Lens Flare
Friday, 28th July 2006 by James Turnbull
Lots of the DigitalGlobe satellite photos around the world have small lens flares like this one in Reykjavik which appear to be simply the sun reflecting off a shiny surface - no big deal there.
But reader Andrew Grannis brought our attention to this example of one such flare in Cincinnati, which is much larger than any other examples we've seen. If this is the result of a reflective object on the ground then it would have to be the size of a field. Any suggestions?
Thanks: Andrew Grannis
The smaller one is by a church, reminds me of the Blues Brothers!
“I can see the light!!”
It’s the stargate!
Sorry, just a pond.
A stargate would have been fun. It also would have made me soil my drawers.
Terraserver has the same spot on it’s photo of cincinnati: http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&Z=16&X=3730&Y=21593&W=3&qs=%7ccincinnati%7cohio%7c
Hi,
If you take a look over at Local Live it’s the same shot, but with some real good photo editing…
http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=38.984232~-84.165573&style=h&lvl=15&scene=1992410&sp=aN.vpp70yf57vwq_Reykjav%25u00edk%252c%2520Iceland___~aN.qhh6hr7yqbs9_Cincinnati%252c%2520Ohio%252c%2520United%2520States___
Could it be a plane that is up in the air that the sun is reflecting off of?
M
Yeah, dude….it’s a lasor from the Alan Parson’s Project.
From the Local Live link above it would suggest that the reflection is possilby from a lake?
Damn that Dr. Evil- he’s succeeded in converting the moon to a “Death Star”
I live in Cincinnati and have family members out in this area. The area is sort of an exurb now but really was out in the country until a few years ago. Anyway, I’m all but certain there’s nothing on the ground to cause this — after all, it’s centered over a road and would have to be very large to cause a flare that large.
I’m thinking something airborne or, perhaps if this is a photo from film stock, it could be something in the developed negative.
This is not possible to be a UFO?
Using M’s link you can see the pond/lake that Darren mentions – and the Ulrey Run stream runs right through that area
This certainly looks airborne to me. Who knows? This could be the long awaited shot of a “real” UFO some of us have all been secretly (fingers crossed) hoping for!?
It’s a pond. Terraserver has the same location on their Cincinnati map: http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&Z=16&X=3730&Y=21593&W=5&qs=%7ccincinnati%7cohio%7c
DAMN DAMN DAMN !!!! why are they always ponds!?!?! 🙂
If you zoom in enough on Local Live, just before the photoshopped bit disappears you can see the lake. 🙂 (ssems to be from the terraserver map)
M
If that image had been taken a few minutes later, you’d be seeing a whole lot of popcorn coming out of a house.
James: I love that movie.
It looks more like a problem with the image then a flare from an shinny reflection.
The size of a lens flare has more to do with the brightness of the light producing it than the size of the object. Still, it looks like your just getting a nice reflection of the sun (fairly bright) off a lake (fairly big)
Just a nitpick – “lens flare” is the name for internal reflection in the camera lens, caused by sunlight striking it at an angle. These glares are reflections from external objects and so they are not “lens flares” at all 🙂
It’s the government. They’ve blocked it out to hide something.
Damn, has anyone seen my tin foil collection? I looked around ant it was gone . . .
I dont think it’s a reflection of something on the ground or in the sky. Might it be that the hard copy photo was scanned in or even photographed by a digital camera with a flash?
Some of the weird errors we find, like the big bug, are probably at the digitization level, not the initial capture.
I found this one: View Placemark