Moon Mystery House/ Mystery Hut/ Cube: Secret Buildings in Background of the Photo

originally posted by: JamesChessman
It's not 100% established yet, if the wittle baby PNG is legit the source image of the entire internet, publishing a different version that everyone ran with. That's possible, but that's an absurd sequence of events, that involves basically everybody disrespecting the source material that they were publishing. Including the Chinese space agency disrespecting their own content too, just to publish their own breaking image as that tiny PNG, apparently, and then to watch the world go nuts over a wrongly-degraded version of it.

Why would the Chinese space agency look at all the international sites carrying that news and image? They have more important things to do than to see how people repeat the information.
I know I wouldn't care a little about that.

It would be nice to email the staff at space.com and see what their response would be.

I sent an email to the journalist that wrote the space.com article yesterday.

Also: It would be nice to glance at the waybackmachine and see if we could verify that the Chinese site really did have the small PNG all this time, as the apparent source of everything...

I already checked, they do not have copies of the images, probably because of the way the Chinese site works (the wayback machine cannot copy everything, copying things from sites in the Internet does have some limitations).

I think it's still worth wondering if China just swapped the image at their website, maybe they didn't like all the attention on the background stuff, it certainly is easy to change a picture on a website.

Although possible, I don't see a reason for them to do that, and I think you are giving too much importance to that possibility.

a reply to: ArMaP

The biggest is not the same as the best, as you probably have noticed by now.

I was assuming people respected the material they were reporting on, and were preserving the image integrity from the Chinese space agency.

In which case, of people actually respecting their own material, then the biggest, highest-res images would have been the best image.

Do you know if the PNG image was published in it's original size? If that's the original size then they did the right thing, they published the best, highest resolution available.

No, I don't know (if the PNG image was published in its original size).

But if so, then THAT would be a very lame, original size, wouldn't it?



The PNG in question is: 552 x 288.



It's either a disgustingly small, low-res version of a better version, OR maybe it's just a revolting small, low-res original image.



What do you think? Do u think the rover is so absolutely lame, that it's taking photos in 552x288?


Or is the rover taking photos better than that, and China just decided to publish a disgustingly small, low-res version of a better image?

That's what I think about using videos to show photos, why resize and reencode the original images, making them look worse than the original?

Because it reaches MORE people, who watch videos, and who don't search text-based websites... and gives them the links to the look at the source images.

And because my videos are in 1080p, the highest standard I can do, plus blowing up sections of photos makes it even sharper and clearer, on those blown-up sections. And then viewers can click the link to see the originals, if 1080p plus blown-up sections, isn't guud enough, I give the links to see the original.

My question is why people feel the need to imply problems where there are not.

And why draw false comparisons.

There's nothing equivalent or even similar, between a hobbyist YouTube channel, with best possible resolution, and links to original sources... and China publishing their rover's images in pathetically small, low-resolution: 552 x 288, then watching the world-wide-web run with larger degraded versions, with garish artifacts.

And if you really want to force the comparison, it's all right there. Who is using best possible resolution, and respecting the topic material. And who is using disgusting low-resolution, and not respecting the source material.

originally posted by: JamesChessman
No, I don't know (if the PNG image was published in its original size).

But if so, then THAT would be a very lame, original size, wouldn't it?

It depends.

The PNG in question is: 552 x 288.


It's either a disgustingly small, low-res version of a better version, OR maybe it's just a revolting small, low-res original image.

Or just a crop of the full size photo. As they were talking about the "mystery hut" it would make sense to crop just that section from the original 1,176 × 864 (as it looks like a panchromatic instead of a colour photo) photo.

A crop from the original photo still has the same resolution and quality (unless saved as a JPEG).

What do you think? Do u think the rover is so absolutely lame, that it's taking photos in 552x288?

The rover's PCam is capable of taking photos at resolution of 1,176 × 864 for panchromatic (greyscale) or 2,352 × 1,728 for colour photos.

Or is the rover taking photos better than that, and China just decided to publish a disgustingly small, low-res version of a better image?

Or it's a crop from a bigger image to show only what they were talking about. If that was the case then the small image has the same resolution, although not the same pixel size. The fact that the proportions of the small image (552/288=1.916) are not the same as the original full size photos (1,176/864=1.361) makes me think it's really a smaller area cropped from an larger photo.

And because my videos are in 1080p, the highest standard I can do, plus blowing up sections of photos makes it even sharper and clearer, on those blown-up sections.

It doesn't, when you blow-up a section of an image on any image viewer the software will interpolate the pixels needed to create a better looking image, but in fact what you end up with is an image that is different from the original, as the software "invented" pixels to fill the gaps.

And then viewers can click the link to see the originals, if 1080p plus blown-up sections, isn't guud enough, I give the links to see the original.

The space.com article also gave the link to the original image, but you didn't click on it, right?

My question is why people feel the need to imply problems where there are not.

And why draw false comparisons.

What are you talking about?

There's nothing equivalent or even similar, between a hobbyist YouTube channel, with best possible resolution, and links to original sources... and China publishing their rover's images in pathetically small, low-resolution: 552 x 288, then watching the world-wide-web run with larger degraded versions, with garish artifacts.

There you go, making assumptions about how things happened and other people's intentions...
You cannot know if the 552 x 288 image is the best available or not and you do not know if they watched "the world-wide-web run with larger degraded versions, with garish artifacts".
And even if they did watch, what do you wanted them to do, contact all those sites and tell them to use a better version?
And if they did and the sites ignored them? You cannot know.
Or did you want them to make a publication on their site complaining about other sites publishing whatever they want?

Who is using best possible resolution, and respecting the topic material.

As far as I know, the Chinese site.

And who is using disgusting low-resolution, and not respecting the source material.

From what I have seen, nobody.

But I have seen space.com using a resized, resampled, converted to JPEG version of the image that changed the original material.

Now, why do I think the "structures" in the background of the space.com image are just JPEG compression artefacts.

Mainly, because they fit a 4 x 4 or a 8 x 8 pixel grid. Why those numbers? this page, although at the end it talks about their own products, explains it very well.
To compress an image, the JPEG method starts by dividing the image in 4 x 4 pixel blocks to apply chroma subsampling and then it divides the image in 8 x 8 blocks to apply a Direct Cosine Transformation.
The result is that all JPEG artefacts can be aligned to a (more frequently) 8 x 8 grid or to a 4 x 4 grid. Any image that shows rectangular shapes that align with those grids are, highly likely, JPEG compression artefacts.

I should have thought about it before, but I suppose it's better late than never.


What I'm talking about is looking at the metadata on the files, and this is what I got (only the relevant data).

1. Space.com image:
Creator : Andrew Jones
Create Date : 2021:12:03 09:44:45.81

2. Our Space (Chinese site) image:
No creator or create date data.

a reply to: ArMaP

Why would the Chinese space agency look at all the international sites carrying that news and image? They have more important things to do than to see how people repeat the information.
I know I wouldn't care a little about that.

I sent an email to the journalist that wrote the space.com article yesterday.

^Awesome. Maybe they will explain exactly what happened. And we'll get the final clarity of the whole situation. The final conclusion.

By the way, I was just glancing back at the thread.

On page 2., my first post, I made it clear that I was expecting / believing that the giant JPG on space.com, came directly from the Chinese space agency... at least in terms of the integrity of the image itself.

I hadn't really considered otherwise, at the time. I had believed I found the best version of the images (on space.com), I could see that it's a respected website / science journal, and it linked the Chinese space agency's website as its source.

I hadn't considered that there'd be some weird situation with the image integrity, as we've been recently discussing.





Anyway here's a quote from myself on page 2 of the thread, it makes clear how I was expecting the giant JPG came directly from the Chinese space agency:

^Wrong. You can see the same imagery in the ORIGINAL photo, without any color manipulation. It's right there in the original released from the Chinese rover, and published in news headlines a few weeks ago.

All I've done is brightened it to make it more obvious.

...Plus, if it were all compression artifacts, this is again the original image released from the Chinese space agency. Resolution is 2198 x 1143. I don't think any reasonable person would assume that there's massive compression distortions, the image is much higher-res than most computer monitors can even display.

Plus what are we assuming, that the Chinese space agency is incompetent with compression artifacts, while driving a lunar rover on the far side of the moon? That would seem much more advanced than the ability to take accurate photography.

a reply to: ArMaP

Also: It would be nice to glance at the waybackmachine and see if we could verify that the Chinese site really did have the small PNG all this time, as the apparent source of everything...

I already checked, they do not have copies of the images, probably because of the way the Chinese site works (the wayback machine cannot copy everything, copying things from sites in the Internet does have some limitations).

^Ok cool, gotcha. Thanks for checking.


I'm not extremely familiar with waybackmachine, I just know it's out there, and I thought it would be nice if we could use it (or something similar) to verify the image situation.

I've barely ever used waybackmachine, but it's a given that it can't copy everything (and I've seen that mentioned, over the years).

Well I appreciate that you checked. I wonder if there's anything else out there that might be similar to waybackmachine...

Anyway I also really appreciate that you emailed the staff at space.com. They are probably the best source to clarify the whole situation, especially now that we know that waybackmachine can't help us verify it... So we'll just be waiting and hoping for them to respond and explain things.

originally posted by: ArMaP
Now, why do I think the "structures" in the background of the space.com image are just JPEG compression artefacts.

Mainly, because they fit a 4 x 4 or a 8 x 8 pixel grid. Why those numbers? this page, although at the end it talks about their own products, explains it very well.
To compress an image, the JPEG method starts by dividing the image in 4 x 4 pixel blocks to apply chroma subsampling and then it divides the image in 8 x 8 blocks to apply a Direct Cosine Transformation.
The result is that all JPEG artefacts can be aligned to a (more frequently) 8 x 8 grid or to a 4 x 4 grid. Any image that shows rectangular shapes that align with those grids are, highly likely, JPEG compression artefacts.

I believe I understand the gist of your explanations. I get the concept. The background imagery is largely fitting the blocky shapes that we could possibly expect, from JPEG compression. I get it.

For one thing, though, if the imagery was hypothetically real buildings, then it's obviously very dark... and so we could possibly see such JPG artifacting, in that darkness, even if there were real buildings, in that darkness.

In other words, possible JPG artifacting is not necessarily mutually-exclusive to something actually being there too, in the darkness.



But also. There are details in the OP image that I had been considering more-detailed than simple blocky shapes.

MAINLY: the imagery surrounding the Mystery Hut object itself.

Whatever we consider this to be really showing... it's real stuff there, which I did bring out of the image, for real, by brightening it. Remember, it's supposed to be parts of a boulder that we're seeing:




^So it's kinda funny, because if nothing else, the imagery around the Mystery Hut object, is real physical structures, which I did successfully bring out of the darkness. Regardless if it's just the shapes of a lumpy boulder.

It would seem that I brought out the "cube" shape of the object, by showing the left side and top of the object, which was previously unseen in the dark background. A seeming diagonal slanted roof, etc.

So even if it's ONLY that one spot, around the Mystery Hut object, then I was successful in bringing out real physical structures, in my brightening experiments.

So... that might suggest that there might be more in that same image, maybe more than that one spot.







Anyway, the "boulder" shapes around the Mystery Hut obviously don't conform to JPG compression blocks, because it's not, it's real stuff that's really there, it's "lumpy" rather than blocky, and I really did uncover it.






Beyond that, the rest of the image: There's admittedly a lot of that possible JPG compression blockiness, I get it, but like I said before, it doesn't automatically negate the possibility of real stuff being there in the darkness, anyway.



But given that yeah, it's blocky, there were still certain spots that seemed more detailed, anyway. These blocky shapes seem to have dark, irregular damage-holes among the buildings (as I was initially interpreting it):



The problem THERE being that the dark damage-holes might come from the original... small PNG having some dark splotches in the sky... which might have led to that.




Likewise the "structures" around the Mystery Hut seemed compelling for looking so detailed / intricate, in some spots.

The Mystery Hut appears to connect a long horizontal wall... which runs to a decorative, Asian pagoda building, complete with curvy roof structures, symmetry, and different shading for diff. parts of the pagoda.

All seemingly in front of a rectangular building with a light over it:




I'm just saying...

Also:

It's worth taking a very close look at the "small, original PNG," and comparing to the big JPG.


One discrepancy I've noticed... is that the small PNG... shows a few stars, or bright spots... in the center-left area of the image.



In the JPG, this is the area with the blocky "buildings with damage holes."





The discrepancy is... that in the JPG, I don't see any stars / bright spots, that correlate with those seen in the baby PNG.

This would seem to simply be an inaccuracy between the two versions.







However, there's a star / bright spot, which is CONSISTENT among both versions. It's the star over the rectangular building & pagoda shapes.

That specific light, is in BOTH versions, no discrepancy there.





Which leaves the somewhat weird situation of one star remaining preserved across versions. While the other section (center-left area of the image) has the stars seemingly vanish in the JPG conversion.


But that's weird. In the PNG assumed-original, all these stars look pretty similar. So we would not expect different outcomes like this, that is, either the stars should remain preserved, or disappear. But not both, in the same image, that's unexpected and weird.


Granted we can't account for such exact details of file type conversions and whatever other processing may have been done. But it IS worth looking and seeing that... the stars in the PNG, are vanished in the JPG in that one spot, while another spot preserved fine.

It's inconsistent, whatever the reason behind it.

Here's the presumed-original PNG, there are stars in the center-left area:



The JPG with those handful of stars vanished, but it keeps the one star in that other spot:

Also:

Lest we lose track of all the confusion:

Page 4 of the thread... features a link to a Japanese blog, apparently...
jishin-yogen.com...


It links to this Twitter feed:
twitter.com... url=https%3A%2F%2Fjishin-yogen.com%2Fblog-entry-17132.html





And so we've got a couple / few unique versions of the images.

Back on page 4, I thought these versions were simply hand-modified to remove the most interesting details, and I don't think anyone ever responded about it.

So I won't make assumptions, I just think these are strange versions of the topic images, and I think it's a bit mysterious where these odd versions came from.

These versions are distinct from the versions we have been discussing, lately.



Strange possibly-edited version of the landscape shot... General imagery seems diminished:
Also it's a JPG: 2460 x 1279, size: 127, 530 byes (131 KB on disk):



Strange possible-edited version of the mid-range zoom shot:
PNG: 2056 x 1405, size: 206,088 bytes (209 KB on disk):




Strange possible edited version of the close-up shot:
JPG: 2460 x 1685, size: 70,272 bytes (74 KB on disk).


I didn't look much at the close-up shot, but I believe that these are all unique versions of these images, which have only appeared in this one spot, in the thread.

I don't know where the images really come from exactly, or why these are unique versions of these images.

There's also this link for "CNET" -- I'm not familiar with it -- but it seems to have another possibly-unique version of the landscape shot.

Can't embed because it's a webpage image (.webp) and I'm not about to try to mess around with its file type.

But it's clearly one of the smaller / low-res versions of the landscape shot: 868 x 488.

Background imagery is generally faint... but it also seems unique. Mainly what stands out is... center left area, there's a dark vertical line, which doesn't show up in any other version.

So I'm just including it for seeming another unique version.

www.cnet.com... A-11EC-9F76-033116F31EAE&TheTime=2021-12-04T19%3A43%3A07&ServiceType=twitter&PostType=link

originally posted by: JamesChessman
Whatever we consider this to be really showing... it's real stuff there, which I did bring out of the image, for real, by brightening it. Remember, it's supposed to be parts of a boulder that we're seeing:

No it is not; You should use the image from the Chinese website. You still haven't got a clue what is going and what you are doing. All you keep doing is making assumptions.

Also there is a new image of the structure; where are your buildings in that picture? (scroll down a bit)
mp.weixin.qq.com...

And you still think space.com doesn't edit the pictures from the source; here is the article on space.com
www.space.com...

You see that the panorama view on space.com has a larger black space at the top?
space.com : cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net...
ourspace : mmbiz.qpic.cn... azy=1&wx_co=1

Now you can assume again the Chinese changed their picture again after space.com grabbed it. However if you apply your brightness/contrast to the space.com version you will see they (space.com) simply added a big black bar at the top.

originally posted by: MissVocalcord

originally posted by: JamesChessman
Whatever we consider this to be really showing... it's real stuff there, which I did bring out of the image, for real, by brightening it. Remember, it's supposed to be parts of a boulder that we're seeing:

No it is not; You should use the image from the Chinese website. You still haven't got a clue what is going and what you are doing. All you keep doing is making assumptions.

You seem to be misunderstanding what I said?

I didn't say any assumptions.

I said that in the OP landscape image: I obviously DID uncover the surrounding shapes & imagery, around the Mystery Hut... which would later be explained as the shapes of the boulder.

All of that is factually true.

I don't know what part you think you disagree with, or what part you misunderstood.

This is what I'm talking about, right here, I brought out the imagery from the darkness, and later, China explained that it's the shape of the boulder, which I revealed.





Later, news headlines featured the 3rd famous image: The yellowish landscape shot, plus a zoom / crop of the actual boulder, which is supposed to be the true identity of the Mystery Hut:



^So that's the boulder, its shape was first seen in my landscape brightening:


Does that clear things up or do you still think there's a disagreement about something. I'm only trying to keep the facts straight at this point.

originally posted by: JamesChessman
Does that clear things up or do you still think there's a disagreement about something. I'm only trying to keep the facts straight at this point.

For one; you are still looking at the image from space.com which has been edited (enlarged/jpeg compression).
The shape is much better visible without any brightening or editing from the original Chinese website:


The " the surrounding shapes & imagery" are mostly artifacts from all the editing, both by space.com and your brightening/contrasting.

a reply to: MissVocalcord

Also there is a new image of the structure; where are your buildings in that picture? (scroll down a bit)
mp.weixin.qq.com...

I believe you're asking me what I think about the famous 3rd image, i.e. the yellowish landscape shot plus the zoom/crop of the boulder.


Well, I've mentioned it earlier in the thread, but there are several things I find strange / mysterious about this famous image #3.



-- For one thing, it's a very yellowish color, it's surprising to see so much color. When it's brightened & oversaturated, it shines almost like gold, or maybe just yellow sand.




Other strange aspects:

-- The actual background is basically avoided from the picture (so we can't look for more hidden imagery), but the little bit that we can see, seems to have vague shapes in it. (Although it could just be shapes from light glare.)



-- The actual BOULDER is unconvincing that this is the same Mystery Hut object, in my opinion. It basically looks too different from the earlier images.

-- The strangest thing about the close-up boulder shot, is that there seems a SQUARE SHADOW cast by the round boulder... suggesting that the object is MORE SQUARE than we see, and that the object was edited down to look more round & natural. But the square shadow gives it away, that the object truly is more square:


It's also strange to compare directly to the earlier landscape image that I brightened & revealed the first sight of the "boulder" shapes:



^Honestly it looks like the close-up boulder image... is basically a mock-up, created / edited to look very round and natural, while also incorporating the details of the Mystery Hut.

So if you look close, you can see the "pointed tower" imagery that I revealed, in the landscape shot: You can see the boulder has the little point of that pointy tower.

Likewise the boulder has very faint trace lines... corresponding with the slanted, angular "lid" shape (that I pulled from the darkness of the landscape image). It's hard to see on the boulder, but there are vague slanted lines to correspond.

Altogether I just don't think the close-up boulder image is a very realistic image, for all the reasons I just mentioned. I think it's basically a clumsy mock-up to take certain details from the earlier images, and mock it up as a boulder.

Similarly, the boulder's resemblance to a rabbit, ALSO seems a bit too-good-to-be-true, as well. I think there's some extra editing there to force the resemblance to a cute rabbit.

So basically I think the close-up boulder shot seems very much artificially edited, in several ways, and I don't think it looks like the real object anymore.




...




Also, I'm about to take time away from the forum again. I still need more time alone and making money etc.

I got sucked in lately lol because it's exciting that we might be getting to the bottom of it.




...




But now that we are embedding so much of the OP landscape shot, and then, embedding yellowish pic #3... well, now, we have left out pic #2.

In fact, this image has largely been left out of the larger discussion.


But during the first headlines, there were only 2 images, the landscape and this close-up Mystery Hut image, and it was very exciting, at that point:
It looks like an ancient temple, but when brightened, we see the entire background was cropped out, and filled in with solid purple paint-can:



So it's largely been left out of the larger discussion, because there was nothing I could really do with it. The close-up "temple" looks cool, and the background got cropped & paint-canned. There's not much to discuss about it.

Except, that it's a bizarre image, in and of itself. It begs the question: why the background got cropped out & paintcanned purple.

It implies the background has stuff that China wanted to hide / not reveal publicly.

So it implies some interesting secrets in that missing background -- it's implied by the whole background cropped out.

Also, this close-up "temple" shot is especially hard to believe that all these images are REALLY showing the same object.

originally posted by: MissVocalcord

originally posted by: JamesChessman
Does that clear things up or do you still think there's a disagreement about something. I'm only trying to keep the facts straight at this point.

For one; you are still looking at the image from space.com which has been edited (enlarged/jpeg compression).
The shape is much better visible without any brightening or editing from the original Chinese website:

The " the surrounding shapes & imagery" are mostly artifacts from all the editing, both by space.com and your brightening/contrasting.

^Source / link, please, of your new image that you just embedded.

I've been documenting all the different images we've discussed, and you just embedded that, without a link where you got it.

I know you said the Chinese site, I know, but you're still supposed to give a link where you got it, so it's as clear as possible.

Honestly it's such a mess of pixels that it seems a worthless image regardless, and I can't even tell which of the main images, it is.

But for clarity in the conversation, please link your image.

It's basically worthless to embed like that without a link. Especially that your new image looks like someone just created it, just to have another unclear image floating around, causing more confusion.






Anyway, I don't know what disagreement you thought you had, or what misunderstanding. But I've already explained and shown images, how I did show the first sight of the Mystery Hut "boulder" shapes.

Supposedly that's what I revealed in those shapes around the Mystery Hut, in the OP landscape image that I brightened.

originally posted by: JamesChessman
-- The actual background is basically avoided from the picture (so we can't look for more hidden imagery), but the little bit that we can see, seems to have vague shapes in it.

Where are you buildings in that picture; there is simply nothing which resembles anything of you jpeg artifacts before.

-- The actual BOULDER is unconvincing that this is the same Mystery Hut object, in my opinion. It basically looks too different from the earlier images.

Yes of course it looks different; in the first shot of the builder the builder only occopied 10 pixels in width. Which doesn't leave much room for details. So yes moving closer and getting a better shot of it changes the looks.

Both pictures have all the exact same landmarks:


For all the rest; you're fantasy is running wild and you're making all kind of assumptions about things you don't seem to want to understand.

originally posted by: JamesChessman

^Source / link, please, of your new image that you just embedded.

I've been documenting all the different images we've discussed, and you just embedded that, without a link where you got it.

I know you said the Chinese site, I know, but you're still supposed to give a link where you got it, so it's as clear as possible.

Come on where talking about the one and only original image we have; the one from the Chinese website; All others should be disregarded; It should be clear by now...

Honestly it's such a mess of pixels that it seems a worthless image regardless, and I can't even tell which of the main images, it is.
But for clarity in the conversation, please link your image.

It's basically worthless to embed like that without a link. Especially that your new image looks like someone just created it, just to have another unclear image floating around, causing more confusion.

It is simply a zoom in of this image:
mmbiz.qpic.cn... azy=1&wx_co=1

And it is not "a mess of pixels that it seems a worthless image"; saying that just shows you really don't have a clue; It (the original image from the Chinese website) is the most information density picture in this whole thread. That is what you seemingly don't want to understand.

originally posted by: JamesChessman

I'm serious about not caring about it.