WTF? I mean really–WTF?

[ravnostic]

Granted, it’s stacked, an ineligible for most farktography contests. But WTF happened here? There was no cause for this kind of lens-flare. It just happened when I was stacking. NTTAWWT… I really like how this came out..

http://fossilspringsaz.com/pics/2012/jul/15/citystack01.jpg

[fluffybunny]

Discovery of a worm hole? Face of God? Vampires?

[Yugoboy]

Did you want to share the components that made that? You’re all WTF? I’m more curious as to what went into it. Looking at the pieces may help answer (although, looking at it, I doubt it… that’s just cool/weird/odd/interesting/bizarre).

[chupathingie]

quite the artifact there… produced by the tonemapper? I’m with yugo, but yeah, WTF?

[orionid]

ALIENS!

[CauseISaidSo]

Space cleavage? I’m with everyone else – I don’t know what caused it, but it’s a pretty cool effect.

[lokisbong]

I’m with the rest of the crowd here Don’t know why but I know it looks cool.

[ravnostic]

The components, Yugo, are just simple shots facing east of the subjects. There’s nothing like it in any of them. I did another stack where this happened, too, but to the wall below instead of the sky. I use Deep Sky Stacker, and it’s never happened before in any composition.

[orionid]

Maybe your camera found God?

[ravnostic]

Maybe your camera found God?

Will I get royalties? 😯

[ravnostic]

A-ha This seems to explain it. Restacked, a little differently, and the culprit becomes clear (or rather, skewed). Don’t know what happened to the city lights, but it’s fairly obvious where the mysterious alien lights come from.

//as usual, it’s not from aliens. Not as neat a pic to look at, but very educational as to what went wrong. (Also didn’t mess as much with processing as I just tried to work things out.)

[chupathingie]

I’m still lost… maybe it’s one or two of your images that hiccup the stacker and they get very warped…

[ravnostic]

It skewed three images, each a little differently. I processed for all images, even ones with very few stars, which it mis-interpreted in it’s alignment, skewing them in a warp to make them ‘match’. Neat effect, if I can learn to control it (say, just one bad one) I could get some very unique night imagery shots.

[staplermofo]

What happens when airplanes go through your shot?

[ravnostic]

That’s a VERY good question, staplermofo, and one I haven’t yet pursued. But my guess would be…nothing, unless there were not too very many stars, and I think the moon needs to be in-frame to give something to get skewed like in the first image. I already know from deep sky stacking that satellites get ignored in stacks with plenty of stars, they just accumulate as a big long streak across the frame. In fact, Due to it’s location on the celestial sphere, it’s a pain in the ass to capture the Orion Nebula WITHOUT one satellite or another crossing across the image. Even the little itty-bitty satellites show up in a good stack.

However….you make me wonder what would happen if I stacked several images of Iridium flares in different parts of the sky…might have to investigate that.

[Author]

Posts