The clouds over Perth look like that all night everynight(if theres cloud), and on Aus day they were very low preceding the thunderstorm. There's tons of light pollution here, especially over the Kwinana area, which I'm sure other Sandgroppers here can confirm.
Note that I do not know the person responsible for the photo, just that its very close to what I saw.
EDIT: Also, if that image were taken earlier, the location of the pointers would not match the screen grab from CDC. I'm going to assume the photographer has no interest in Astronomy so would not know how to fake their position.
Last edited by MrB; 02-02-2007 at 05:51 PM.
Reason: spelin
This is a photo my mate took i am submitting it for him as i thought it was an amazing photo all in one while not just of the comet this captures it so well
badabing82, I'd be interested to know who took it and for him/her to shed some light on its details - I have received this image in emails from several directions in the last few days, it's a shame that none include a copyright or by line ?
This is a photo my mate took i am submitting it for him as i thought it was an amazing photo all in one while not just of the comet this captures it so well
The image seems legit to me. Everything seems to be in the right place. There was a thunderstorm on cracker night (to the north) and the comet is in the right position and orientation.
The image seems legit to me. Everything seems to be in the right place. There was a thunderstorm on cracker night (to the north) and the comet is in the right position and orientation.
It's a nice montage of 3 or 4 images. It is definitely a construct with a time difference in the sections. The brightest lightning bolt shows only faint reflection, yet the fainter lightning bolt's reflection is brighter. The left hand side of the image would have been taken in brighter lighting. There are "ghost" people scattered in the image, not from motion blur but from an overlay. The firework has blurred edges and would have ben placed in afterward, to help the transition in joining the lighter and darker halves.
The image may be accurate position wise but is out of context in time. It is a manipulation of events. A very nice one though.
It's a nice montage of 3 or 4 images. It is definitely a construct with a time difference in the sections. The brightest lightning bolt shows only faint reflection, yet the fainter lightning bolt's reflection is brighter. The left hand side of the image would have been taken in brighter lighting.There are "ghost" people scattered in the image, not from motion blur but from an overlay. The firework has blurred edges and would have ben placed in afterward, to help the transition in joining the lighter and darker halves.
The image may be accurate position wise but is out of context in time. It is a manipulation of events. A very nice one though.
Erm, rubbish, there are no rules to lighting photo's and the reflection from the fireworks would definitley have a reflection impact on the cloud, probably no more than 10 seconds exposure, more than enough time to capture what is a brilliant shot but definitely a fluke, but I have been wrong before....
I guess you had to have been there, or atleast, close by.
I too would love to hear from the photographer.
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Originally Posted by cometcatcher
The brightest lightning bolt shows only faint reflection, yet the fainter lightning bolt's reflection is brighter.
It does look kinda wierd but it may be due to the 'brighter' lightning being diffused by the rain, where the 'fainter' lightning is more of a point source and more susceptable to stark reflection. Pro photographers use diffusers and bouncing with their flashes, mainly to soften the light and reduce shadow but also to 'smear' otherwise sharp reflections for the same amount of illumination.
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The left hand side of the image would have been taken in brighter lighting.
There's a LOT of light from the boat harbour, carpark and shopping mall. Go outside on a low-cloud night and check out how bright the clouds are above a football/cricket ground or racetrack or shopping centre. Shoot a 5sec photo of one of the above and I think you'll be surprised.
Not sure what the photographer would gain by taking a photo earlier in the day, and then only using the cloud from it?
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There are "ghost" people scattered in the image, not from motion blur but from an overlay.
There are also fireworks exploding illuminating people briefly as they move around. The 'ghosts' aren't as sharp as the 'solids', motion?.
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The firework has blurred edges and would have ben placed in afterward, to help the transition in joining the lighter and darker halves.
Not sure if I'm looking at the same thing, but I can see overexposure and internal reflection from the lens elements.
I can't see any reason why this has to be a fake? A photo like this is not impossible to take. A 15mm lens has a 110degree field of view with an acceptable field distortion. Similar exposures will yield similar results for both fireworks and lightning. The fireworks being closer would be overexposed(like it is) for a decent distant lightning shot.
And most importantly, there is NO time difference(give or take a few mins) because everything in the image I saw with my own two eyes and it was indeed happening at the same time(I was switching between lightning and fireworks) although, as I mentioned before, I viewed from further down the coast. It's positionally correct, and temporally.
Anyway, this is getting way off topic so it's my last post on the subject( I hear cries of "GOOD!" ), but I'm very happy in my mind that this is at the most, a stitched panorama, which is no more cheating than stacked images, dark framing, level adjusting and all the other tricks astrophotographers(including wannabe's like myself) use to improve a photo.
Hi all, my first post here.
I have a couple of McNaught Comet photos I thought you may like to see (...that is if you're not sick of seeing it by now!)
All taken with a Nikon D50; 18mm, f3.5, 30 sec, ISO800, at Strathalbyn in South Australia.
(Taken on 25th, 24th, 23rd January '07 as shown below)
Regards,
Michael
Last edited by michael_sa; 03-02-2007 at 02:46 PM.
looks like car headlights to me Mike nice images michael! and welcome to the jungle!
and *ahem* i already *holds temples* predicted the sudden brightening of McNaught
Fantastic images, Michael!
How did you light the foreground?
Welcome to IIS!
Thank you for the welcome and comments on the photographs.
The foreground was illuminated with fill flash from an off camera flash unit. In the first shot (as displayed here,) the battery in the camera was going flat. It died at the end of the noise reduction frame - so I never had the opportunity to review it until about an hour later - only to find it's sprinkled with hot pixels! grr (and it was about a 1km walk up there - and back of course)
I have some other shots of the comet on flickr (link is below) but the couple posted here I think were my best ones.
Thanks again for the welcome, I'm a similar story to a few other new members here - always been interested in this sort of thing, but I wasn't aware of IIS until recently.
Hopefully most of the new people here stick around longer than this comet will.
(great site btw!)
Regards,
Michael
Good to see some new photo's. Looking forward to dark skies again.
Gonna try to get up early one morning to get a look, I'm a deep sleeper so dunno how succesfull I'll be.
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Heheh, this reminds me of the moon landing photos debate. Anyway, back to the comet.
HAHA!, I was thinking exactly the same thing while writing the reply.
Hi all.....
Yep sure is slowing down to a trickle now, but like me we are all waiting for that moon to get out of the way.......by tuesday I say we should see some nice shots rolling in again.
Heres a shot to keep the post going then...
Taken last night from home with the moon already rising...Comet up high enough now to see from home above the mountains..
Suprised to see quiet a bit of tail still in a 30 sec exposure. in binos could see maybe 3 degrees of tail as a guess....
Cheers and happy comet spotting...
Gary
), but I'm very happy in my mind that this is at the most, a stitched panorama, which is no more cheating than stacked images, dark framing, level adjusting and all the other tricks astrophotographers(including wannabe's like myself) use to improve a photo.
and welcome to the jungle! 
its funny how these things happen!
