NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2024 Feb 10, 14:09 -0800
Murray B, you wrote:
"As for the glow in the sky to the upper right - and never afraid to make a complete fool of myself - I am going to say that it is the glow from the sun. Why? Because I still believe this is two unrelated images and the the boat and glow from the sun were photographed during daylight hours. There are distinctive shadows on the wavelets facing the viewer and light shining through beneath the booms, gaffs and bowsprit - perhaps a Photoshop affectation. Further, if this really was a night image of the boat, and in addition to the blur we might expect at a long shutter speed (previously discussed) I might expect to see the stern light of the boat."
Those are good points, and I agree.
In fact, just about 48 hours before you in a NavList post (a bit hidden, so I'm not surprised you didn't see it), I wrote:
"So what's that big glow up in the sky toward the right? Antoine Couette suggested it might be the Moon. Possible. Another possibility: the Sun. If we ignore all the stars and brighten the image a bit, couldn't this just be a daylight photo? I noticed when I zoom in on the vessel, there are quite a few people visible. Seems awfully busy for the middle of the night! So I suggest the base image here is just a sailboat motoring out for a tourist cruise on a nice sunny day. Then the Milky Way was painted in with one of those tools. If just a little more attention had been paid to the location of the horizon and the land in the distance on the left, this image might have been an excellent illusion. As it is, not so much!"
As you also noticed, Murray, I find the lighting around the booms and furled sails looks like daylight illumination. And your point about the lack of running lights is also a good one! I think the evidence is solid that the foreground portion of the image, including the boat, is a "day for night".
No one --at least in posts that I read carefully-- has mentioned any "deep sky" objects. What I had in mind, primarily, is an object up there in the general direction of that glow on the upper right (the glow that we agree is the Sun). It's an object with many catalog identifications. It has been known by Flamsteed number as "33 Andromeda". This object was my second clue that something might be "amiss" in this image. :)
Frank Reed
