capability then there would be no reason to buy a lens with better capability. Take a photo of something twenty five meters away with three different quality of lenses, download the picture onto your computer and zoom in on the main object, and you can clearly see that the concept of focus is relative.

This is a side issue, but it should be cleared up.

There is no reason to believe the slight change in focus extends the camera to its infinity range. It looks more like the focus was changed slightly, and then changed back when the person attempting to adjust the camera recognized that the picture was getting worse, not better.

What this analysis does tell us is that at least most of this video, if not all of this video, was not shot at infinite, but at a closer adjustment, which means a shallower depth of field. This is a good indication that most of these moving spheres are much closer to the tether then a few meters.

In addition, not all of the white moving spheres change their appearance of being in focus inversely to the tether, some spheres appeared to be changing in focus proportionally to the tether, and you can see this in DoF's examples, or just by watching the video on U-tube where it is larger, and the details can be more easily observed, and played back numerous times at the start points you chose.

You make a big confusion when talking about "infinite focus".

"Infinite focus" meaning seems to be your invention. "Infinite focus", as i understand your explanation, means according to you that the lens is capable to extract all the details, like seing microbs on the moon, or on the deepest galaxy known. You really talk about infinite resolving power, which is another concept.

I, and all the knowledge quoted or not in the optics field, talked about "Focus at infinite", "focus setting at infinite", "infinite focus distance", all of them means that the lens distance to the senzor/film/receiver is set to be equal to focal length of the lens, meaning everything further away than the hyperfocal distance make a sharp (focused) image. Nothing more.
Please talk to a photograph before inventing any new "concepts" or distorting the existing ones.

And simply look for any proffesional lens, and explain the infinite mark on the body:

Originally posted by poet1b

What this analysis does tell us is that at least most of this video, if not all of this video, was not shot at infinite, but at a closer adjustment, which means a shallower depth of field. This is a good indication that most of these moving spheres are much closer to the tether then a few meters.

Was not shot on the infinite??? Then why do you see the stars? I give you their names. Why do you see them?
You don't know what you are talking.

Originally posted by poet1b
In addition, not all of the white moving spheres change their appearance of being in focus inversely to the tether, some spheres appeared to be changing in focus proportionally to the tether, and you can see this in DoF's examples, or just by watching the video on U-tube where it is larger, and the details can be more easily observed, and played back numerous times at the start points you chose.

Not all? Show me one, is easy, make the "effort", you have their names, like object "1", "2", 3"...."A", "B". Which one?

And then, if you find one, please explain ALL the others...
You can't.
All you can is to invent explanations and concepts or ussually distort them.







[edit on 10/12/09 by depthoffield]

reply to post by depthoffield


Clearly you don't understand the concept of infinity.

You have been taken in by a sales brochure. Just because there is an infinity symbol on the camera doesn't mean that the camera can focus into infinity. Distant objects appear too small to be in focus, and lighting is always a critical factor. It is based on a 8x10 inch photo. Look it up.

None of the stars in this video appear to be in focus.

Here is a link to numerous stars to show what focus to a distant star looks more like, and none of them are truly in focus.

www.galacticimages.com...

Objects whose focus do not change as you describe, you did not label.

For the example you provided, which is probably your best example, the one you label 8 changes in direct relationship to the tether. To evaluate the others, you would have to identify them with the time frame of the original video, . I am not even sure what you claim to be a result of focus isn't actually a result of aperture adjustment. He mentions adjusting focus, but says nothing about having to focus to infinity. It sounds like the focus adjustment is considerably less than infinity.

You grab a few snap shots with no time frame reference really doesn't mean much.

Originally posted by poet1b
reply to post by depthoffield

 

Clearly you don't understand the concept of infinity.

You have been taken in by a sales brochure. Just because there is an infinity symbol on the camera doesn't mean that the camera can focus into infinity. Distant objects appear too small to be in focus, and lighting is always a critical factor. It is based on a 8x10 inch photo. Look it up.

I have looked it up. It is not infinity which is based on the 8x10 photo but only the circle of confusion method for focus and depth of field calculations. And that approximation is not set in stone based on an 8x10 photo but in fact there are formulas to calculate the circle of confusion such as this one which doesn't assume an 8x10 photo:

Circle of Confusion

CoC Diameter Limit (mm) = anticipated viewing distance (cm) / desired print resolution (lp/mm) for a 25 cm viewing distance / anticipated enlargement factor / 25

There are other formulas for circle of confusion such as the Zeiss formula, d/1730, or other calculations such as d/1500 as referenced in that source so to say it's based on an 8x10 enlargement is not entirely accurate, but you could say that the 8x10 print is one of the more commonly used methods for CoC calculations but certainly not the only one.

So the circle of confusion gives us an "acceptably sharp"limit for images within a depth of field of distances.

The focus setting of the camera is only one factor in that calculation, and the camera lens can be focused to infinity. As explained to you before but hasn't sunk in yet, this setting is for parallel rays of light coming into the lens so that is the definition of true infinity in photography. That's why nearly all lenses stop at infinity focus, there's no reason to try to focus beyond parallel light rays.

Now if you adjust a lens and try to differentiate between an object over 70 miles away like the tether, versus an object light years away like a star, you will find the distances are both what photographers call "practical infinity" which means the light rays are so close to parallel we can't tell the difference from true parallel rays.

Originally posted by poet1b
There is no reason to believe the slight change in focus extends the camera to its infinity range. It looks more like the focus was changed slightly, and then changed back when the person attempting to adjust the camera recognized that the picture was getting worse, not better.

There is every reason to believe that trying to make any adjustment to the focus on an object over 70 miles away will reach the infinity stop on the lens. What you do when manually adjusting focus is move the focus to slightly further than and slightly closer than the sharpest possible image. When the object is over 70 miles away and you try to adjust the focus further than that, it's inevitable you will hit the lens's infinity stop. So I implore you once again to let the photographers explain photography since you are admittedly not a photographer yourself and have some misunderstandings about it as this statement and others you have made indicate.

Originally posted by poet1b
What this analysis does tell us is that at least most of this video, if not all of this video, was not shot at infinite, but at a closer adjustment, which means a shallower depth of field. This is a good indication that most of these moving spheres are much closer to the tether then a few meters.

If that was true, why are the stars in focus during most of the video? If your claim was true, the stars wouldn't be in focus, yet aside from the brief adjustment in focus, the stars ARE in focus.

[edit on 10-12-2009 by Arbitrageur]

is this photography class 101 ?

start your own thread if you want to talk about cameras

reply to post by depthoffield


thanks for all your hard work..... but what is the point

i strongly recommend you read.....

QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard Feynman

Light waves incident on a material induce small oscillations of polarisation in the individual atoms, causing each atom to radiate a weak secondary wave (in all directions like a dipole antenna). All of these waves add up to specular reflection (following Hero's equi-angular reflection law) and refraction. Light–matter interaction in terms of photons is a topic of quantum electrodynamics, and is described in detail by Richard Feynman in his popular book QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter.

en.wikipedia.org...