Bill Jobes
04-19-2010, 05:37 PM
Last evening, my son called me out to see something unusual in the night sky.
Close to the horizon, there was a tiny bright light that was rapidly changing colors. This was much more than a 'twinkling star.' Even though it was only a pinpoint of light, the colors were visible to the naked eye. Through binoculars, though the light was tiny, I could make out what looked like a bright white center, with red and green on the sides. Since it was stationary, I surmised it was perhaps a helicopter with a strobe and red and green navigation lights in the far distance.
I decided to take a long shot, literally, and see if I could capture an image. I quickly set my Nikon D300 with the 600VR and 1.4 TC on a monopod and attempted to capture the image. Needless to say, this was a very iffy, shaky effort. I did, however, manage to get a few images.
When I uploaded them to my computer, the light was still a tiny spot on the screen. Imagine a pixel or two.
I enlarged it as much as possible to see some detail, with Capture NX 2, and then Photoshop CS3.
There were the colors ! Spectacular, and somewhat different on each of the images.
I'm posting a representative image here.
Camera settings were 1/640, 7.1, and ISO was 0.7 EV over 3200.
Unable to determine the source, I called upon Dr. Roger Clark, BPN's own Moderator of Digital Photography Workflow, and an internationally recognized space scientist and photographer, for his thoughts on what I had seen.
He generously permits me to quote his comments here:
First, before seeing the images, Roger said:
"This sounds like a common situation. All objects close to the horizon are stretched out into a small spectrum due to the variation of the index of refraction of the atmosphere with wavelength. Large objects, like a planet or the Moon have many overlapping spectra so the effect is usually not seen. But stars, being point sources are stretched into a nice little spectrum. Then add a little turbulence and the spectrum dances around giving many colors."
Then, after reviewing the images, he replied:
"Those are great examples of starlight being split into a spectrum and
distorted by atmospheric turbulence!"
At Roger's suggestion, I am posting the image and the account of the adventure.
Just in case you've wondered about those strange colors, blinking away on the horizon ! :)
Close to the horizon, there was a tiny bright light that was rapidly changing colors. This was much more than a 'twinkling star.' Even though it was only a pinpoint of light, the colors were visible to the naked eye. Through binoculars, though the light was tiny, I could make out what looked like a bright white center, with red and green on the sides. Since it was stationary, I surmised it was perhaps a helicopter with a strobe and red and green navigation lights in the far distance.
I decided to take a long shot, literally, and see if I could capture an image. I quickly set my Nikon D300 with the 600VR and 1.4 TC on a monopod and attempted to capture the image. Needless to say, this was a very iffy, shaky effort. I did, however, manage to get a few images.
When I uploaded them to my computer, the light was still a tiny spot on the screen. Imagine a pixel or two.
I enlarged it as much as possible to see some detail, with Capture NX 2, and then Photoshop CS3.
There were the colors ! Spectacular, and somewhat different on each of the images.
I'm posting a representative image here.
Camera settings were 1/640, 7.1, and ISO was 0.7 EV over 3200.
Unable to determine the source, I called upon Dr. Roger Clark, BPN's own Moderator of Digital Photography Workflow, and an internationally recognized space scientist and photographer, for his thoughts on what I had seen.
He generously permits me to quote his comments here:
First, before seeing the images, Roger said:
"This sounds like a common situation. All objects close to the horizon are stretched out into a small spectrum due to the variation of the index of refraction of the atmosphere with wavelength. Large objects, like a planet or the Moon have many overlapping spectra so the effect is usually not seen. But stars, being point sources are stretched into a nice little spectrum. Then add a little turbulence and the spectrum dances around giving many colors."
Then, after reviewing the images, he replied:
"Those are great examples of starlight being split into a spectrum and
distorted by atmospheric turbulence!"
At Roger's suggestion, I am posting the image and the account of the adventure.
Just in case you've wondered about those strange colors, blinking away on the horizon ! :)