An image of Comet Ison or is it really a comet?

Originally posted by TheCrimsonGhost
reply to post by filledcup

 

What? Huh? Do you do this in real life? I mean... make things more complicated than they need to be... every time I think Nataylor has done a superb job of demonstrating what we are seeing you come back with another post that completely boggles the mind.

NATAYLOR: I commend your patience, I would have given up long ago.

edit on 8/21/2013 by TheCrimsonGhost because: (no reason given)

the comet isnt really travelling in zigzag. the hubble moving closer and then further causes it to appear that way. the green line i drew in the photo is representing if hubble was orbiting the sun and facing towards the comet at all times without having to orbit the earth. so basically, replace earth, with the hubble orbiting the sun while keeping an eye on the comet and ull get the path my green line represents. that is the true path of the comet minus optical illusions.

reply to post by filledcup


Shouldn't the arrow be pointing in the other direction? ISON was moving towards the sun when the pic was taken and the coma would be pointed away from the sun.

And I don't know if you can say that the path you drew is any more "real" than the original pic. You could produce any combination of lines if you moved the camera around in the right way. A stationary camera would produce a more realistic line I guess.

Hubble moving towards or away from ISON wouldn't change the angle. That would only change the "speed" of the comet (in relation to the background of the photo). To change the angle Hubble needs to move sideways in relation to the comet. Then the comet will seem to move in the opposite direction.

Great thread anyone pop the electric comet theory in HERE yet?
2

Originally posted by Subnatural
reply to post by filledcup

 

Shouldn't the arrow be pointing in the other direction? ISON was moving towards the sun when the pic was taken and the coma would be pointed away from the sun.

well that's what i originally thought. which contributed to my misconception and misunderstanding. but i was corrected and instructed that it's actually moving downward. as in this animation provided:

the starting point is the first line of light at the top. and moves down around the curve(optical illusion)

Originally posted by Emeraldous
Great thread anyone pop the electric comet theory in HERE yet?
2

edit on 21-8-2013 by Emeraldous because: (no reason given)

well i just might take in that documentary later when i get home. at work now so the chances that ill get the steady time to watch the whole thing thru are slim lol.

Originally posted by Subnatural
reply to post by filledcup

 

And I don't know if you can say that the path you drew is any more "real" than the original pic. You could produce any combination of lines if you moved the camera around in the right way. A stationary camera would produce a more realistic line I guess.

yes what ive done is remove the optical illusion so we can see the straight(slightly curved) flight path as it should be.

Hubble moving towards or away from ISON wouldn't change the angle. That would only change the "speed" of the comet (in relation to the background of the photo).

correct.. and that speed change shows up as an angle change when using the long exposure method. ud have to imagine a long exposure as basically taking 30 snapshots per second. each snapshot shows only one point of light, but when they are all combined and stacked, a line is displayed.

alot like how video is made by taking individual photos and running them by very quickly to create video from individual photos. like cartoons which are made by flipping individual pages so fast there is fluidity and apparent motion and the flipping of the pages isnt even noticed.

Wow I was following your discussion Abeverage and Nataylor really great how you two were finding out the truth about this being a comet or not.really great work..

Originally posted by filledcup
well that's what i originally thought. which contributed to my misconception and misunderstanding. but i was corrected and instructed that it's actually moving downward. as in this animation provided:

the starting point is the first line of light at the top. and moves down around the curve(optical illusion)

edit on 21-8-2013 by filledcup because: (no reason given)

edit on 21-8-2013 by filledcup because: (no reason given)

Yes, but remember the lines we see do not represent the actual movement of the comet. In reality it moves towards the sun. I thought your green arrow was supposed to show its true path, maybe I misunderstood.

Originally posted by filledcup
yes what ive done is remove the optical illusion so we can see the straight(slightly curved) flight path as it should be.

I don't think that shows the real path, though. The direction is wrong. Also, I suspect it would move very little against that background in the 40 or so minutes the pics were taken. I think we mostly see the movement of Hubble on these pics.

Originally posted by filledcup
correct.. and that speed change shows up as an angle change when using the long exposure method. ud have to imagine a long exposure as basically taking 30 snapshots per second. each snapshot shows only one point of light, but when they are all combined and stacked, a line is displayed.

alot like how video is made by taking individual photos and running them by very quickly to create video from individual photos. like cartoons which are made by flipping individual pages so fast there is fluidity and apparent motion and the flipping of the pages isnt even noticed.

Sorry, I don't see how Hubble's movement towards or away from ISON would cause the apparent path to bend.

Imagine this:

You are sitting in a car, driving towards a railway track in the distance. A train is speeding along the track. You take pictures of the train with long exposure time.

Would the speed of your car change the apparent direction of the train on your pics?

reply to post by Subnatural

Sorry, I don't see how Hubble's movement towards or away from ISON would cause the apparent path to bend.

The bend it you see in the path corresponds exactly to the arc that is being made by Hubble in its orbit. First it orbits towards ISON in an arc then when it hits the apex of that arc, relative to ISON, it moves away from it following the curve, completing the arc.

The angle of Hubble's orbit relative to ISON is a factor too.


Sorry, I think I took your comment out of context.

reply to post by NeoParadigm


No problem, I probably could have worded it better. But yeah, I think we pretty much agree on this .

Well, pretty interesting thread.

Originally posted by Subnatural

I don't think that shows the real path, though. The direction is wrong. Also, I suspect it would move very little against that background in the 40 or so minutes the pics were taken. I think we mostly see the movement of Hubble on these pics.

well having come from just about ur level of understanding this. i believe i understand where your misunderstanding is. u still havent got the positions correctly yet. but ive cross-checked it with other angles. basically.. imagine ur in space with ur head to the north and feet to the south standing next to the earth. orbiting it while facing away from the earth. as u orbit and reach the right side of the earth the comet can be seen if u tilt ur head down a bit. and its coming in at an angle of incline towards the sun. as u continue to orbit u keep moving closer to the comet, so it places each point slightly closer to u. and as u pass the half-point or closest point in orbit to the comet u start moving away, causing the point to be placed increasingly further away until ur back where u started and end up on the other side of the earth where u cant see the comet until u come back around the other side again.

what u got to do now.. is realize that this isnt a movie. but 3 separate perspectives, placed into one photo. so ull have to create the movie in ur head urself. so the first line is constructed while ur moving closer and marking the dots. the middle-point shows a slight curve because that pretty much ur closest point to the comet taking a 'picture'. then you get the line at an angle as the hubble is moving away and placing the dots one after the other as it's doing so and returning to the original level.

basically the hubble displays the flight path going out of wack and then back in wack again.. lol. my green line removes the wack as it should be an even curve from the starting point to the finishing point. as i said.. an optical illusion creates the going out and back in wack effect.

the comet is heading towards the sun.. but we're sort of on the other side of the sun moving in our orbit sort of to head-off the comet as it proceeds on its path. so yeah the sun is pretty much almost between us and the comet. a bit off to the left if ur facing the sun.

Sorry, I don't see how Hubble's movement towards or away from ISON would cause the apparent path to bend.

Imagine this:

You are sitting in a car, driving towards a railway track in the distance. A train is speeding along the track. You take pictures of the train with long exposure time.

Would the speed of your car change the apparent direction of the train on your pics?

that's pretty much the same example i used when i was trying to wrap my mind around this. let's alter that experiment...

stand on the left side of a bridge,, watching an oncoming train and snap a picture... then move to the middle of the bridge and snap a picture.. then move to the far right side of the bridge and snap a 3rd picture.. then stack all 3 pictures untop eachother and ull see it seems as tho the train has changed direction from it's original path. optical illusion. u got to math calculate it back to the straight line.

check out the visualisation video on this page to get a better idea of earth's positions as we took the photos. ull see that the arrow is(and should be) pointing down, but that is the direction the sun is in and the comet is indeed heading toward the sun:
en.wikipedia.org...

upload.wikimedia.org...

the reason why it's pointing down is because against the black backdrop, our perception of depth is skewed.. so it's sort of a 2d surface representing a 3d action.

Originally posted by filledcup
well having come from just about ur level of understanding this. i believe i understand where your misunderstanding is. u still havent got the positions correctly yet. but ive cross-checked it with other angles. basically.. imagine ur in space with ur head to the north and feet to the south standing next to the earth. orbiting it while facing away from the earth. as u orbit and reach the right side of the earth the comet can be seen if u tilt ur head down a bit. and its coming in at an angle of incline towards the sun. as u continue to orbit u keep moving closer to the comet, so it places each point slightly closer to u. and as u pass the half-point or closest point in orbit to the comet u start moving away, causing the point to be placed increasingly further away until ur back where u started and end up on the other side of the earth where u cant see the comet until u come back around the other side again.

Yeah, hubble orbits the earth.

Originally posted by filledcup
what u got to do now.. is realize that this isnt a movie. but 3 separate perspectives, placed into one photo. so ull have to create the movie in ur head urself. so the first line is constructed while ur moving closer and marking the dots. the middle-point shows a slight curve because that pretty much ur closest point to the comet taking a 'picture'. then you get the line at an angle as the hubble is moving away and placing the dots one after the other as it's doing so and returning to the original level.

Well, it doesn't have to be moving closer or away from the comet. But it has to move sideways, or "up and down".

Imagine two lines. One is between the hubble and ISON. The other is between ISON and any object in the background. When the angle between these lines changes the ISON seems to be moving, looking from the hubble.

Originally posted by filledcup
basically the hubble displays the flight path going out of wack and then back in wack again.. lol. my green line removes the wack as it should be an even curve from the starting point to the finishing point. as i said.. an optical illusion creates the going out and back in wack effect.

But why are you saying the flight path was in wack at the starting point of the lines and the went out of wack? It's just a random point along the path. How do you decide which points are in wack and which are out of wack? Every point is just what the ISON looks like from hubble at a given time.

Originally posted by filledcup
stand on the left side of a bridge,, watching an oncoming train and snap a picture... then move to the middle of the bridge and snap a picture.. then move to the far right side of the bridge and snap a 3rd picture.. then stack all 3 pictures untop eachother and ull see it seems as tho the train has changed direction from it's original path. optical illusion. u got to math calculate it back to the straight line.

Yes, that's basically the same thing. Except the hubble is moving all the time, so it doesn't have only three viewpoints.

Originally posted by filledcup
check out the visualisation video on this page to get a better idea of earth's positions as we took the photos. ull see that the arrow is(and should be) pointing down, but that is the direction the sun is in and the comet is indeed heading toward the sun:
en.wikipedia.org...

upload.wikimedia.org...

the reason why it's pointing down is because against the black backdrop, our perception of depth is skewed.. so it's sort of a 2d surface representing a 3d action.

I was just saying that the tail always points away from the sun. So, the arrow could not be pointing to the sun on your pic. But it doesn't matter, the arrow wasn't based on the actual movement of the comet anyway, right?

Originally posted by Subnatural


But why are you saying the flight path was in wack at the starting point of the lines and the went out of wack? It's just a random point along the path. How do you decide which points are in wack and which are out of wack? Every point is just what the ISON looks like from hubble at a given time.

well in 48 minutes hubble makes half of a full orbit around the earth. so it starts on one side and ends on the other. so i chose those 2 points because theyd be around the same level. but we can actually use any point just as long as we choose the same level as we go along. each level is a different distance.. nearer or further. either way.. the curve will fall back to the appropriate curve for that particular distance at that level of hubble's orbit.

basically, i am assuming the both extremes are at near 180 degrees apart..

I was just saying that the tail always points away from the sun. So, the arrow could not be pointing to the sun on your pic. But it doesn't matter, the arrow wasn't based on the actual movement of the comet anyway, right?

about the tail.. that's one of the things i found there to be a discrepancy with what nataylor was saying. but i let it rest because i suppose that can be explained as an optical illusion of the same problem viewing against a black background and how a 3d image scene is being translated into a 2d image medium.

i dont know if there is some other explanation for the direction the tail is pointing. maybe someone can chime in?

maybe it's not even the tail, but the glare from over-exposure? i dunno lol

I'm really excited for this comet to get here!

I have only read up to page 4 and then this last page so forgive me if this has been suggested already.

I have a feeling that this may be caused by the way the 'darker' and 'lighter' in the web page works.

I took a screen shot of the original image which is too bright to see the 'lines' and then I darkened it by reducing the values (towards black which has a value of zero) of the pixels which make up the image. Doing it that way, there are no 'lines' showing but merely a darker blob.

There is a imaging technique which reduces areas of white, it is called eroding and it causes dark areas to get thicker and bright areas to get thinner. This causes the areas of white to be 'eroded' into 3 lines which you see.

Basically, we dont know what the program does to make the 'darker' and 'lighter' buttons work but I suspect it is something like I have described above and because the comet is not a pinpoint of light but a larger blob with an irregular shape, the eroding done on it (which usually works well for stars) may not work so well in this case where the blob is not a point source.

I am eager to see UFO's in photos but if there is an explanation which seems OK to me, then I have to accept it as not a UFO - unfortunately.

reply to post by Yummy Freelunch


Very interesting post! In relation please see Darkskywatcher74's video demonstration of ISOM's friends hanging around the sun. The video does show some very facisnating information about what we are told about the activies around the sun vs. what you can actually see for yourself at www.helioviewer.org. Put in the time frames and see NASA's videos for yourself before they take them down!

www.youtube.com...

Originally posted by nataylor
reply to post by filledcup

 

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking. At the time the images were taken, here's Earth's position and ISON's position, as seen from directly above the solar system looking down:

In that image, the position of the Sun, Earth, and ISON are indicated. The green line represents the Earth's orbit around the sun and the blue line is ISON's orbit around the sun. Zooming in on Earth from that position, you can see HST's position and orbit:

These plots show the positions at 9:35:43 on April 30th, when the imaging started.

I just want to say, thank you for all these fantastic images. I've been trying to explain it on youtube using Celestia, but you get what you pay for; it's not exactly ideal for this sort of thing and it can be clunky to work with at times. What did you use? Was this from Starry Night Pro, and did you create those labels yourself or are they generated by SNP natively?

Originally posted by filledcup

I was just saying that the tail always points away from the sun. So, the arrow could not be pointing to the sun on your pic. But it doesn't matter, the arrow wasn't based on the actual movement of the comet anyway, right?

about the tail.. that's one of the things i found there to be a discrepancy with what nataylor was saying. but i let it rest because i suppose that can be explained as an optical illusion of the same problem viewing against a black background and how a 3d image scene is being translated into a 2d image medium.

i dont know if there is some other explanation for the direction the tail is pointing. maybe someone can chime in?

The comet is traveling in the direction it should appear to travel due to the motion of earth relative to the comet as well as Hubble around the earth; I tackle that quite specifically towards the end of this video:

I know I didn't show the tail orientation specifically per se as that wasn't what I was hearing complaints about at the time, but I can say from having looked at it that it was in agreement as well.

Originally posted by ngchunter
I just want to say, thank you for all these fantastic images. I've been trying to explain it on youtube using Celestia, but you get what you pay for; it's not exactly ideal for this sort of thing and it can be clunky to work with at times. What did you use? Was this from Starry Night Pro, and did you create those labels yourself or are they generated by SNP natively?

Yup, that's all from Starry Night Pro. It generates all the labels (you just check off those objects you want labeled). It makes it super easy to make graphics like those above. For the viewpoints, you just select the object you want to observe from (say ISON) and tell it you want to observe from the center of that object, then pick the object you want to center on (say, Earth), then set the zoom level, and finally set the clock There are checkboxes for each object to turn on orbit paths. Then you you can turn on "local paths" and step through time to generate the position traces over time. I highly recommend it.

Originally posted by nataylor

Originally posted by ngchunter
I just want to say, thank you for all these fantastic images. I've been trying to explain it on youtube using Celestia, but you get what you pay for; it's not exactly ideal for this sort of thing and it can be clunky to work with at times. What did you use? Was this from Starry Night Pro, and did you create those labels yourself or are they generated by SNP natively?

Yup, that's all from Starry Night Pro. It generates all the labels (you just check off those objects you want labeled). It makes it super easy to make graphics like those above. For the viewpoints, you just select the object you want to observe from (say ISON) and tell it you want to observe from the center of that object, then pick the object you want to center on (say, Earth), then set the zoom level, and finally set the clock There are checkboxes for each object to turn on orbit paths. Then you you can turn on "local paths" and step through time to generate the position traces over time. I highly recommend it.

I think you just sold me a copy. I'll look into getting it.