is this pic possible

first, my apologies for wasting time on the last thread, thought the link would work..ok anyways, here it is... www.anomalies-unlimited.com... third pic up from bottom on the first column

picture claims to been moon ecplising saturn, hard for me to tell. Im not an astronomer by any stretch, but can someone tell me if this is possible?


[edit on 1-8-2004 by sublime4372]

[edit on 1-8-2004 by sublime4372]

very interesting... Amazing pic..
yes its real...don't start a conspiracy thread....

all these astronomers are not out of their minds
scroll down to Nov30
www.spaceweather.com...






[edit on 1-8-2004 by websurfer]

Edit, websurfer got it already, and yes theres no reason it would be fake.

Re-edit, heh now hes changed it, heres the first pic in question:


[edit on 1-8-2004 by Kano]

Yep, it's real.
I can assure that size of Saturn compared to Moon is this and that these occultations occur.

I hate to be the one to go against the grain, but I think saturn is to big in the pic to be real.

We would be able to see this all the time. I watched a short clip on here the other day of the sun, you could see saturn, and it wasnt nearly as clear. Saturn, in my opioion is to far a way to see it this clearly. Jupiter is closer and bigger and we can not see it in this detail.

Jupiter's size is this:



home.debitel.net...
mitglied.lycos.de...
webcaddy.com.au...
dkcmzc.chemie.uni-mainz.de...

i think its fake. you wouldnt even be able to see saturn or jupiter in that much detail that close to the moon. the amount of light bouncing off the moon would make it almost impossible to see that much detail. those pics of saturn and of jupiter look familiar too.

Well folks........we have nother case of, "if it's fuzzy it must be fake" and "if it's too clear, it must be fake"........

Hmm. We should be able to work this out.

The first pic posted DOES claim to be a composite of two different images, altered to compensate for exposure. Tthe others, which show the moon and planets at similar brightness don't say anything about being composites.

As a rule, light emitted from an object falls off in intensity in proportion to the square of the distance from that light. this actually refers to a point light source emmitting in all directions, like a star or lightbulb for example. It's called the Inverse Square Law. Better explanation here!!

The other thing you need to know about is camera dynamic range.

In photography terms, one "stop" refers to a doubling or halving of the of light light being allowed into the camera.

So as to get a correct exposure the photographer adjusts the aperture or the shutter time. If there was half the light available, he/she could double the exposure time to compensate. They would have then have increased the exposure by 1 F-stop.

F-stops therefore refer to light intensity and are effectively a logarithmic scale, with each increase of 1 stop corresponding to a doubling of intensity or "brightness".

The dynamic range of a camera, i.e the difference between the darkest detail it can pick out above black, and the lightest detail in can pick up below white, is measured in F-stops. Both digital and film cameras have maximum dynamic ranges of around 8-9 F-stops. (our eyes can detect around 16 stops, by comparison).

9 F - Stops = a ratio of 1:640 between the brightness(light intensity) of the darkest visible detail in comparison to the lightest detail, that could be captured in a single "shot".

Now in these photos the moon and planets are not at the darkest and lightest ends of the dynamic range, so the ratio of brightness between them must have been somewhat less than 640:1 . In fact they only look a couple of stops apart to me, but since we don't know what kind of contrast and gamma adjutsments have been made, I going to go for a VERY generous, 8 stops in difference, and therefore a maximum intensity ratio of 320:1

Therefore, to tell if the moon and planets COULD have been captured in a single shot we need to figure out if the actual intensity of the light that would have been reflected by the moon and the planet, could have a ratio LESS than 320:1

I'm afraid that's where my maths ability gives way, it should at least be possible to figure out a theoretical minimum ratio between the two bodies brightnesses. you would just need to know:

a/ the distances involved. (sun>moon>earth and sun>saturn>earth)
b/ the rough reflectance of the moon and saturn.

Any mathematicians able to help here?





[edit on 1-8-2004 by muppet]

i could tell the moon pic is real, but i had no idea you could see the rings on saturn..thats pretty cool

Originally posted by sublime4372
i could tell the moon pic is real, but i had no idea you could see the rings on saturn..thats pretty cool

Any bigger binoculars should be enough for that.

With 11cm reflector I've been able to see belt/change of shade in Saturn's surface, gap in rings and planets shadow on them.

omg WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP

yeah this photo can be taken i saw it through my telescope

Originally posted by Vanguard
omg WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP

What, exactly, is a load of crap?
The picture? Then you have never seriously looked through a telescope
Saturn and Jupiter can easily be seen in this much detail even in a cheap Wal-Mart telescope (like my son has)

Or those claiming the picture is faked/rigged/whatever?
Then I have to agree with you

Originally posted by Vanguard
omg WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP

More like, "What a load of spam".

If you object please post your opinion, and if you can, evidence.

people.

Even this site say "deny ignorance"

So, take few $, go the the local store, by your self a nice telescope.

With telescope around 100$ you can actually see moons around the Jupiter, passing by as small dots.

We learn as we live.

I.

The question is whether or not it's possible to photograph the moon and saturn or jupiter in one shot, NOT whether they can be photographed at all.

I don't know enough about astronomy to know the relative brightness of these objects, but photography itself is definitely a known quantity, with known limitations.

With a small apature and a large magnification you could easily view Saturn right beside the Moon. In fact they might have done something similar, when I look at Saturn with my rifle scope through the binocculars. (I look through my scope using 70 power binocculars).

It gives me a 60mm apature and a 210 power magnification.

My scope is an f/2, however with the added mag. it becomes an f/0.285 which is like...woah ... way crappy.

Crappy because that basically means you are getting NO light...

And I really am not, when I look through my scope and binocculars, the moon becomes a very dull yellow. Remove the binocculars and it's a blinding white.

Oh but getting on to the point, Saturn has more light when I use that method than in these pics, so I bet they used a fairly low apature with a high magnification to take the pics Websurfer and E_T showed.

Believe me, Saturn is bright...it's more dull than Jupiter, but it's bright...in those pictures, it is very dull compared to what you can really see it as with an f/2 telescope.

Since my scope's only 60mm...I can't see it very big for how bright I can get it...

But if I had say an 11 inch, well then I could get it pretty big and see it fairly bright.

But hey, for my cheap method, I can see the individual cloud bans on Jupiter...so I'm not missing out on too much. HAHAHA

For those with 10,000 bucks, or a local astronomy club, see if they have a "Stereoscope"...those things are amazing.

I looked at the moon with one and everything around the waning quarter moon was just...pitch black, the moon was in perfect 3-dimensional resolution and huge...

Just as Michael Collins said of it...

"When we came to see the Moon, it was no longer the Moon of my childhood, it was a great big orb where the center stood out towards you."

So let me get this right. You guys are telling me, that I can go down to Wal-mart and pick up some crappy 150 dollar telescope, aim it right and see the rings on Saturn? The last telescope I looked in was lookin at the moon or Haley's Comet. Either way, that was the last time I looked at one.

This sounds cool, Ill have to invest.

A word to the wise. Department store scopes are crap. Sure, depending on the scope, you can see the rings of saturn, moons of jupiter and great moon detail, but you will find that the scope and mount will drive you nuts. The mounts are never stable enough for serious viewing, and the optics on the scopes are cheap and degrade quickly (coatins on them are sub standard and scratch way too easily).

A word of advice, spend a little more and get a good scope that will last years. A good starter scope would be something like a 130mm Newtonian reflector which can be had for under $300.00

Here's a link to pictures I have taken using my canon A40 digital camera with my 130mm reflector...

www.oaog.ca...