Originally posted by musicjunkie
Really doubting that it's a bug since it gets lost in the light pollution at the horizon. For it to be a bug an appear at that size it would have to
be much closer to the camera and would not be rendered that much less visible before the direction change.
A friend asked me about this, so I thought I would post what I thought about it.
I personally wouldn't say it's going into cloud cover or lost in light pollution at all. There's a number of factors at work here which suggest
it's an object close to the camera and probably quite mundane.
The background RGB values are approx: 56 46 56
The object when it goes into the 'light pollution' RGB values are approx: 61 53 60
When an object moves with speed it creates motion blur which for a camera creates transparency. The white object is becoming transparent and pulling
color from the background. What you're looking at essentially is this:
There isn't a single frame in this clip where the object is both opaque and pulling values from the background or light polution. Light shines
through atmosphere. It doesn't go behind it briefly and then out without being at an odd angle in most situations.
The above image is take from a composition with motion blur. Taking the same object and overlaying it onto the frame produces similar values to the
actual object. Can also do this with a soft brush in photoshop to simulate the same effect. If this object was 30ish miles away it would be pulling a
color cast from the atmosphere and would never appear completely white without being a rather over powering light and even then ... the further back a
light the less likely it is to be unaffected. To explain this as something different than mundane starts to require things like ...
1. The object being a massive light source which drowns out other ambient light sources around it
2. The obect would be moving on some very odd type of angle
3. The object is a stealth object but is somehow picked up by NBC sky cameras and cannot be seen and reacts to light in a special way; the object
doesn't react the way other lights in shot do
I don't neccessarily think it is a firefly. Some insects do tend to take 'rests' while flying and glide for a while. The discovery channel told me
this. So buggie stops fluttering for moment, glides into frame pretty opaque and white ... then flutters violently to create the look it has. Similar
techniques are used in films to make stuntmen and the like look much closer or higher than they actually are. A stuntman leaps in front of a shot and
looks like they are perhaps falling from a helicopter, but are in fact 20 - 30 ft away from it. (See the movie Wolverine)
Or perhaps it is the smallest tiniest alien flying in front of the camera?
The other factor causing issues here is this:
Only the originally timed footage is relevant for looking at. When footage is slowed down in many compositing applications frames are 'created' by
weighting an average of the other frames. This is often done via frame blending where a number of cross fades cause images to over lap. This creates
some of the more eratic movements during the slow motion sequences. It really isn't the best idea to apply frame blending or other slow motion
techniques to build a theory about a UFO or similar unless its clearly understood what's being gained from it and why.
Some frames will show the ufo with an elaborate 'flare' or in two places at once. Essentially this is two frames over laid to create a new frame to
full the eyes into thinking the image makes sense. These frames didn't exist in the original camera, and are not good for investigating.
Do you even know what kind of camera that is
