[HN Gopher] Photographer captures ultra-rare red ring of light o...
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Photographer captures ultra-rare red ring of light over Italy
Author : walterbell
Score : 331 points
Date : 2023-04-03 22:29 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (petapixel.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (petapixel.com)
| Giorgi wrote:
| Wait, so it is not visible to the naked eye?
| RoyGBivCap wrote:
| I found a larger image:
| https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/elgeya/68107732/1776018/1776...
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Wow, I had no idea this existed. These are huge and last so
| short. I'm surprised at the reach of these.
| irrational wrote:
| Clearly the work of Jupiter. In all seriousness, this is the kind
| of thing that I imagine would have have been seen by the ancient
| Italians/Romans as the work of Jupiter or another one of the
| gods.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| third impact
| jalopy wrote:
| How bad is it that one of my first thoughts was "This is a
| MidJourney / DALL-E embellishment"?
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| Not AI, you can tell because it doesn't have creepy fingers.
| liendolucas wrote:
| That looks terrific. Another unusual but equally beautiful event,
| also hard to see and record are the so called: "gigantic jets".
| It was previously discussed in HN in this thread:
| https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2019/10/25/close-encounter-w...
| nunobrito wrote:
| Beautiful indeed.
| yesbut wrote:
| [flagged]
| ssgodderidge wrote:
| Shout out to the photographer who shot this. Lots of preparation
| going into something that was there for only a few seconds (and
| might not have shown up at all).
|
| I wonder how many times they tried and failed to get the shot
| before. Assuming they had to try several times, good for them for
| sticking with it.
| jacobolus wrote:
| a few _milliseconds_!
| cosmojg wrote:
| And this is a still from a video they shot at 25 frames per
| second or _one frame every 40 milliseconds_. Very lucky
| indeed!
| danmaz74 wrote:
| The frame captures what happens _during_ those 40
| milliseconds though. It 's not as if it needed an
| instantaneous match.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Also depends on how much time there is between shots.
| Could have easily been missed there
| 05 wrote:
| That's not how exposure works. Typically shutter would be
| open 50% of frame length, maybe even more considering it's
| nighttime.
| sp332 wrote:
| Yes, but typically the camera is not set to 51,200 ISO. I
| can't browse Instagram or Facebook without an account,
| and I can't figure out how to navigate his website, so I
| don't know how to check.
| bjornsing wrote:
| Physical explanation: "One bolt was so strong, it generated an
| intense electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The red ring marks the spot
| where the EMP hit Earth's ionosphere. Normal lightning bolts
| carry 10 to 30 kilo-amperes of current; this bolt was about 10
| times stronger than normal."
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I think they're so intense they generate weak gamma ray bursts:
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/rhessi_tgf....
|
| > "TGFs [terrestrial gamma-ray flashes] have been associated
| with lightning strikes and may be related to red sprites and
| blue jets, side effects of thunderstorms that occur in the
| upper atmosphere and are typically only visible with high-
| altitude aircraft and satellites. The exact relationship
| between all these events is still unclear, though."
| somesortofsystm wrote:
| >ionosphere
|
| All praise and glory to our protective ionosphere!
|
| What would we do without it ..
| BeenAGoodUser wrote:
| Amazing! Would this have been visible to the naked eye?
| burkaman wrote:
| I think technically yes, but it only lasts for a millisecond.
| BeenAGoodUser wrote:
| I wonder if the light is strong enough to imprint the retina
| so that your brain could perceive it despite the very small
| duration
| sfink wrote:
| Probably not, since it's mostly in infrared to begin with.
| It's not clear to me how visible it would be to the naked
| eye.
| soared wrote:
| It doesn't sound like it
|
| > Therefore, unlike sprites, which, on rare occasions can be
| seen by the naked eye, elves cannot. If one could see an elf,
| it would probably look like a giant, expanding ring--about 300
| miles across--emanating from a point 60-65 miles in altitude
| and expanding outward
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/po...
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| And an otherworldly craft came sputtering through the
| transdimensional portal.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| And in it is a Portal Dasher who is just zipping down to pick
| up a pizza for his hungry alien bros whose craft is cloaked in
| a geostationary orbit. They have the sad assignment to monitor
| and report home on the state of our technology down here. So
| far they continue to love the pizza from Italy, the BBQ brisket
| or ribs from Texas or Mississippi, anything from a food stand
| in Thailand or Vietnam, and they avoid the Swedish surstromming
| because the first and only time they tried it they had a hard
| time getting that smell out of their craft.
| NickBusey wrote:
| > ELVE stands for Emissions of Light and Very Low-Frequency
| Perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources.
|
| It's a shame they didn't go with the full acronym, EOLAVLFPDTEPS.
|
| Rolls off the tongue.
| MadVikingGod wrote:
| Was that a neighboring mountain to the Eyjafjallajokull
| volcano?
| twic wrote:
| No, i think it was a third cousin of Amenhotep.
| [deleted]
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Ah Jesus, expect another angel to show up at any moment
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| Angel's, no. I think the Pope is summoning Satan again.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| I was going for a bad Evangelion joke.
| yboris wrote:
| Wikipedia: _ELVES_ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper-
| atmospheric_lightning#El...
|
| > Emissions of Light and Very Low Frequency Perturbations due to
| Electromagnetic Pulse Sources
| rob74 wrote:
| If you go by that acronym, the singular form of ELVES should be
| also ELVES, not ELVE, as in the article (plus using ELVE
| destroys a perfectly good acronym, because the singular form of
| Elves is Elf).
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Ahhh they meant ELVLF PEPS. Why didn't they say so in the first
| place?
| spoonjim wrote:
| That map does not look correct. How could he be photographing
| through that much atmosphere?
| bombcar wrote:
| Same way we can photograph the moon through all the atmosphere?
| dopamean wrote:
| Whenever I see things like this - rare cloud formations, lights
| in the sky, etc - I always wonder what people thought was
| happening years ago.
| retube wrote:
| This particular phenomenon is not visible to the human eye -
| its in the infra red and only manifests itself for a few
| milliseconds
| euroderf wrote:
| What do isolated tribes think when they see Starlinks and other
| orbiting detritus ?
| mc32 wrote:
| That scale on the map seems off to me, a non expert. It's in the
| ionosphere but still I can't believe it actually spanned the
| width of Italy...
| dhritzkiv wrote:
| It being so high up in the ionosphere makes it difficult to
| comprehend the size and distance of the ring. Visually, it's
| hard to gauge its position, both vertically and latitudinally.
| [deleted]
| 123pie123 wrote:
| the scale did blow my mind as well, I just did an extememly
| rough calc with the picture/ map
|
| distance to the back of the ring is approx 441km, the
| ionisphere is 300km high giving the angle to the back of the
| circle to be around 34deg
|
| with the front being 144km - giving an approx angle of 64deg
| high up
|
| which kinda of fits the picture
| bb88 wrote:
| So interesting facts about that camera.
|
| Most cameras have an IR Cut filter which acts to block IR light
| from the camera. This prevents IR light from flooding the sensor
| giving the image a red hue.
|
| For astro photography IR light is useful. Hydrogen gas in nebulas
| can emit IR light. The human eye can't see it, but the camera
| sensor (without the IR Cut filter) can, and will be sensed as red
| light.
|
| If one adds a visible light filter to the front of the camera,
| then the camera can take images of IR spectrum only.
|
| Nikon and Canon both sell cameras without the IR Cut filter. Also
| third parties have been able to remove the IR Cut filter on
| existing camera bodies.
| spiorf wrote:
| It works even on cheap webcams. Remove the piece of blue glass
| and replace it with the black plastic that covers the ir leds
| from an old remote.
| bb88 wrote:
| I have one where I just removed the filter and added some IR
| led's for my 3d printer cam, that way I don't need visible
| light and the room can stay dark if I need it to be.
| vlachen wrote:
| I did it back enough in the day that I used a negative from
| getting pictures developed. I think I got the idea in
| Hardware Hacking Projects.
| onion2k wrote:
| I think this means Italy has suffered a general hardware error
| and now we have to wrap it in a towel to try to get it to boot
| again.
|
| (For the younger HN reader ...
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems)
| vasco wrote:
| The simulation runners got angry with the banning of ChatGPT in
| Italy as it risks diverting from the most fun universe-
| simulation mainline and have started to send signals to get us
| back on track.
| geepytee wrote:
| It doesn't say in Wikipedia, what is the towel for?
| xattt wrote:
| The towel insulated the Xbox and remelted the BGA.
| scohesc wrote:
| If I recall, the theory was that wrapping your 360 in a towel
| and turning it on would heat it up so much that whatever
| microfractures in solder joints that may have been causing
| the RROD problem would temporarily bond together again and
| make your Xbox usable for a time.
| [deleted]
| neerd wrote:
| It issue was with brittle solder on the boards and wrapping
| it in a towel and turning it on would allow it to get hot
| enough to (hopefully) re-flow broken connections.
| bowsamic wrote:
| If you let it run wrapped in a towel it would sometimes
| temporarily fix it
| jeron wrote:
| I remember taking apart an Xbox with RRoD to find that all the
| solders had disintegrated. Reflowing may have helped but I just
| sold it to GameStop instead
| mrfinn wrote:
| Don't want to say aliens but... ALIENS</guy with funny hair>
| mrtweetyhack wrote:
| [dead]
| betterburnout wrote:
| You can't imagine my frustration at the thought of everyone
| debating a circle of red light that I am unable to see. It's a
| pain in the ass to be colorblind.
| phyzome wrote:
| Have you tried browser extensions like
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/let-s-get-col...
| that adjust colors on the fly? I've had a couple of coworkers
| who benefited from it.
| charlie0 wrote:
| Are we sure this is not AI generated?
| [deleted]
| gg80 wrote:
| Nope, no more AI in Italy, at least that's what our government
| decided. And no more English too.
| lapama wrote:
| Are you equating English to ai?
| squarefoot wrote:
| https://www.thelocal.it/20230404/anglomania-why-italys-
| gover...
| gordian-mind wrote:
| Have you read the legislation?
| pc86 wrote:
| I think they're equating a different sentence talking about
| something different.
| lapama wrote:
| Thanks for mansplaining!
| Asdrubalini wrote:
| Garante della Privacy decided that, not the government.
| mat_jack1 wrote:
| You mean openai decided
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2023-04-04 23:01 UTC)