Upon taking a close look at the image, without regard to the lighting, or whether or not stars should be visible, this is what I see in the
picture....
It appears that most of the scenic background image has numerous areas where jpg comression is quite evident (lot of jpg artifacts). This is more
easily spotted in areas that go from light to dark. Take a close look at area immediately surrounding the stars for example.
BUT, on the left side of the object where you would think you would also see jpg artifacts due to compression, the transition from dark to light is
rather smooth, albeit a little abrupt.
On the right side ogf the "object", to me it appears that the background is bleeding through the object, possibly due to using some sort of gradient
when the object was pasted onto the background, and therefor showing heavy artifacting quite like that evident around the stars and treeline.
Either way, the difference in artifacting between the object and backround causes me to think that this image is less than genuine.
Nevermind the "Adobe" tags in the exif data, as there could possibly be an explanation for that. (or so I have been told, elsewhere)
edit to add cropped image
[edit on 6/28/2007 by Mechanic 32]
[edit on 6/28/2007 by Mechanic 32]
[edit on 6/28/2007 by Mechanic 32]