Milky Way Photograph Debate [split]

[PlaceofDis]

couldn't we all basically get that same angle at some point since the earth is in constant circulation around the fun and in rotation too.

 

[Josh]

Edit: I don't know how to explain so that you understand. Imagine that you're a moth circling around a lamp post on Long Island. Sometimes you see the New York city skyline, sometimes you don't because you're heading the other way or because the lamp post is in the way, but any time you see the city skyline it looks the same. It doesn't matter how much manouvering you do within 2 metres of the lamp post, the city skyline looks exactly the same. If you fly upside down, the skyline will look different, but if you rotate it in photoshop (or in your mind) you will discover that it's in fact the same skyline. No buildings are rearranged, no new towers hide other towers, no change at all as far as the moth is concerned.

Except that, unlike the buildings that adorn New York's skyline, stars are not stationairy objects.

They have their own orbits, they move along their own paths, and the galaxy they are in is even moving in its own orbit.

The fact of the matter, which you tirelessly (and foolishly) refute is this: stars do change positions in the sky based on the time of day and season.

Two people, at different locations on the earth, during different times of day, in different seasons of the year will not see the stars in the same, precise, positions.

A picture of the sky from 1 day will vary from one taken during another time/day/season. That is irrefutable.

The fact that every last star lines up in precisely the same photo from the one found on the net and the hoax posted here is proof enough it is a Photoshop job. Further, it has been mathematically proven that star positions vary and are not constant, and that it is statistically improbable two different photos from two different photographers will show the exact same stars at the exact same angle, in the exact same proportions and positions.

You'd think buying into the hoax would be foolish enough, but now you're refuting proven science. This has reached a level of absurdity I've never encountered before....

Debate it until you're blue in the face, the facts are posted above and I've backed up every single one of my claims and have countered every bit of this nonsense - as far as I am concerned, there is nothing further to discuss.

 

[pdpfilms]

Except that, unlike the buildings that adorn New York's skyline, stars are not stationairy objects.

They have their own orbits, they move along their own paths, and the galaxy they are in is even moving in its own orbit.

The fact of the matter, which you tirelessly (and foolishly) refute is this: stars do change positions in the sky based on the time of day and season.

Two people, at different locations on the earth, during different times of day, in different seasons of the year will not see the stars in the same, precise, positions.

A picture of the sky from 1 day will vary from one taken during another time/day/season. That is irrefutable.

The fact that every last star lines up in precisely the same photo from the one found on the net and the hoax posted here is proof enough it is a Photoshop job. Further, it has been mathematically proven that star positions vary and are not constant, and that it is statistically improbable two different photos from two different photographers will show the exact same stars at the exact same angle, in the exact same proportions and positions.

You'd think buying into the hoax would be foolish enough, but now you're refuting proven science. This has reached a level of absurdity I've never encountered before....

Debate it until you're blue in the face, the facts are posted above and I've backed up every single one of my claims and have countered every bit of this nonsense - as far as I am concerned, there is nothing further to discuss.

Man, you sure are confident. I almost feel bad. Hey, -hh, how about posting the original, unedited photo?

 

[Blue Velvet]

The fact that every last star lines up in precisely the same photo from the one found on the net and the hoax posted here is proof enough it is a Photoshop job.

Do you know how Pluto was discovered? By overlaying film exposures taken at different times showing the planet's movement against a static backdrop of stars.

Of course stars move relative to each other but their movement is so comparatively slow at these scales and the distances so vast that for our intents and purposes with our time scales they are static.

Wind the clock back 4000 years or so and yes, the constellations have shifted.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

The big dipper or any other formation will change over the night and extremely over the seasons (winter and summer being the extremes). The stars that form them change positions relative to an earth-based observer. You can expect to see a similar formation through one night or one season, but different hemispheres and different times at different seasons will see it drastically different.

Their position in the sky will change, not their relationship to each other. You're not going to see a different shape - just a different section of the sky as the Earth rotates and travels around the sun.

The other stars are not orbiting our sun, they're all moving in different directions, but being so far away, the change in position from year to year is so small it takes centuries and millennia to notice any difference in the "shape" of constellations.

I'm going to have to take a pic of the Milkyway one night with my wide angle lens when its clear....

D

 

[andiwm2003]

Their position in the sky will change, not their relationship to each other. You're not going to see a different shape - just a different section of the sky as the Earth rotates and travels around the sun.

The other stars are not orbiting our sun, they're all moving in different directions, but being so far away, the change in position from year to year is so small it takes centuries and millennia to notice any difference in the "shape" of constellations.

I'm going to have to take a pic of the Milkyway one night with my wide angle lens when its clear....

D

technical question: what lens, aperture, exposure and camera are you using? what is the best setup for starphotography?

i tried once to get a pic of the orion nebula with my film slr and a 300mm f/5.6 lens. i got nothing but blur.

btw: i like your "Klaatu varada nikto!" sig. you never know when you need it. but if you need it you'd better remember it!

 

[Rower_CPU]

Josh, what you keep ignoring and myself and others have posted out is the issue of parallax. If you don't understand this concept it's not a surprise you're misunderstanding the science you says proves your point.

 

[Applespider]

Add me to the clamour saying that Josh is on the wrong track.

I can only recognise certain constellations in the night sky. I recognise Orion, Castor & Pollux, the Big Dipper. When I find one of them in the night sky, I can find the others in relation to where the first one is. Sure, sometimes Orion is north, sometimes west, sometimes high, sometimes low in the sky but the shape of 'him' is always the same, and I know that I'll find Castor & Pollux above and to the left a little - and sure enough, they're always there in relation to him.

And it's an awesome photo. I wonder if the fact that there's probably less light-pollution in Tanzania compared to what most of us usually see, mean that it's easier to see so many stars.

 

[dejo]

When was the last time you saw the Milky Way?

Well, I was outside of the city on the weekend and looked up and saw the light banding that is the Milky Way passing through Cygnus, as it always does. But the last time (and first, really) that I saw the Milky Way (in more detail than I had ever imagined possible to the naked eye) was just over a month ago in Rico, CO. I had never seen such a brilliant night sky.

P.S. Let me also join in the chorus. Josh, you're mistaken.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

The debate of star trails?

Here's a zoom of a photo I took a week ago. Sony W100, 30-second exposure, F2.8, ISO800, 38mm equivalent. I live in the city, so the sky is too bright to get any good shots of the Milky Way; but this does show minimal motion blur. (What blur there is probably came from the fact that my mini tripod was on the railing of my deck, and I walked around while it was taking the picture, shaking the deck a little.)

(This is a zoom on the first three stars of the 'handle' of the Big Dipper, as seen in the photo on my Picture of the Day blog.)

 

[law guy]

Cool image, but it isn't real.

For one, Earth is inside the Milky Way, and the only way to capture it as you say you've done is to be from an angle outside of it.

Being inside of the galaxy, all you're going to see looking out is a thin band, nothing like your photoshob job.

Secondly, the only galaxy one might see in a similar light as the one above is Andromeda which is often confused for the Milky Way.

The problem however is that Andromeda is only visable from the Northern Hemisphere - a place where Tanzania is not located.

Nice try, though.

This is one of the strangest things I have ever read. At first I didn't know whether to take the post seriously. Then I wondered how schools have failed us. Then I got a little annoyed at light pollution - if this chap only lived in a place where he could see the night sky. Should we get him a subscription to Sky and Telescope? Well, there are so many pictures of the night sky on-line that he could also see some fine night sky photography there. Here's an example from a quick google search: http://home.arcor-online.de/axel.mellinger/; and another - http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/general/af_mw.html, so many to choose from.

 

[mrkgoo]

Josh here's another picutre that you can overlay! Perhaps it also line sup 'exactly'! The coincidence would be even spookier then...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Milky_Way_1e_md.jpg

 

[ChrisBrightwell]

The fact of the matter, which you tirelessly (and foolishly) refute is this: stars do change positions in the sky based on the time of day and season.

... Due to the Earth's 23-degree tilt, among other things.

Two people, at different locations on the earth, during different times of day, in different seasons of the year will not see the stars in the same, precise, positions.

... Duh?

A picture of the sky from 1 day will vary from one taken during another time/day/season. That is irrefutable.

... Again, duh?

The fact that every last star lines up in precisely the same photo from the one found on the net and the hoax posted here is proof enough it is a Photoshop job.

OK ... Two things.

1. They don't line up as much as you want them to. Check the borders of the stock photo and you'll see that.

2. Constellations (and galaxies and most other celestial bodies) are going to maintain their positions, relative to one another, as seen from Earth. How else do you explain crazy things like the North Star (if you're north of the equator) or being able to navigate at night based on familiarity with stars and constellations?

Further, it has been mathematically proven that star positions vary and are not constant, and that it is statistically improbable two different photos from two different photographers will show the exact same stars at the exact same angle, in the exact same proportions and positions.

What you're ignoring, in all of this jibber jabber, is that the movement of the Earth is negligible relative to the rest of the universe. One side of the Sun or the other, we're gonna see the same formations on a general basis.

You'd think buying into the hoax would be foolish enough, but now you're refuting proven science.

Try this ... Fire up Photoshop and find some concrete (as in, not circumstantial) evidence that the photo is a fake. Laying a stock photo of stars over another photo of stars isn't gonna cut it because everyone who takes a picture of the Big Dipper is gonna get the same picture of the Big Dipper if rotating and scaling are options in your basis for comparison.

You're also COMPLETELY ignoring the zillions of stars in the photo that sparked this debate that are NOT in the stock photo that was overlaid to "prove" this "hoax."

This has reached a level of absurdity I've never encountered before....

You don't even know how true that is.

 

[ChrisA]

Thanks for the lesson, haha. I know what our galaxy looks like, I just was not aware it was that easily visible from the ground, with this kind of equipment. Like Chip said, I would have expected star trails, but then again, I had to leave my shutter open for literally ten minutes to get inch-long trails last time I tried. I guess 3 seconds wouldn't show it too much..

First off, yes of course you can see the Milky Way from the ground with just the naked eye. The name "Mily Way" predates modern science and is ancient. Those old Greek saw it every clear night because their cities did not have electric lights to block out the stars.

Now for Star trails. there are 24x60x60 = 86400 second in a day. The Earth turns 360 degress every day. so in one second it turns 360/86400 = 0.00416666 degrees in a 30 seconf exposure the Earth turns thru .125 degrees

If you have a telescope looking at the equator and the scope has a .125 degree fild of view then in 30 seconds the star will arc across the entire frame. in 3 second the trail will be 1/10th of a frame long. If you look up from the equator the arc is shorter by the Cosine of the latitude.

Questions: (1) Where is the camera pointing? (2) What is the field of view in degrees? Answer these and we can compute the expected lenght of the star trails.

 

[Over Achiever]

First off, I would like to say great composition -hh, as an astronomer and an aspiring amateur astrophotographer, it is a great capture. One day I'll be able to snap something like that ... someday.

This whole debate over stars moving around in the sky is laughable, as well as the whole "it's impossible, the Earth is in the Milky Way, you can't take a picture of it." The Earth is in the Milky Way, but about 2/3 of the way out, so we can look towards the center and see what we see. We could also look the opposite direction, but the number of stars diminishes as one goes away, so one can't really see the other side of the disk.

I hope everyone has the information they need and they drop the subject ... otherwise if there's anything that still needs clarification, post them. I'm getting rusty on my astrophysics =)

 

[dejo]

I'm getting rusty on my astrophysics =)

Don't worry. Josh will get you back up to speed in no time.

 

[ChrisA]

Cool image, but it isn't real.

For one, Earth is inside the Milky Way, and the only way to capture it as you say you've done is to be from an angle outside of it.

Being inside of the galaxy, all you're going to see looking out is a thin band, nothing like your photoshob job.

Yes the Mily Way as viewd from Earth does look like a band of light. Or maybe more like a thin "path" or may a "way". and with some imagination the light could look like milk. This could be the reason the acients called that band of light "The Milky Way". Your reasoning is correct except you are missing one part: the disk is not so thin and we are near the center of it the effect is that the band is not so thin.

And one more thing you are missing, a clear sky. If yo did have access to a clear sky you would know that it looks to the un-aided eye just like the photograph. If you turn off ALL the lights and go some place where the air is still and thin the sky is COMPLETLY FILLED with countless stars but if you look inthe direction of the plane of the disk the starts are so dense that they seem to merge into an irregular band of light. Irregular because there are structur in the spiril arm and dust clouds that block many stars. When you lok through the disk edge-wise you see our local section of one one "arm" we happen to be in. The dust beween the arms blocks more distant arms from view.

You really owe it to yourself to find someplace that is many miles away from the nearest electric light and get there on some clear moonless night. You will see first hand just how thin the atmospere is. Just 60 miles away is "outter space". (Heck you would __walk__ 60 miles in a few days.) and it will be very clear that you are standing on the edge of a planet that is itself in space. The milyw way will lok like the photo.

 

[ChrisA]

Uh, yeah, they do.

The stars do not remain in the same positions relative to earth through all time. Their positions' change based on time of year and the time of the day.

I think we know what he ment. Relative to a fixed earth the stars rotate around it once per day. The stars appear to rise and set, like the Sun and moon.

But what he ment is that the stars do not apear to move relative to each other. The movement is to slow to be detected with out instruments

 

[TheAnswer]

I stopped once at a rest stop in the middle of the california central valley, just after a rainstorm had cleared the smog out of the sky. I didn't see as many stars as in the OP's photo, but I saw enough to think that if there weren't the lights in the parking lot and on the highway, that might have been able to see that many.

 

[ksz]

On August 27, 2003 when Mars was at its closest point (perigee) to Earth in something like 60,000 years, I drove up to Glacier Point in Yosemite to set up my apochromatic refractor and view Mars from around 8000ft elevation.

A number of amateur astronomers were gathered there as well.

I arrived at around midnight. There was no moon that night and the atmospheric conditions above Yosemite were extremely stable.

So the moment I stepped outside the car and looked up, my jaw dropped. The Milky part of the Milky Way galaxy was very clear and pronounced. I had never seen the sky so full of stars so I went over to some of those amateur astronomers (especially the ones with ultra expensive gigantic scopes) and asked whether the skies were usually this clear. The unanimous answer was that the seeing conditions that night were the best they could remember.

It was really a sight to see. The picture posted by -hh is easily what we saw that night. A 30-second exposure at ISO 1600 is quite believable.

 

[gekko513]

Except that, unlike the buildings that adorn New York's skyline, stars are not stationairy objects.

They have their own orbits, they move along their own paths, and the galaxy they are in is even moving in its own orbit.

The fact of the matter, which you tirelessly (and foolishly) refute is this: stars do change positions in the sky based on the time of day and season.

I see others have already posted, but for the record I'd like to clarify my previous choice of words.

I said the stars stay pretty much put, and some of the confusion here probably stems from us using different perspectives of movement. You're talking about an observer standing on earth seeing the stars revolving around like small suns, while I'm talking from the celestial equatorial coordinate system (name taken from the second one of your own links). In this system the earth is moving and rotating, and the stars are pretty much fixed. What part of the sky we see from a point on earth obviously changes during the night and makes it look like the stars are moving. I could probably have done a better job of explaining my reference system, but at least ChrisA understood what I ment.

Then there's the second problem which is that you claim the stars change their position relative to each other as seen from earth. Yes, they move along their own paths and in galactical orbits, but as Blue Velvet and the others have said, they don't move enough for us non-scientists to be able to observe any change whatsoever within a lifetime. I stand by my statement that as long as you can see the big dipper it looks the same, no matter what time of year, location on earth or time of night. If you take 1000 pictures of it from different places at different times (give or take a couple of thousand years) and lay them over each other like you did here, they will always line up.

 

[topicolo]

From the lack of posts from Josh, I think he's gotten the point

 

[thedude110]

This is one of the strangest things I have ever read. At first I didn't know whether to take the post seriously. Then I wondered how schools have failed us.

Too many students writing "lollerskates" in essays (but spelling it as "lollerscaits") to teach much astronomy.

I did get a good paper last year on what would happen to a student's teddy bear if it were to go to Venus.

The photo is amazing. Josh's blinking overlay of photo on photo is also amazing.

Clean that up a bit and combine it with several other gritty cityish and elegant cosmic overlays and you could so get a showing in a small museum and then sell to a sucker art buyer. Protecting the intellectual property of the original photographers, of course, etc.

 

[iTwitch]

And no, it will not remain the same. The big dipper or any other formation will change over the night and extremely over the seasons (winter and summer being the extremes). The stars that form them change positions relative to an earth-based observer. You can expect to see a similar formation through one night or one season, but different hemispheres and different times at different seasons will see it drastically different.

No Josh, its not the big dipper moving it's you. Your standing on the surface and it's rotating. You should take a trip to a planetarium and talk to the operator.

 

[iTwitch]

It is a fact that stars are in motion, but the extreme distances make any perception of that motion here on earth detectable only with powerful equipment. To the naked eye, the Milky Way, constellations, etc. will appear almost identical from anywhere they are visible, regardless of the time of night. Their positions in the sky as it "rotates" overhead is all that changes.

Not powerful equipment but long periods of time.