Posted on 07/24/2021 4:27:23 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: Where does space begin? For purposes of spaceflight some would say at the Karman line, currently defined as an altitude of 100 kilometers (60 miles). Others might place a line 80 kilometers (50 miles) above Earth's mean sea level. But there is no sharp physical boundary that marks the end of atmosphere and the beginning of space. In fact, the Karman line itself is near the transition between the upper mesophere and lower thermosphere. Night shining or noctilucent clouds are high-latitude summer apparitions formed at altitudes near the top of the mesophere, up to 80 kilometers or so, also known as polar mesopheric clouds. Auroral bands of the northern (and southern) lights caused by energetic particles exciting atoms in the thermosphere can extend above 80 kilometers to over 600 kilometers altitude. Taken from a cockpit while flying at an altitude of 10 kilometers (33,000 feet) in the realm of stratospheric aeronautics, this snapshot captures both noctilucent clouds and aurora borealis under a starry sky, looking toward planet Earth's horizon and the edge of space.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
Who says blue, purple, chartreuse, yellow and orange don’t go together?
God is the Expert of color matching.
Very nice!
Simply beautiful!
What an amazing picture!
Too bad it’s faked. There’s no way to capture that many faint stars (and do I see the Andromeda nebula?) while moving at jet speed, without causing star trails, and certainly not without over-exposing the horizon and cloud tops.
Rd later.
A photograph is a 2 dimensional representation of 3 dimensional space which Astronomers have taken and adjusted with color to allow them to examine things like stellar spectra which indicate the elements in the stars or dust or gas clouds. When the astronomers are done extracting information they share them with us. Since most of them have been manipulated and enhanced they are all technically "fakes", but that does not mean that they cannot be beautiful.
(The Treachery of Images.)
I like the image just fine — but it’s a composite image, not a “snapshot” as claimed.
"Taken from a cockpit while flying at an altitude of 10 kilometers (33,000 feet) in the realm of stratospheric aeronautics, this snapshot captures both noctilucent clouds and aurora borealis under a starry sky, looking toward planet Earth's horizon"
from:
https://ralf-rohner.pixels.com/featured/northern-night-ralf-rohner.html
"Description
On 5. July, I was piloting a flight from Los Angeles to Zurich. Due to the position of the jet stream, our route took us up to 62° of northern latitude. At this time of the year, this is in the region of the polar day, which meant that it would never get fully dark during the flight. Furthermore, aurora activity forecasts were rather low with a planetary K-index of Kp=2. My hopes for capturing Lady Aurora were therefore not very high.
Shortly after passing Winnipeg in Canada, I noticed a weak glow over the brightening northern horizon. I quickly attached my camera to the cockpit windshield and was surprised to see a rather strong aurora display and noctilucent clouds appear on my LCD. During the next 25min, I captured a sequence of roughly 300 single exposures, which i stitched into a short time lapse movie (https://youtu.be/zwydBbEVrZQ) and I also processed some of the best frames as still images. They show a rather unusual combination of atmospheric phenomena and astronomical highlights.
The orange horizon from a simultaneous sunset and sunrise, noctilucent clouds, dancing northern lights, the star-filled sky and some deep space targets, like the Double cluster (NGC869, NGC 884), Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and even a hint of the Triangulum Galaxy (M33) in a single image captured from an aircraft cruising at 33'000 feet...
Who said you cannot have it all?"
The Photographer DOES have a number of composite photographs but according to him this is not one of them. I am glad you enjoy it but I do understand the objection to unrealistic and contrived composite pictures.
https://ralf-rohner.pixels.com/featured/arabian-night-ralf-rohner.html
(At least its listed as Wall Art.)
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