Re: Comet Hyakutake

[wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Bob Wier)]

>There's another celestial phenomenon (and one for which *real* stereo
>photography would be possible) for which I have a similar problem - the 
>aurora. At its best, an aurora looks like a huge rippling curtain in the
>sky, and since it's an atmospheric effect, hyperstereo photos could be
>taken. I've never seen an aurora in person, but I've seen them many times
>on television - the rippling folds shift very rapidly, completely changing
>their configuration every few seconds. In these innumerable playbacks I've
>seen, it is *never* revealed whether the playback is normal speed or 
>time-lapse. I strongly suspect it's time-lapse, but don't know for sure.
>I've even questioned a number of people who have personally witnessed
>auroras - they remember the rippled ("curtain") pattern, and they remember 
>that the pattern shifts over time, but *none* of them can remember whether 
>the shift is over a period of seconds or a period of minutes, which would
>be important to know in conducting a feasibility study for a 3D photograph.
>(Maybe solar ions affect the brain's perception or recall of time 
>intervals. :-)
>

Yeah - me too. I had/have a similar question about aurora (at this point 
for me, one phenoma down, 2 to go - aurora/total solar eclipse :-)

Considering how weak the aurora is supposed to be, it didn't seem possible
that the pictures I'd seen were real time. But I caught some VIDEO which
was taken with one of the very fast CCD telescope modules, and someone
on sci.astronomy said yes, that the aurora moved very fast and has a 
noticible short term flicker. Couldn't prove it by me, though :-) 
However, you could see the stars shining thru the aurora, and they
weren't noticibly trailed so it would argue for short exposures...Again,
that looks like a potential very interesting display if you
could place two of the modules say, 6' apart and view the resulting
video in a frame sequential display resulting in hyper stereo.
 

THANKS

    -------- Bob Wier ----- wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx -----
  East Texas State University Computer Science Dept.
   keeper of the Motorola MC68HC11, ICOM Radio, and
   Overland-Trails mailing lists and the LDS Genealogy
                     State Research Outlines 
         "Congress - n. - the antonym of Progress"



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