The "Up to the Minute" BP Livefeed Discussion Thread

reply to post by Nomad451


That is because he has to convert the UTM coordinates to latitude and longitude. Without converting you will get lost. see wikipedia on UTM en.wikipedia.org... So that video is HIGHLY inaccurate.

reply to post by DragonFire1024


Really? thanks for the heads up. Probably should have come here before starting a new thread!

I'll see if i can get the mods to shut it down.

reply to post by Nomad451


lol...well if i am wrong I will eat my words...but the ROVs do not show latitude and longitude on them. It has always been UTM coordinates. Without the proper conversion, they will get lost. We already know the UTM coordinates for the Deepwater horizon and they match up with the ROV coordinates. Not to mention the Live Ship data www.marinetraffic.com... which puts all the ships the ROVs are from, into the Gulf of Mexico.

There has always been speculation as to whether or not we are watching the Deepwater well or another well, in the same field, about 10 miles from Deepwater. So far, we only have pictures but no confirmed data to suggest that, though I would not be surprised either way.

reply to post by Nomad451


or just read a few of the comments under the youtube video, even.

Another interesting note. The Discoverer Enterprise, aka Enterprise rov 1 and 2 are again, 1.2 nautical miles from the Skandi ROVs. And what a coincidence that the Enterprise feeds are showing us camera views of the ROVs themselves, and not what they are doing. So I again wonder why the Enterprise is approximately 1.2 miles from the Deepwater site with another ship: HOS SILVER ARROW. Just took this screen shot from www.marinetraffic.com...



Also interesting: According to Reuters the Discoverer Enterprise is a "BACKUP OIL-CAPTURE VESSEL" www.alertnet.org... "BP still aims to assemble a surface oil-capture system of four vessels that can siphon up to 80,000 barrels a day from the wellhead. That system will include a rig, the Helix Producer; a well-testing ship, the Toisa Pisces; and two Transocean Ltd. drillships, the Discoverer Enterprise and the Discoverer Clear Leader."

If the Enterprise is a backup oil catcher, why is it 1.2 to 2 miles from the Deepwater well? "Each would be connected to wellhead equipment via hoses and pipes that allow for a quick disconnect if a hurricane approaches."

Kinda hard to be that if its that far away from Deepwater. Also the Toisa Pisces is currently over 12 miles from the Deepwater location. It might be headed in that direction according to Live Ships. The Discoverer Clear Leader is NOT on the ship list at all.

EDIT: Skandi 2 is taking gas samples from the well base. Lots of oil globs flying around and what appears to be oil flowing from the direction of the well stem, which goes below the seafloor.

[edit on 26-7-2010 by DragonFire1024]

There are a lot of clear bubbles coming from all different places on Skandi 2. I can count at least three and that includes the pipe its taking the samples from.Also appears some are coming under the seafloor where the well stem goes into the ground.

Originally posted by DragonFire1024
There are a lot of clear bubbles coming from all different places on Skandi 2. I can count at least three and that includes the pipe its taking the samples from.Also appears some are coming under the seafloor where the well stem goes into the ground.

Yes....I noticed that yesterday too. The bubbles coming from below were larger as well.

The ROV coordinates are not really UTM either. As near as I can tell, they are Lambert Conformal Conic Projection readings, which is also just called Lambert X-Y coordinates. Lambert was a Swiss mathematician that lived a couple hundred years ago, but his system works well with GPS and computers. Sort of like UTM though, they have to be referenced to a reference point for each grid square. That reference point for the ROV readings is NOT the BOP - I think that rumor came from the Higgins calculator page which gives the difference in position between ROV readings you enter and the readings for the leak. The page doesn't say but I think the leak position was taken from the leak in the bent riser on top of the BOP. The actual reference point for these GoM ROVs' Lambert coordinates is hundreds of miles away.

The two wells that many people have said are miles apart are not. As far as I can tell that came from reports that said "about 40 miles" and "about 50 miles" offshore. There was also another misreading of 6 miles. They are, based on the position data that's been given, actually only 0.06 miles or 312 feet or about 96 meters apart. There may be another well but some of the evidence that has been spouted in favor of that does not compute. The data collected by a NOAA ship, the Thomas Jefferson, also supports the close proximity based on their readings of oil and gas in the water (I don't think they say there are two wells though). That data also detects some seafloor leaks in the same vicinity.

It may not be all that interesting anymore, but I checked the position readings for the leak that was coming out of the end of the broken riser before it was cut loose and that was a half-mile from the BOP with the bent riser.

Most of the other ROV position readings I checked put everything in the same vicinity. The 3-ram stack cap for example matches fairly closely the BOP with the bent riser.

But I did find some anamolies - more on that in a bit.

[edit on 26-7-2010 by ttatw]

[edit on 26-7-2010 by ttatw]

[edit on 26-7-2010 by ttatw]

Looking forward to it! Interesting!

reply to post by DragonFire1024


While surfing the Internet this morning I came across this explanation for the ROV coordinate difference.

The numbers the guy is looking at represent the distance/direction of the ROV from the spill – they do not represent the geographical coordinates of the spill.

Source:

Just exactly what DragonFire was explaining! Thanks DragonFire for all your hard work.

reply to post by ttatw


Higgins used the UTM coordinates of the Deepwater well from a document that says it is UTM coordinates. He created the calculator based off of that. US Government Memo. There is also another document with the coordinates here: Design report Page 28. So I am nearly 100% sure they are UTM...as its listed. You will need to go back many many pages on this thread to see it explained even further.

[edit on 26-7-2010 by DragonFire1024]

Also a note...Enterprise is showing the 'sucker' in the water again 1.1 miles from the Deepwwater well. I would really like to know why they have the backup oil collecting vessel, anchored 1.1 miles from the deepwater site, with the "backup oil 'sucker'" already deployed. If it is a backup, then why is the Enterprise not near the well? How can it suck up any oil that is at the well if the thing is already deployed so far away?

EDIT: Also note that the sucker on Enterprise, is a different one than was there before. The numbers on it are different.

EDIT: Love how ALL NIGHT Skandi 2 was operating 100% perfect, and now the feed keeps freezing. I swear these guys are morons.

[edit on 26-7-2010 by DragonFire1024]

[edit on 26-7-2010 by DragonFire1024]

reply to post by DragonFire1024


I am so mad about these cameras!!! It's ridiculous...as soon as something happens...OOPS! Technical difficulties!! They are showing 2 different cams showing the same exact thing and the others are out!!!!!

Regarding the ROV coordinates, "caveat emptor" - let the reader investigate. It's discussed other places, and I don't care to debate the details - it could sidetrack the live feed discussion. If BP was doing a better job they would give us the info rather than making people dig for it. If anybody is really serious about resolving it, I'll discuss it in U2U or separate thread.

One of the anomalies I noticed was the "ALT" reading around the BOP. It's around 60 feet near the top of the BOP on images I captured on July 19. That would be 18 meters. On images I captured yesterday, from a different ROV that was using meters, it is 11.0 meters (first thought it was 110m but based on spacing I think it is 11.0m) which is 36 feet. The difference could be due to seafloor, but I'm a little suspicious, particularly since the depth changes from 1505m to 1511m on that one ROV but ALT stays at 11.0m. I'll let this go for now.

Couldn't get embedded images to work, but here's the links:








[edit on 26-7-2010 by ttatw]

reply to post by ttatw


Remember, some of the ROVs use feet, some use meters. The ones at a depth of 1400 is meters, the ones at 4900 are feet. So if the ROV is showing feet then the ALT is feet too maybe? By the way, the alt applies to the seafloor usually, but if its sitting or hovering above a platform, or over another object on the seafloor (such as an ROV) then it would distort the actual ALT from the seafloor itself.

[edit on 26-7-2010 by DragonFire1024]

Dragonfire, if this is your personal thread, I can post somewhere else, but I thought it was for everyone. I explained in my post the difference between feet and meters. If the ALT changes because one ROV is over another, then they must have been moving in sync because the ALT stayed the same as the ROV moved to different depths.

[edit on 26-7-2010 by ttatw]

reply to post by ttatw


Uh...where did I ever say this was my thread? I am simply discussing observations and asking questions. But if my contributions have been or a problem, then I will stop.

[edit on 26-7-2010 by DragonFire1024]

reply to post by DragonFire1024


no no dont stop! you're devotion is very much appreciated!!!

I noticed a little earlier this morning that the Higgins calculator page has a link to a map where someone plotted the locations of various items of interest around the BOP or wellhead. Don't ask me to defend anything shown on this map because it is not mine, but if it's accurate, it may help some with interpreting what we see on the feeds.

It's been posted several times already, but here's the link to the Higgins calculator page once more:
Higgins calculator page

and here's the direct link to the map image on photobucket:
Seafloor map (jpg image)

[edit on 26-7-2010 by ttatw]

[edit on 26-7-2010 by ttatw]

Hmmmm.....where are all the freakin cams??? Weren't they ORDERED to have them available to the public? Everything has been working just fine up until the past few weeks.....now they just keep shutting them down or making them so dark you can't see anything....and they aren't showing the BOP I noticed! This morning, on one of the THREE cams that were on, there was a big eruption....then...click....off goes the camera! I'm sorry but I am just so aggravated. I live close to it and I want to know what's going on down there....*sigh*