Stacking - astronomy technique applied to UFO videos

Hello,

This is a thread about the stacking technique for enhancing UFO videos, especially lights in the dark sky. I was asked about it by Internos and Europa733.

There are many videos that have been deemed inconclusive, because lights in the sky can be many things, and there isn't enough information to rule out many plausible explanations. This is a way to reveal hidden structures around these lights. I experimented recently with the video in the thread Filmed 2 UFOS last night, here's the footage. The good news is even a completely dark sky can be brightened and contrasted so the shape of the UFO becomes visible. This video was ideally suited for the stacking technique used by amateur astronomers to increase resolution and make dark and fuzzy objects stand out clearly.

Dear ATSers, I need your help to:

1. locate UFO videos in original uncompressed format. Youtube and most video codecs filter out partly digital noise and lose most of the faint lights that are nearly invisible to the naked eye. A few seconds of video are sufficient to do a stacking experiment, no need to upload 5 GB with audio as in the previously mentioned thread.
I already had a look at:
-the uncompressed video from the "Triangle UFO *60 miles north of Bakersfield, CA" thread without success - the object is too dark.
-the "UFO VIDEO Elk Grove California Hologram" video - too small.

2. improve the quality of the resulting image. There are at least 4 processing steps:
1. alignment or stabilization
2. stacking
3. brightening/filtering

Alignment involves rotating/scaling or only positioning the frames. Stacking computes the mean color value of every pixel across frames, then a final step is brightening / contrasting and optionally using noise filtering and sharpening filters. So far the best tool I found for 1. & 2. is Registax. For 3. Photoshop of course.

A short list of how the "Filmed 2 UFOS last night, here's the footage" video was processed:

In VirtualDub-MPEG2 1.6.19 (VirtualDubMod has problems with the DV codec)
Choose a frame range that displays the UFO in focus, without too much hand shaking. For example 5933-6305.
File/Open video file (you may have to install codecs for Digital Video)
Video/Select Range (input first frame and number of frames)
Video/Filters (add deinterlace)
Streams/Stream list (disable sound, not needed)
File/Save as AVI

In Registax 4.0.1.0
Click button Select -> open deinterlaced uncompressed AVI
Method -> Multipoint, click lights on the left and right
Check Automatic processing
Click button Align
Optionally click button Histogram, move bars, click Stretch
Click button Save image, a 16 bit/channel TIFF is created

There was no filtering applied, except the default in Registax, whatever it is. As the noise is still very strong noise filtering only makes things worse as far as I can see.

Final result:

I would have loved to see a weird shape, black triangle or saucer... maybe next time.

I am not an expert of this technique, only starting to look for the best tools and their parameters. Some people (video experts, astronomers) may have information about the best way to use this one and other software for video stabilization. Registax is not suited for quick motion between frames. With hand shake the objects often move too fast for Registax to be able to track them.

About stacking software I only know about Registax and Photoshop. I made a comparison with 200 frames and got the same result. Unfortunately the layer alignment in Photoshop doesn't work at all when frames are mostly black.

edit: fixed links

[edit on 2008-11-17 by nablator]

I've used Registax quite a lot to stack video frames taken through a large telescope with a CCD camera attached. The principle behind Registax is to accumulate detail contained within each image, so the resulting stack contains the average or nett detail of all the frames. Basically, a single frame rarely contains everything that's captured in the correct position, resolution, contrast, etc. because of distortion caused by the object's motion, by atmospheric turbulence or by camera movement. It's blurred. The important point is the individual frames must actually contain the detail. No processing tool will elicit detail that's not contained within the original pixel field of each frame. Obviously, you can only create a still image from all the video frames you select for stacking. (As a side note, this is why the 'Space Ship' videos promoted on YouTube by Gridkeeper are bogus. These are supposed to be rendered using a stacking system analogus to the Palomar 'Lucky' camera. With movies, it's impossible).

Anyway, your three lights stack shows no more detail than any single individual frame. They appear brighter in the Registax image and more contrasty, but there is no detail. The reason for this is that detail can only be recorded if the lens has sufficient resolving power and that means it requires a large diameter. No amount of magnification/zoom will resolve detail unless the lens has sufficient aperture to see it in the first place. Had your original videp been captured through a six inch or even a three inch diameter lens, maybe you could elicit enough data using stacking techniques to figure out what these objects actually looked like.

WG3

Sounds promising Nablator, It got me thinking, is there a way to change the settings on a camera to better suit night conditions (besides using night vision)?

I would like to see the famous UFO - Area 51 (Nellis Test Range), November, 1994 video analyzed using this technique. I found one on YouTube.

YouTube Link

Nelis UFO on YouTube, this link

the still image shown in your post
could be explained as the three running lights of a normal aircraft (one on each wing, one light on fusilage)
and the lights are not symmetrically spaced because the aircraft is flying at an angle to the observer.

?? i wonder if the observer described the 'UFO' as a single point of light
and your analysis is proving otherwise ??


too many Qs

reply to post by St Udio
[mor



Prehaps it could work on this ufo I found posted today www.abovetopsecret.com...

Hi Nablator,

Thank you very much for opening a thread.

Gotta give the man some stars for that and flag it, very important issue & thread...

In the meantime, the image enhancement done by nablator cleary shows an helicopter on it's side, you can almost see the skids and the comparison I did with FSX regarding the external lights position seems to match, besides the fact that the pilot probably did not turn on his red & white strobe & rotating lights (anti-collision) :

i263.photobucket.com...

Another thing, the video linked in Tarifa 37's post clearly shows the PAF which stands for "La Patrouille de France" (like the Blue Angels in the US) during it's nighttime training every summer over the south of France. It has been debunked by my friends as a matter of fact. They did get in touch with the PAF and got a positive answer.

Some crazy ufologi$t in France is saying that these are UFOs (ETs Spacecrafts) trying to mimic the PAF. Yeah right...

PAF : www.patrouilledefrance.com...

And another "UFO" sighting PAF style...

www.dailymotion.com...


Anyway, I'll experiment on some videos I'll be getting from Japan soon...

Cheers,
Europa aka Buck






[edit on 17-11-2008 by Europa733]

reply to post by tarifa37

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I would also love for this video to be "stacked"?
I've seen lights like those in the sky before, very strange...
I know theyre here, but it would be interesting to actually see this clearly.

Don't think " La Patrouille de France " is training on night ... would be far too dangerous imho . And the shows they are doing is always during day time : it's to be seen , isn't it ?
And trainings and shows are over since October untill spring ...

reply to post by nablator

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Nice one Nab!

Always good to see some new methods being employed on the forum. Especially if it brings us closer to the truth - prosaic or otherwise. I can only hope that this rings some alarm bells in would be hoaxers heads here.

On the negative side, that probably means that more of them will just YouTube their vids to cover their tracks with artifacts and compression.

IRM

Hi there,


Yes they do train at night. U2U me and I'll give you the link to this story.


Cheers,
Europa aka Buck

reply to post by waveguide3

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Yes, the three lights actually look worse, overexposed, but I was only interested in extracting information from the dark sky in the background. If you take a look at the video in the other thread, nothing at all is visible between the lights, the sky is black even in the uncompressed 5 GB original, even after contrasting/brightening a lot in Photoshop. I was very surprised to get a visible shape. As you say there are severe limitations on this technique, in most cases it will not help. Stacking more frames does not improve the quality, the signal/noise ratio probably cannot be improved any more than this.


Yes I guess the night shot mode on Sony camera would improve the sensitivity to low intensity light. In the 5 GB video everything was in color, it doesn't seem that night mode was used -- near infrared looks like black and white. The video was well shot, with little hand shake and the objects stayed in focus for long periods.


It's shape shifting or rotating, too bright. I doubt there is enough information to extract there. The lesson of this technique is that a black background can be brightened despite digital noise, but overexposed white is hopeless.
The technique cannot be applied when:
- when the object is changing aspect quickly
- when low intensity light is filtered out by compression (YouTube, DivX, ...)


It looks more like a helicopter, even though the shape is not as well outlined as I would like it to be. The green light is on the right, it becomes red at the end of the video when the UFO is moving to the left. Please read the thread linked in the OP.

Hi Europa733 are you referring to
#La Patrouille de France training at night.
# Do you mean an Air show at night
# bombing runs at night with lights on
# etc....

How about posting this link off yours in the public arena.

Zelong.

It would be nice if you could do this one for us. It was taken in Kiev, Ukraine. Day light video. CLICK


[edit on 18-11-2008 by FIFIGI]

reply to post by FIFIGI

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Thanks, I will try this ASAP. More in U2U.

I doubt it. Also I didn't imply the OP in the other thread is a hoaxer. On the contrary he had a very interesting video and was kind enough to provide the entire original footage (5 GB) for our scrutiny. For those who didn't read the other thread, the best zoom looks like this:


Try guessing what it is... impossible to be sure. The wide range of proposed explanations needed more information to support them. Stacking is a fantastic tool to reveal shapes hidden in darkness and digital noise.


[edit on 2008-11-18 by nablator]

reply to post by nablator

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Very cool! I've been interested in UFOs for as long as I can remember, but I long ago got a little tired of videos and pictures of "lights in the sky". It sounds like this process of yours could really enhance image analysis. Can't wait to see if you make any substantial discoveries!

This is excellent indeed! Thank you.

I'll be watching closely to see what you can find, try 'n' get 'em in here asap

Great work! F'd and the S.

I hope to see many more more videos processed in this manner. There is a thread currently atop the boards home that features just what you're talking about, lights in a black sky.

[edit on 18-11-2008 by tyranny22]

Just curious...

I notice with all the photo editing I do to brighten up night shots, say of a pee-wee baseball team I recently did, taken in the dark.

I seem to notice every time I mess with the brightness, contrast, and try my best to filter out the noise it gives what I call "false colors"

Because I know what the colors are suppose to be I can adjust it to show the true colors in the end and normally not a big deal.

Possible problem I see here is in cases like this you could easily turn a white/amber light to red or the other way around. I bring this up because if that is the case it will cause skeptics to go off on tangents talking about photo manipulation and bringing out what you want to see as opposed to whats really there when it comes to the actual colors anyway.

As for the shape of the aircraft it is somewhat better defined which is awesome and makes debunking that much easier or that much harder.

Maybe there's something I'm missing with the color aspect of it if so enlighten me as it would make adjusting dark photos for people that much easier for me.