The Other Side of Midnight - Richard C. Hoagland - Live Chat Thread

[Yorkshire pud]

I would think you could see these domes with a high powered terrestrial telescope at an observatory...if these are as big as RCH claims, can't someone just set up some time at an observatory and check?

Meethinks they have, they saw and.... Went back to bed disappointed that all they saw was a pale grey satellite with lots of craters, hills but no glass domes; or robot heads; or copied and pasted images from computer games. Damn.

[chefist]

Meethinks they have, they saw and.... Went back to bed disappointed that all they saw was a pale grey satellite with lots of craters, hills but no glass domes; or robot heads; or copied and pasted images from computer games. Damn.

I'm going to do it here at the Whipple Observatory, which my daughter and I visit on a regular basis...you can schedule the observation time...we've done it looking at Mars before...so our next trip we will look at this location on the moon...I'll just comb through the internet to find the exact coordinates...

[K_Dubb]

Yup.  SaucyRossy, think of what would happen if you take an image in a green filter.  Then a second or so later, a blue filter.  And a second or so, a red filter.

The opposite edge of the moon looks tinted magenta to me, or maybe red + blue.  Those ancient guys who built the domes sure liked their trippy mood lighting.

[AppealPlay]

Things I've learned so far listening to what I missed last night:

Stanley Kubrick was Arthur C. Clarke's poodle
Saturn is a stargate
Kubrick was a Nazi... or something
Kodak lied about the film used in the handheld cameras carried by Apollo astronauts

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

Astro, I completely understand it.....however, it was left in. when almost the entirety of the rest of it was cleaned up and polished.

And by that, I mean, the exposure levels for the entirety of it all is perfect.

In order to clean and polish it, they would have had to displace the Moon in each component image, and that itself would have left gaps.  If you look very carefully you can see a faint green ghost around the entire left side of the Moon.  It stands out in the little section you are looking at because it is in front of a white cloud.  There's also a little bit of a displaced green tinge over the lighter areas inside the Moon, but it is more difficult to see because there is less contrast.

[AppealPlay]

Around 1:13 it starts getting good with bullshit being called.

[astroguy]

In order to clean and polish it, they would have had to displace the Moon in each component image, and that itself would have left gaps.  If you look very carefully you can see a faint green ghost around the entire left side of the Moon.  It stands out in the little section you are looking at because it is in front of a white cloud.  There's also a little bit of a displaced green tinge over the lighter areas inside the Moon, but it is more difficult to see because there is less contrast.

A-yup.  What part of it is "polished"?  I see a steady displacement of RGB across all parts of the lunar disk.  RGB centered such that Earth comes out right, moon has steady displacements in the colors because it moved relative to Earth.

[PChirp]

Personally, I don't give a damn who or whom calls each and every night ringing RCH's telethon phone during the show.  The comedy value is golden.  I really like RCH and he's doing so, so much better regarding his podcasts.  Besides, he's one hell of a good sport about it.  I heard him personally claim he doesn't read his thread here at BellGab due to not having time.  Ok, I guess I buy it.  Between his chair "brappping" and the telethon phone calls, it's priceless at $5 a month subscription.  Long live and prosper, RCH!   

[SaucyRossy]

A-yup.  What part of it is "polished"?  I see a steady displacement of RGB across all parts of the lunar disk.  RGB centered such that Earth comes out right, moon has steady displacements in the colors because it moved relative to Earth.

Ok polished, poor choice of word.

Exposure level. whats the process on that?

Because as it is, the entirety of the earth and the moon are perfectly exposed for. Ansel Adams would've been proud.

And before anyone gets defensive or any sort of ridiculousness about my question. Please know I'm asking from place of, simply i want to know how it was done.


EDIT: is it a method similar to HDR?

[AppealPlay]

The second hour of this morning's program was great.  This is exactly why RCH needs 3 hours.  I really would have liked to hear more of it.  I mean, it was just getting to the heart of the matter at 1:47.

[SaucyRossy]

The second hour of this morning's program was great.  This is exactly why RCH needs 3 hours.  I really would have liked to hear more of it.  I mean, it was just getting to the heart of the matter at 1:47.

Email rch@othersideofmidnight.com and he will pass your thoughts on I'm sure

[Yorkshire pud]

Ok polished, poor choice of word.

Exposure level. whats the process on that?

Because as it is, the entirety of the earth and the moon are perfectly exposed for. Ansel Adams would've been proud.

And before anyone gets defensive or any sort of ridiculousness about my question. Please know I'm asking from place of, simply i want to know how it was done.


EDIT: is it a method similar to HDR?

It's the inverse square law... Basically if you have a correctly exposed apple on a table at ten feet from the camera film/ccd plane, lit by artificial light at the camera; and wish to get the same exposure at twenty feet, you need four times the light, be it light strength or aperture. The single point of light to the Earth and moon is the Sun. It is so far away and so powerful to both that it can illuminate both with almost the same exposure value. The difference (depending on where the Moon is in relation to the Earth) is not enough to considerably under/over expose one if the other is correct.

[K_Dubb]

Exposure level. whats the process on that?

I'm not a photographer or anything but I think the theory is that each color in the red/green/blue plus black/white was taken separately.  As the moon moved left-to-right, first the green was taken, then black/white a bit later, then red and blue more or less at the same time cuz there's no discernable bleed or whatever on the red and blue, it just looks kind of purple.  When the images were stacked on top of each other, the green moon was leftmost, then the black/white, then the red/blue.

Funny way to take a picture since the order is weird and it's not uniform, but there must be some technical reason.

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

Ok polished, poor choice of word.

Exposure level. whats the process on that?

Because as it is, the entirety of the earth and the moon are perfectly exposed for. Ansel Adams would've been proud.

And before anyone gets defensive or any sort of ridiculousness about my question. Please know I'm asking from place of, simply i want to know how it was done.


EDIT: is it a method similar to HDR?

Hey, I hope I didn't come off as defensive.  I was just trying to explain and illustrate as best I could. 

I don't know a lot about photography, but keep in mind that the spacecraft is virtually directly between the Sun and Earth (it's offset a few degrees so the Moon isn't actually passing directly between the Sun and Earth as it may appear).  The entire Earth and Moon should therefore be exposed about equally, just like a full Moon when you look at it at night.  You can see a tiny bit of a shadow around the edge since the spacecraft is slightly offset from the Sun-Earth line.

[astroguy]

Ok polished, poor choice of word.

Exposure level. whats the process on that?

Because as it is, the entirety of the earth and the moon are perfectly exposed for. Ansel Adams would've been proud.

And before anyone gets defensive or any sort of ridiculousness about my question. Please know I'm asking from place of, simply i want to know how it was done.


EDIT: is it a method similar to HDR?

I wasn't being defensive either; it's hard to tell tone in a written message so sorry if it came off that way. In my first (long message), I was trying to be thorough in my explanation.  In my follow-up on "polished," I was legitimately not clear on what you were asking, so I was trying to get clarification.

To answer your question perhaps more simply than Yorkshire Pud:  We know how much light Earth reflects on average (~30%).  We know how much light the moon reflects on average (~10%).  We have been photographing both for decades and know how long the exposure should be.  We calibrate the cameras for how sensitive they are on Earth, then send 'em to space.  Same way the Apollo astronauts didn't have to adjust any aperture or shutter speed settings while on the moon, we knew what to "shoot for," so to speak.

Think of it this way:  You're a studio photographer, and you've done it for years.  You know your light setup (the sun in the spacecraft's case), and so you've gotten to the point where it doesn't matter who sits down to pose for you, even if you have a new camera, you know what your exposure settings should be.

Speculation hereafter: With that in mind, I do NOT know how EXACTLY they processed this image.  Looking at it, it is POSSIBLE that they increased the brightness of the moon a little bit, in software after.  Please don't anyone interpret that as "faking," "tampering," or even "that's what they actually did," I'm just speculating here because the moon does look somewhat brighter to me than around 1/3 of Earth's average brightness.

It is also entirely possible that since they are photographing the moon with the sun almost directly behind them, that the non-Lambertian opposition effect/spike is acting to increase the apparent brightness of the moon, such that NO selective brightening was done at all.  Earth does not show this effect, is is more Lambertian in its reflectivity phase response.

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

Here's some information on how the images are taken and put together

From http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/07201148-dscovr-epic-globe-earth.html?referrer=https://www.google.ca/ (referring to an image from July 6 which I posted in the Astronomy thread on that date):

EPIC [the visible wavelength camera on DSCOVR] takes images once every 1.8 hours, continuously. For this first image, red (680±0.2 nm), green (551±1 nm), and blue (443±1 nm) were returned at their full 2048-pixel-square resolution. But once EPIC starts regular imaging, data volume constraints will prevent all of these from being returned at full resolution. They will send back the blue-channel image at 2048 square, and downsample the red and green images to 1024 by 1024 before downlinking them.

Standard RGB jpeg images are encoded as three numbers, one for red, one for green and one for blue. We have three numbers on DSCOVR. The question is how to scale the three relative to each other. We have adjusted the exposure times to make sure that we are neither saturated nor lost in low signal to noise values. Then we followed the human eye color response spectrum. The human eye is much more sensitive to red and green than blue colors. But the EPIC instrument is equally sensitive to all of the filter settings. So, before combining the three filtered images, we have reduced the contribution of blue and slightly changed red. This is our best guess as how a human observer would see the Earth from L1.

The popular MODIS Earth images are enhanced in color to bring out surface features. Also, they have removed the effect of light scattered by atmospheric molecules. We will do the same for the regular processing and distribute both the human eye response coloring and the enhanced images.

The first light images are all human eye response colors.

and from http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86353

EPIC’s natural-color images of Earth are generated by combining three separate monochrome exposures taken by the camera in quick succession. EPIC takes a series of 10 images using different spectral filtersâ€"from ultraviolet to near infraredâ€"to produce a variety of science products. The red, green, and blue channel images are used in these color images. But combining three images that are taken about 30 seconds apart produces a slight but noticeable camera artifact on the edges of the Moon. Because the Moon moved in relation to Earth between the time the first (red) and last (green) exposures were made, a thin green offset (about 7â€"8 pixels) appears on the right side when the three exposures are combined. This movement also produces a slight red and blue offset on the left side of the unaltered images.

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

In any case, soon we're going to have new images every day, posted to the internet and downloadable.  I think once we start to get those, it will be harder to dispute the authenticity of the images.

[chefist]

You can see the red and blue filters on the lower left of the moon...they mix to form a shade of violet....

[Yorkshire pud]

I wasn't being defensive either; it's hard to tell tone in a written message so sorry if it came off that way. In my first (long message), I was trying to be thorough in my explanation.  In my follow-up on "polished," I was legitimately not clear on what you were asking, so I was trying to get clarification.

To answer your question perhaps more simply than Yorkshire Pud:  We know how much light Earth reflects on average (~30%).  We know how much light the moon reflects on average (~10%).  We have been photographing both for decades and know how long the exposure should be.  We calibrate the cameras for how sensitive they are on Earth, then send 'em to space.  Same way the Apollo astronauts didn't have to adjust any aperture or shutter speed settings while on the moon, we knew what to "shoot for," so to speak.

Think of it this way:  You're a studio photographer, and you've done it for years.  You know your light setup (the sun in the spacecraft's case), and so you've gotten to the point where it doesn't matter who sits down to pose for you, even if you have a new camera, you know what your exposure settings should be.

Speculation hereafter: With that in mind, I do NOT know how EXACTLY they processed this image.  Looking at it, it is POSSIBLE that they increased the brightness of the moon a little bit, in software after.  Please don't anyone interpret that as "faking," "tampering," or even "that's what they actually did," I'm just speculating here because the moon does look somewhat brighter to me than around 1/3 of Earth's average brightness.

It is also entirely possible that since they are photographing the moon with the sun almost directly behind them, that the non-Lambertian opposition effect/spike is acting to increase the apparent brightness of the moon, such that NO selective brightening was done at all.  Earth does not show this effect, is is more Lambertian in its reflectivity phase response.

Not contradicting you Stuart,



It also depends on reflected/transmitted light insofar as exposure values are concerned. The studio set up you used as an analogy 'works' because the lights may never move in relation to the point where the model or subject is. Some studios have infinity walls that are essentially a huge wall, curved to the floor (and sometimes ceiling) that gives the illusion of having no corners. A set up like that seldom needs to move the lights, but if they were in relation to the model (nearer/ further away) then the exposure value would be altered, but if the lights remained in situ, the EV is exactly the same no matter where the camera is in relation to the model. Whether it's ten feet or ten miles (clear atmosphere and impeding objects not withstanding).

The Earth and Moon are reflecting light but I suspect also that the calibration will be more geared to the the known EV of the Sun on both Earth and the Moon (Transmitted light)

[SaucyRossy]

we adjusted the exposure times....

Ok that's all I was looking for. Taking the photos in rgb and combing them is fine and all but the key was the adjustment of exposure times.....

Thanks for all your guys responses. I love stuff like this.

[astroguy]

Thanks for all your guys responses. I love stuff like this.

And that's the response I like.

To take and paraphrase a statement from Phil Plait, often the science of how & why [insert whatever] is really done or what's really going on is much more interesting than the pseudoscience.  Or at the very least, you start to get an appreciation for the amount of work and planning and calibrating that really goes in to how we do these things.

That's also perhaps why sometimes I come off as a bit annoyed or indignant when someone like Richard (and he's just ONE example, since this is a thread of his show) just skip all the real work that has to be done to understand these things and claims something fairly crazy.  It takes a lot of work, a lot of background information to understand these things, and those of us who put that work in sometimes see it as a slap in the face when someone doesn't do any of that and claims these wild things.

[SaucyRossy]

Imagination and creativity plays a massive role in all of our psyches and pushes and inspires many people to do many great things.

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

Imagination and creativity plays a massive role in all of our psyches and pushes and inspires many people to do many great things.

Right, I'm starting to appreciate that more.  At this point I'm not sure whether to chastise RCH for spreading his interpretation of science, or appreciate him for encouraging discussions like this.

[K_Dubb]

Right, I'm starting to appreciate that more.  At this point I'm not sure whether to chastise RCH for spreading his interpretation of science, or appreciate him for encouraging discussions like this.

The effect looks a little like a 3D picture.  I wonder if you had special glasses with one green lens and one purple you'd see it in 3D.

Hoagie is entertaining.  I'll leave the moral judgments to you all.

[ShayP]

Right, I'm starting to appreciate that more.  At this point I'm not sure whether to chastise RCH for spreading his interpretation of science, or appreciate him for encouraging discussions like this.

I was thinking about this too.  Regardless of Hoagie's belief, or anybody's criticism, he does spark debate and make people look at the subject(s).  Take all his theories out of the equation and he still has a passion for the sciences, especially geology and astronomy.  Yes he takes a sci-fi approach but I think it's fun.  It's nice to see people more imaginative in these areas.  Keep in mind that I do recognize the hard facts and science; and I disagree with Hoagie more often than not.  I dig his show more than I thought I would.  Feels familiar or almost endearing.  Reminds me of reading OMNI magazine in 1981, followed up by an issue of Growing Up with Science, and then moving on to a comic book and blending the three.  Maybe I'm just feeling nostalgic.  Nonetheless.......BRAAPS! 

[LW]

I was thinking about this too.  Regardless of Hoagie's belief, or anybody's criticism, he does spark debate and make people look at the subject(s).  Take all his theories out of the equation and he still has a passion for the sciences, especially geology and astronomy.  Yes he takes a sci-fi approach but I think it's fun.  It's nice to see people more imaginative in these areas.  Maybe I'm just feeling nostalgic.  Nonetheless.......BRAAPS!

I'm with you this field was stagnating and going nowhere, Art and Richard C. Hoagland (whole name) are what this field needed to continue.

Think about what new information has come out in the last 15 years, next to nothing.

We needed this and I am enjoying it.

[BellBoy]

We needed this and I am enjoying it.

Word to your Mother!

"Braaps!"

[SealJuice]

I was just listening on Tune In and fell in love with a piece of bumper music during the clown discussion. It was a haunting piece with an abstract vocal. Is there a listing of bumper music somewhere for this show?

Thank you.

[aldousburbank]

I was thinking about this too.  Regardless of Hoagie's belief, or anybody's criticism, he does spark debate and make people look at the subject(s).  Take all his theories out of the equation and he still has a passion for the sciences, especially geology and astronomy.  Yes he takes a sci-fi approach but I think it's fun.  It's nice to see people more imaginative in these areas.  Keep in mind that I do recognize the hard facts and science; and I disagree with Hoagie more often than not.  I dig his show more than I thought I would.  Feels familiar or almost endearing.  Reminds me of reading OMNI magazine in 1981, followed up by an issue of Growing Up with Science, and then moving on to a comic book and blending the three.  Maybe I'm just feeling nostalgic.  Nonetheless.......BRAAPS! 

What RCH lacks in substance, he makes up with staying power.

[ShayP]

What RCH lacks in substance, he makes up with staying power.

Maybe he should market Viagra.