Foo - A picture you wouldn't expect

http://apod.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0506/tornado_nguyen.jpg
From Astronomy Picture of the Day (http://apod.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html)

Explanation: The scene might have been considered serene if it weren't for the tornado. Last June in Kansas, storm chaser Eric Nguyen photographed this budding twister in a different light -- the light of a rainbow. Pictured above, a white tornado cloud descends from a dark storm cloud. The Sun, peeking through a clear patch of sky to the left, illuminates some buildings in the foreground. Sunlight reflects off raindrops to form a rainbow. By coincidence, the tornado appears to end right over the rainbow. Streaks in the image are hail being swept about by the high swirling winds. Over 1,000 tornadoes, the most violent type of storm known, occur on Earth every year, many in tornado alley.
Anybody got any more pictures of things you wouldn't expect to see together?

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0410/moonlightning_besel_c02.jpg
Another good one. Yes, it's real.

Explanation: Moonsets are not often quite as exciting as this one. But amateur astronomer Marc-Andre Besel was impressed by the brilliant lighting displays that joined the first quarter Moon and stars of the constellation Scorpius in western skies. On August 22, 2004, his view looked across the Gulf of Mexico from Anna Maria Island, Florida, USA, a region that would experience even more stormy weather in the coming days. The alluring digital image is a time exposure, by chance capturing the details of a brief flash of lightning along with an overexposed Moon and dramatic cloud formations. In fact, the exposure is long enough to show the background stars as short streaks or trails. The bright yellowish star trail, just above and right of the lightning flash, is red giant star Antares.

Cool! I wish I had some to add :(

That first one is SO doctored its not even funny.

http://apod.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0301/abell1689_hstacs_c1.jpg
Explanation: Two billion light-years away, galaxy cluster Abell 1689 is one of the most massive objects in the Universe. In this view from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys, Abell 1689 is seen to warp space as predicted by Einstein's theory of gravity -- bending light from individual galaxies which lie behind the cluster to produce multiple, curved images. The power of this enormous gravitational lens depends on its mass, but the visible matter, in the form of the cluster's yellowish galaxies, only accounts for about one percent of the mass needed to make the observed bluish arcing images of background galaxies. In fact, most of the gravitational mass required to warp space enough to explain this cosmic scale lensing is in the form of still mysterious dark matter. As the dominant source of the cluster's gravity, the dark matter's unseen presence is mapped out by the lensed arcs and distorted background galaxy images.

That first one is SO doctored its not even funny.

It's real. I'm not sure if it's a lighting effect that causes the tornado to not appear to reach the ground, or if it's in the process of touching down, but it's real. This source is pretty careful about the pictures they publish. If it were fake, it would probably look like something from the movie Twister

i'm gonna guess that BostonFixed is thrown off by the colors and look of the photo. I'm not a photographer, but I'll guess that the dude used super high speed film, threw open the aperature really wide and used filters to capture what he needed... that would probably account of the surreal, overly sharp, and super-saturated look that makes it look fake.

way cool photos! Thanks for posting 'em!

It happens.

Once you have been through enough tornados to really not give a crap and just watch it through a window you will see it hovering sometimes like that.

I have never seen one around a sky like that thogh, or with a rainbow.

I have seen lightning on perfect sunny days though...also saw "lightning storms" not to be mistaken with thunderstorms....a lightning storm is where there is tons of lightning, but no rain. It's pretty surreal to see one...it was like something out of a weird sci-fi movie.

Please excuse my ignorance...If the first one is real, shouldn't the trees at least LOOK like the wind from the tornado is blowing them? Also, on the second one, why does the lightning look like it is "reflecting" off of the water ABOVE the water and not on the water as the moon is? This is not a challenge, but just trying to learn :o .

Siu Blue, the second one looks perfectly genuine to me.

As you can tell from the stars, it's a very long exposure.
During that time, the reflections from the moon on the water has been "averaged out" to a nice, even and smooth reflection. Even with choppy seas, it would take on this appearence after a while, since reflections add to the entire reflection all the time.
The lightning, on the other hand, only flashes for a brief moment, and so an agitated sea surface wouldn't be able to reflect much light to the camera in that instant. If the lightning had been "lit" for the entire exposure, it would've produced an equally impressive water reflection.

Look closely, and you'll see that the moon's reflection is smoothed out, while that of the flash is sharp and shows an agitated sea surface - frozen in the moment, just like with a normal, on-camera flash.

What you see as reflection above the water is simply the flash continuing down behind a dark cloud.

The exposure for the lightning picture was around one minute.

The width of the moon is around 0.5 degrees in the sky, and taking the width of the moon, perpendicular to the motion of the stars in the image, you get the "scale" of the image.
Comparing the stars' streaks to the moon's diameter gives us the distance in degrees they've travelled during the exposure. I make that roughly a quarter of a degree.
The stars move across the sky at a rate of 15 degrees per hour, so 15/60 degrees equals one minute. And 15/60 is also 0.25, which is the distance travelled in the image. This gives the exposure time as roughly one minute.

<h1>Wowwwwwwwww!!!!</h1>

Can we see the EXIF data on the second one? Thanks

you can google eric nguyen, he takes tons of these types of photos...

Either the microsoft picture viewer can't read the EXIF data on that one, or it was resaved with a program that didn't save the data. Here's higher resolution versions of each.

Tornado and Rainbow (http://apod.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0506/tornado_nguyen_big.jpg)
Lightning and Moon (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0410/moonlightning_besel_f02.jpg)

It gave me this for the tornado:
Camera Model: Canon EOS D60
Equipment Make: Canon
Date Taken: 6/12/2004 12:34:02 PM
Color Representation: sRGB
Subject Distance:
Flash Used: No
Focal Lenght: 17mm
F-number: F/5.6
Exposure Time: 1/60 sec.
Metering Mode:
Exposure Compensation: 0 step

Nice camera. I wish my EOS RebelII would magically transform into a D60 :p

For now my best Digital is my Powershot S100 Elph.

Siu Blue, the second one looks perfectly genuine to me.

As you can tell from the stars, it's a very long exposure.
During that time, the reflections from the moon on the water has been "averaged out" to a nice, even and smooth reflection. Even with choppy seas, it would take on this appearence after a while, since reflections add to the entire reflection all the time.
The lightning, on the other hand, only flashes for a brief moment, and so an agitated sea surface wouldn't be able to reflect much light to the camera in that instant. If the lightning had been "lit" for the entire exposure, it would've produced an equally impressive water reflection.

Look closely, and you'll see that the moon's reflection is smoothed out, while that of the flash is sharp and shows an agitated sea surface - frozen in the moment, just like with a normal, on-camera flash.

What you see as reflection above the water is simply the flash continuing down behind a dark cloud.



Ohhh...I see! That makes a lot of sense. Thank you CdCf for your explanation (and not slamming me for sounding silly). That really is a beautiful photograph, isn't it? :) I've learned something new today!

this is bike forums not looking at pretty pictures forum

this is bike forums not looking at pretty pictures forum
You might want to go back and read definition of "FOO" as it pertains to this forum.

Let me know if you have any questions.

165

EXIF data on the "moon/lightning" shot:
(pulled using IrfanView)
Orientation - Top left
XResolution - 300
YResolution - 300
ResolutionUnit - Inch
YCbCrPositioning - Centered
ExifOffset - 102
ExifVersion - 0220
ComponentsConfiguration - YCbCr
FlashPixVersion - 0100
ColorSpace - sRGB
ExifImageWidth - 3008
ExifImageHeight - 2000

Maker Note (Vendor): -
Data version - 0020 (808464944)
Editor version -

this image http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0410/moonlightning_besel_f02.jpg was used.

Note - to the bottom left there is a large patch of unnaturally lightened sand.

']Note - to the bottom left there is a large patch of unnaturally lightened sand.

Looks like one of those patches of light that comes from some point away from the beach, but is bracketed by a couple buildings, resulting in the lighter patch. But that could just be me, because, well, I just want to believe...

I do too - great picture.
If the light would travel along the beach in that matter, it would travel to the water too.
And the lack envirnmental light from the lightning, based on how long the aperature would need to be open, is baffling.

But there is environmental light from the lightning. There is a faint brightening of the water in that direction and the clouds are lit up. Remember that this is a long exposure (several minutes, I'd guess from the arc of the stars) while the lightning is only flashing for a second or two, and the lightning is pretty far away, ending below the horizon, in fact.

The pattern doesn't look quite normal, but the sand looks like it may be lit by light from a window.

Theories aside, I'm still convinced.

you can google eric nguyen, he takes tons of these types of photos...

Thanks.

Check out this page of his photos (http://www.mesoscale.ws/pictures/tornadic/). About half way down is the photo I posted, along with several other shots of the same tornado. Some of the images are incredible.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/9908/eclipse99_mir.jpg

To further fuel the disbelief, here's what an eclipse looks like from space

Explanation: Here is what the Earth looks like during a solar eclipse. The shadow of the Moon can be seen darkening part of Earth. This shadow moves across the Earth at nearly 2000 kilometers per hour. Only observers near the center of the dark circle see a total solar eclipse - others see a partial eclipse where only part of the Sun appears blocked by the Moon. This spectacular picture of the 1999 August 11 solar eclipse was one of the last ever taken from the Mir space station, as Mir is being decommissioned after more than ten years of productive use.

That shot was taken on my 20th birthday!

I remember the eclipse, but I couldn't see anything of it as it was an overcast day.
Besides, we only had about 80% occlusion up here.