NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Emailing: A-meteor-storm-over-Stone-008.jpg
From: Patrick Goold
Date: 2011 Feb 4, 12:10 -0500
From: Patrick Goold
Date: 2011 Feb 4, 12:10 -0500
Dear George,
Your question piqued my interest. I assume we are looking at the real Stonehenge here and I am guessing that the structure at stage center is the Sarsen circle stones 1,2, 29, and 30 with the lintels 101, 102 and 130. If that is correct, then we are, I think, looking SW. I put Stonehenge's lat/long in Stellarium, set the date for last June and speeded up the passage of stars to watch the arc. If the stars in your photo are moving left to right (I can't really tell that), then their course appears to my untrained eye to be very similar to the course described by the Stellarium stars. I can't identify any constellations in your photo.
When I went looking on the internet for images of Stonehenge at night, I did find several that were obviously cooked, including one that boasted an astonishing background of stars that reminded me of some of the photos taken by the Hubble.
I hope you will let the list know what you discover.
Best regards,
Patrick
--
Dr. Patrick Goold
Department of Philosophy
Virginia Wesleyan College
Norfolk, VA 23502
757 455 3357
Charles Olson: "Love the World -- and stay inside it."
Your question piqued my interest. I assume we are looking at the real Stonehenge here and I am guessing that the structure at stage center is the Sarsen circle stones 1,2, 29, and 30 with the lintels 101, 102 and 130. If that is correct, then we are, I think, looking SW. I put Stonehenge's lat/long in Stellarium, set the date for last June and speeded up the passage of stars to watch the arc. If the stars in your photo are moving left to right (I can't really tell that), then their course appears to my untrained eye to be very similar to the course described by the Stellarium stars. I can't identify any constellations in your photo.
When I went looking on the internet for images of Stonehenge at night, I did find several that were obviously cooked, including one that boasted an astonishing background of stars that reminded me of some of the photos taken by the Hubble.
I hope you will let the list know what you discover.
Best regards,
Patrick
On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 10:53 AM, George Huxtable <george@hux.me.uk> wrote:
On 1 Feb, the following item appeared in the printed version of theGuardian
newspaper-
(The best places to see stars in Britain, 1 February, page 3, G2).
Itappeared on the online version the previous day, at-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jan/31/best-stargazing-britain
In the printed version of the paper, the picture was captioned "A meteor
storm over Stonehenge", which was obviously incorrect. The printed version
was a bit different from that shown in this online version, in that the
comet had been cropped off it.
Yesterday, the following correction appeared, in-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/feb/03/corrections-clarifications
as follows-
• A photograph used to illustrate an article about stargazing was wrongly
captioned as showing "a meteor storm over Stonehenge". In fact it was a
photograph of stars taken with a long exposure which, due to the Earth's
rotation, produces the effect of trails (The best places to see stars in
Britain, 1 February, page 3, G2).
=======================
Indeed, that wasn't all that was wrong. The area around Stonehenge does not
have particularly dark skies, and indeed a main road runs right past the
Heel Stone, so it is hardly a good place for "watching stars". But, more
particularly, the star background looks to me to be quite wrong, for
somewhere as far North as Stonehenge, at 51º N. The star pattern should
then be rotating about the South Celestial pole, a point that lies 51º
below the horizon. It looks to me as though the star background shown in
that picture is centred much closer than that to the horizon, perhaps only
25º or so below it, indicating that it was taken from much nearer to the
tropics. Am I right?
To be sure, I need to identify that pattern of stars, and whether it is
indeed that of the Southern stars, or the Northern. I'm not familiar enough
with the stars to identify what part of the sphere is being shown here
(with the comet behind it), but I'm sure it will be instantly recognisable
to some Navlist members. All that's needed is to give a name to one or two
of the stars in the picture, and the rest will follow.
It seems pretty clear, to me, that this is a completely-bogus composite
agency picture, with the stars, and independently the comet (which seems to
show little streaking) superimposed on to the picture of Stonehenge. As it
is against stated Guardian policy to publish such pictures, I am collecting
evidence to show the error of their ways.
George.
contact George Huxtable, at george@hux.me.uk
or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222)
or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.
--
Dr. Patrick Goold
Department of Philosophy
Virginia Wesleyan College
Norfolk, VA 23502
757 455 3357
Charles Olson: "Love the World -- and stay inside it."