Scientific Errors in Nat Geo Milky Way Photos
petapixel.com
petapixel.com
[1] https://medium.com/engl462/visual-deceptions-national-geogra...
The funny thing is that even cropping can be an editorial decision. All media lies to a certain extent.
Don't let "perfect" be the enemy of "good." It's technically true that all media lies to a certain extent, but painstakingly modifying the actual content of a photograph such that no physical device could ever capture the result is obviously way worse than just cropping the image.
It seems like in many of the pictures, including the one above this quote, the horizon is much lighter than the sky above. Isn't that light pollution?
> You can perhaps recognize...the bright star Vega and Polaris, which would be located above the frame.
How do we recognize those? The arrow to "Polaris" is pointing out of the picture. And how was the bright dot in the picture identified as "Vega"?
The key word is unlimited. Vega is correctly identified by the many stars around it that are in turn correctly identified by the many professional astronomers and astro-photographers discussing these very pictures. The photo mentions polaris to point out the absurdity of the north star being in the sky of a picture taken in the southern hemisphere.
Evidence, please.
Edit: Well, that's a lot of downvotes. So you all see the pattern? Why not point it out?
Or are you merely accepting this blog post without question?
But a mere claim without evidence, I question.
> You can perhaps recognize NGC 7000 (North American, Pelican nebulae, Sadr region)...
Keyword: perhaps...everything else was redundant prose.
>About the author: Adrien Mauduit is a professional astrophotographer and cinematographer and the CEO and owner of Night Lights Films. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. Mauduit also does science education, communication, and public outreach for Project PoSSUM. You can find more of Mauduit’s work Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
> the many professional astronomers and astro-photographers discussing these very pictures
That's what I was talking about.
Even if we're just talking about the author, and you accept those qualifications, it's still an argument from authority without evidence.
https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/Vega_SummerTriangl...
from here - https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-resources/stargazi...
Notice the four tiny stars below Vega and the clear pattern of stars above and to the left of it.
Now look at the photo that is being questioned;
https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2019/05/image2-800x541....
Same four dots below, same pattern of stars above and to the left, so not just same pattern but same orientation of pattern. And a lot more other visible stars as there is less light pollution and probably a much longer exposure.
That took me a lot less time than you have spent crafting comments complaining about lack of actual evidence.
But I'm not going to apologize for expecting more evidence in a blog post accusing someone of fraud.
Here is a photo of the so-called "summer triangle" consisting of the bright stars Vega, Altair and Deneb: https://astrobackyard.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/the-sum...
And here is an animation showing that same photo, roughly superimposed on the photo in question: https://i.imgur.com/MM37zt3.gif (EDIT: Imgur seems to be redirecting to a badly converted version of this animation, try copy-and-pasting the link into the address bar.)
Even without being able to identify individual matching stars, you can clearly see that the shape of the stars and dust lanes in the Milky Way are the same.
Since you mentioned my motives, I'll address that: I'm just tired of the Internet falsely accusing people and want to see more evidence before the pitchforks come out.
But in this case, I'm convinced.
Yes, one shouldn't blindly accept the words of an authority. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to constantly demand that those authorities constantly back up every little thing they say, even on topics about which they are more knowledgeable than you are. That gets irritating really fast (which I suspect is why you got downvoted), and more importantly, it tends to derail more interesting and productive discussions.
What's the bigger risk: annoying a few people with persistent calls for evidence, or letting a false accusation spread for fear of annoying people?
We are accepting this blog post with knowledge of stars -- and knowing that it aligns with what the article says and not with what the photograph shows.
Not everything has to be proven from first principles in all posts when many readers people already know the proof (and those that don't can look it up).
To understand the downvotes, imagine an article on some class of algorithms, and someone writing X algorithm is "O(N^2)" and so is worse than Y which is "O(logN)" -- them somebody asking similar to your comment "This is an argument from authority, where's the proof that X is O(N^2)".
If X is well known and established in all kinds of textbooks about algorithms, it's trivial to look up on the internet, or open a reference book, then there's absolutely no reason a random post should prove it's O-complexity again -- nor is "argument by authority" merely taking it for granted/as known.
I don't see any pattern that matches the claim made by this blog post. But I'm no expert, so I'm asking for a clear demonstration of the evidence the author sees.
How is that any better than what she already wrote? Or in fact how is that even an apology? It seems way worse and far more willing to blame the intern than what she has right now.
(Fifteen second exposures worked best for me.)
To get around a 20-30s exposure you're looking at somewhere between 14-24mm focal length, ideally with the largest aperture you can afford.
This doesn't seem to be true. Are you saying this always produces the best outcomes, or that you wish more people would hurt themselves for your benefit?
I'm not seeing where "zero-sum" applies. Zero-sum, intuitively enough, describes a system in which gains and losses sum to zero. That is almost certainly not the case here.
But it's still true that what you're hoping for is a gain to you and a loss to the fraudster. Somebody losing doesn't mean they lost an amount equal to some other party's gain.