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Comment by progbits | Hacker News Reader

Presumably star positions in nighttime photographs could be used to determine location/time. Not very precisely but it could be enough to say the picture definitely wasn't taken at time/place that is claimed.

Edit: or even simpler, moon phases:

"Here is a photo of my client on the night of the murder so they have alibi"

"There was a new moon on the night in question but the photo shows a full moon"

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A terrible thing to do to yourself is learn what moon phases are approximately visible at what times of day. It's not too complicated—a full moon by definition is opposite the Sun's position, hence night, etc.—but it's surprising how many books out there will have incorrect moon phases. It's clearly not on the list of things to fact check!

Neil Degrasse Tyson famously called out titanic for having an incorrect night sky depiction. In a later remaster they fixed it. It is well covered in his book as well as online.

Even more galling are all the paintings and drawings of the moon which have stars visible THROUGH THE MOON. The moon is spherical, whether it’s lit or not! It doesn’t turn into a croissant and then disappear!!

You might be surprised about how precise we can get: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonrise,_Hernandez,_New_Mex...

Perhaps even more crudely, something like "You claimed you crashed your car because the sun was in your eyes, but it was morning and you were heading west...."

Possibly very precisely if there is something like a satellite streak in the picture, which is very common

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