Posted on 01/13/2024 9:38:07 PM PST by Red Badger
its a fake picture man. that moon is zoomed in and the focus reflects it. there are enough marvels in the atmosphere and cosmos to have an endless supply of REAL pictures. fake pictures are like fake news. all the fakers are desparate to for attention period.
and using your very own photos proves the moon is out of scale huge.
...and we know it isn’t ‘photoshop” how?
It was once true that photographs did not lie (because it was difficult to manipulate photos at the time, but not impossible). Now days any kid with a computer and the right software can do almost anything with photos.
Not saying it is not real, just that for now I will wait for others (with more skills then I have) to check it out for manipulation.
It would be easy to check if we have the date and time.
The Basilica is in Italy and of course the mountain is too.
All we would have to do is see what time the Moon rose/set on that date and time, and which direction..............
Meh. It needs dragons!
(stunning image)
It would be easy to check if we have the date and time.
—
I am sure someone will.
I recently watched a youtube video about a photo contest where the winner was disqualified because he photoshot a piece of trash out of the photo. The trash was on the side and he most likely did not notice it when taking the the photo but that small correction disqualified his photo from the contest.
Regardless - it is a great photo.
That's an interesting problem. The mountain peak/cathedral line of sight is always there. They fortuitously aligned in a direction at which the moon may set. Using google maps, I could discern that the bearing from the Basilica to the mountain peak was about 229.027 degrees. Scaling off google maps and the photo, it was taken about 10 kilometers northwest of the Basilica, which again, from google maps, happens to be the location of a park, with hilly hiking trails, some with a good panoramic view of Turin. Assume that there is a place to stand and obtain that view. All of these are givens, conditions that apply 100% of the time
Judging from the aesthetics of the picture, you want the moon centered to about 2% of its width, or approximately plus or minus 0.01 degrees. From NASA's JPL horizons, I learn that the azimuth of the setting moon at Turin varies between 229.008003 and 313.253893 during 2023 with almost a completely sinusoidal variation over the 29.53 day lunar cycle. On December 15th, it "set", reached the sea level horizon at 19:21 local time, at bearing of 234.186. It was at 229.027, and 9.65 degrees above sea level elevation at the time that the picture was taken. If we assume that the variation in azimuth at 9.65 degrees elevation is more or less the same as the variation at sea level (a reasonable approximation) then the fraction of the time that is sets at the desired azimuth is 0.000412977. This is probability that the moon will be withing 0.01 degrees (1/50 of the moon's angular width) at moonset on any particular day, or roughly once every 2400 days or once every six and a half years. This could occur at any point in the lunar cycle, full moon, crescent (as in this case), or new moon, with the sun up and sun down. If you only count days when the sun is down, more like once every 13 years. If you also provide constraints for weather, and aesthetics (a full or gibbous moon would look washed out), this is more like a once in a lifetime shot!
According to my calculations, this configuration (phase of the Moon, position in the sky of the Moon relative to the cathedral, as viewed from that particular spot on the Earth's surface where the photographer stood) would recur every 6,940 days (i.e. approx. every 19 years).
Regards,
Good observation, but the Metonic cycle only accounts for lunar phase, not precession of the moon’s orbit, which will impact the fine resolution and details. I just assumed that they were essentially random. I will revisit your suggestion with JPL Horizons and get back to you.
Not really “one in a million”. A shot like that takes a lot of planning. You don’t get a pic like that from luck.
The Metonic Cycle doesn’t help.
Results from: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/app.html#/
Date_(ZONE)_HR:MN, Date_________JDUT, , ,Azi_(r-app), Elev_(r-app), Illu%, Ang-diam,
*******************************************************************************************
$$SOE
2004-Dec-14 18:59:03.000, 2453354.249340278, ,m, 229.333259, 2.409608, 10.45838, 1986.393,
2023-Dec-15 18:51:17.000, 2460294.243946759, ,m, 229.027273, 2.418662, 9.65119, 1946.977,
2042-Dec-15 18:55:16.000, 2467234.246712963, ,m, 229.672495, 2.419565, 9.84645, 1852.899,
$$EOE
I solved for the time when the moon’s elevation was as close as possible to 2.418622 degrees on dates +/- 6940 from the December 15, 2023, to within one second in time. The azimuths obviously differ, by 0.305986 and 0.645222 degrees in 2004 and 2042. Those values correspond to 0.56 and 1.17 moon diameters respectively, and are no where near +/- 0.01 degrees.
You can line up a shot to have the moon set behind any feature near the horizon any day on which the moon sets. There is a cell phone app for that, called "planit", I believe. The challenge here was to find a date when the moon was setting aligned along a particular azimuth, determined by the line of sight of two landmarks. He probably had noticed the alignment of landmarks before he even thought about the moon. By my calculations, he had about six seconds to snap the shutter to capture that near perfect alignment. He almost certainly worked out the exposure long in advance with practice shots on days with the moon to the left and to the right. And of course he probably took many bracketing shots before and after the magic moment to make sure one was spot on.
As my calculations, described above show, the moon presents itself like that about once every 2400 days. Six seconds in 2400 is about one in 34,560,000, so far less one in a million, if you just continuously snap every six seconds. Accounting for weather, and lunar phase, roughly once in a lifetime.
Thank you for the calculations and the explanations. It is very clear. Appreciate you spending time on this, sir.
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