[HN Gopher] Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps
___________________________________________________________________
Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps
Author : edge17
Score : 1172 points
Date : 2021-12-20 17:05 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.google.com)
| olliej wrote:
| Potentially dumb question - how do people even find these
| things???
| anonu wrote:
| Considering the 1000s of planes flying over the USA at any given
| moment, surprising this is the first time I see a plane captured
| in mid-flight.
| philk10 wrote:
| More here -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDyBwcdy5KA&ab_channel=Googl...
| msisk6 wrote:
| I live on a farm very close to this area.
|
| All the B-2s are based at nearby Whiteman Air Force Base. They
| fly over often -- one even fly over my farm today about an hour
| ago.
|
| This one was probably on final approach during the summer when
| the winds are usually out of the south and was probably about
| 2,000 feet above the ground.
| cossatot wrote:
| Yeah I remember being thrilled seeing them while canoeing on
| the Gasconade when I was a kid in the 90s. I believe that we
| saw one refueling behind a KC-10 in the air as well.
| niix wrote:
| This is amazing!
| [deleted]
| _the_inflator wrote:
| Yes, nice comment.
|
| I remember being part of the staff of NATO's only MIG squadron
| during military service. People considered a MIG within NATO a
| sensation, while I was simply bored. I saw them every day in
| droves. ;)
| mc32 wrote:
| Apparently prior to getting their hands on a MiG-25 from a
| defector who took one to Japan, many in the western military
| and intelligence communities envisioned it to have super
| avionic powers (that persisted for a long time in the
| civilian sphere). They thought it was agile and fast. What
| they didn't know is that it could only sustain those speeds
| for short spurts (else the engines suffered from metal
| fatigue due to temperature) and the maneuverability they
| envisioned from the geometry proved to be false (it had a
| very wide turning radius)...
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Poland still operates MIG-29s, as well as extremely outdated
| Su-22.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Air_Force#Current_inven.
| ..
| neurotech1 wrote:
| The Romanian MiG-21s [0], Polish MiG-21s (when in service,
| before retirement) and MiG-29s along with the Bulgarian
| MiG-29s were upgraded to NATO standards. The primary
| upgrades were the radios and IFF transponder. I'm not sure
| if they all included
|
| It is widely rumored that certain spare parts for NATO
| MiG-29s are actually made in US, from sources initially
| supporting the Adversary training missions of the 57th Wing
| Nellis AFB and US Navy Adversary training missions,
| including TOPGUN department. This is primarily for the
| MiG-29 and Su-27 fighters.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mikoyan-
| Gurevich_MiG-2...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/57th_Wing
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Aviation_Warfightin
| g_Dev...
| zhan_eg wrote:
| Well, when talking about NATO countries, MIGs and older
| aircrafts - Romania and Croatia still operate MIG-21s [1]
| :)
|
| And MIG-29s are present also in the Bulgarian [2] and
| Slovak [3] airforce too.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-
| Gurevich_MiG-21#Curren...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_Air_Force#Curre
| nt_in...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovak_Air_Force#Current_
| inven...
| tylerflick wrote:
| I was about to say, I grew up about 10 minutes from here and
| they were a common sight. Always thrilling to see.
|
| IIRC Whiteman has an air show every year where you can get "up
| close" to them.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The best air show I've ever been to was at Will Rogers World
| Airport in OKC. I figure some of it must be the proximity to
| Tinker, but also other bases in the area. Back in 95 (could
| have been 96, but not any later, as I left the area late that
| year), they brought a B-2 to the show, flew it around the
| airport for a while, landed it, waited a while so people
| could get take as many pictures as they wanted, then took off
| and flew it home. At the same show, they brought an F-117,
| did the flyby, and landed it. Then taxi'd it over to a static
| display area so people could get close. I was able to walk
| underneath it and touch it. As a young airman, I was
| absolutely floored. And this was in 95 or 96, so we were
| still really impressed with how exotic these planes were.
| akie wrote:
| Seems like you're right - there's one parked on (indeed)
| Whiteman Air Force Base right here
| https://goo.gl/maps/x8738SicBvtSPqmR6
| rbolla wrote:
| that's awesome.. I thought Army bases are masked on maps.
| renzo88 wrote:
| There's really no point. A few high sensitivity assets are
| lower resolution, but any state actor that wants very high
| resolution shots of military facilities already has it and
| on a quicker update cadence than google maps allows.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| In the initial years of Google Earth and similar
| services, a number of military and intelligence
| facilities were blurred.
| capableweb wrote:
| Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the
| biggest threat to domestic military facilities are
| foreign state actors but rather domestic terrorists, and
| those usually don't have access to any military-grade
| satellites.
| acdha wrote:
| Do they need military-grade imagery? The Chinese or
| Russian militaries do because they're trying to estimate
| war-time performance but I find it hard to believe that
| there are any domestic terrorists building sensor arrays
| to support SAM batteries. If they're trying to blow one
| up, the resolution on a consumer drone or telescope would
| likely be more than enough.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Those generally avoid hardened targets like military
| bases.
| jldl805 wrote:
| It's 2021 (for another couple weeks) and _everyone_ has
| access to imaging satellites with almost instant
| turnaround, for a negligible fee.
|
| Consider yourself corrected.
| boomskats wrote:
| Have you considered including a source that supports your
| statement?
| mynameismonkey wrote:
| Not OP, and no idea on pricing, but
| https://www.spymesat.com/new-tasking.html appears to
| allow you task a satellite selfie on demand
| renzo88 wrote:
| I googled it and came up with multiple answers. Instead
| of demanding people prove their work, take reasonable
| statements in good faith imo.
| laurent92 wrote:
| But do such consumer services mask military targets?
| Probably yes.
| Hogarth01 wrote:
| On Google Earth you can use the timeline feature to actually
| see when the imagery was captured (or at least uploaded?).
| The plane sitting near the hangers was from a capture in May
| 2016. Google Earth currently shows several newer captures,
| including one from September 2021. The current one from
| September 2021 is actually far more interesting in my
| opinion. In it, you can see a B2 sitting in a field about a
| quarter up the runway (38deg43'27.63"N 93deg32'54.86"W) with
| stuff scattered all around it and trucks sitting on the
| runway. https://i.imgur.com/lh1hkWN.png
| glitchcrab wrote:
| I'm very intrigued as to what is going on here - it almost
| looks as if it veered off the runway. Anyone got any
| suggestions?
| Hogarth01 wrote:
| The op of this thread replied to my comment with a
| military.com article, and in that article there is a link
| to an article on thedrive, https://www.thedrive.com/the-
| war-zone/42392/damaged-b-2-spir...
|
| "According to sources, the B-2 experienced a hydraulic
| failure in flight and had its port main landing gear
| collapse during landing, sending it off the runway with
| its wing dug into the ground. We cannot confirm that this
| was the case at this time, but the satellite image above
| does concur with the gear collapse/wing down aspect of
| the incident. While it is possible the aircraft was
| rolled off the runway after the fact, this is unlikely,
| especially considering its wing-down disposition. The
| damage to the aircraft also remains unknown. "
| msisk6 wrote:
| Good timing on that capture.
|
| https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/09/16/b-2-rolled-
| of...
| Hogarth01 wrote:
| Ah very interesting! I saw the skid marks on the runway
| north of the plane and was wondering if it was an
| emergency landing situation considering that it was just
| on the side of the runway. Pretty cool to read the
| article and get the other half of the story.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| They can also be seen at Hickam AFB here: https://www.google.
| com/maps/@21.3310109,-157.946255,241m/dat...
| msisk6 wrote:
| They're often deployed elsewhere for missions and/or
| training, but the home base for all of them is Whiteman
| AFB. There's only 20 of them.
|
| I do wonder how many megatons of nuclear weapons are stored
| there, about 20 miles from my house. Maybe best not to
| think on that too much. :)
| pwarner wrote:
| Yeah I panned over to the munitions bunkers (I think
| there is a better name I forget) and there seemed to be
| so few, but I guess you don't need much space for
| nukes...
| ccozan wrote:
| Omg, are they sooo huge?
|
| I just realised how big they are for the first time in my
| life. What a sight!
|
| [edit] 172ft = 52m wingspan!
| AviationAtom wrote:
| msisk6 wrote:
| They don't really seem that big in person. And they're
| amazingly hard to see from any distance since they're
| essentially just a thin flat airfoil.
|
| Here's a not-especially-good video I just uploaded of one
| flying over my farm from this summer:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyXSuFj0naQ
| thieving_magpie wrote:
| Beautiful place to live.
| invalidusernam3 wrote:
| Off topic but wow your farm is beautiful
| 01100011 wrote:
| I was blessed by a low flyover in Lancaster, CA back in '94
| or so. It's absolutely stunning to have something that big
| and that quiet glide over you.
| troutwine wrote:
| I grew up in the south of the state but I remember them flying
| overhead when I was a kid now and again. Always stood out like
| a sore thumb, left a particular contrail too as I recall.
| gshubert17 wrote:
| Whiteman AFB is about 20 miles south and a little east of the
| plane in this image.
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| Interesting how the three separate R/G/B images are taken
| independently a few ~seconds~ milliseconds apart, with a
| different color filter placed over the image sensor.
|
| I assume this is to maximize resolution, since no Bayer
| interpolation [0] is needed to demosaic the output of a
| traditional image sensor that integrates the color filters onto
| the sensor pixels themselves. As these satellites are not
| intended to photograph things in motion, the color channel
| alignment artifacts seen here are a rare, small price to pay for
| vastly improved resolution and absence of demosaicing artifacts.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter
| mrcode007 wrote:
| Different wave lengths travel at different speeds through glass
| and air and focus differently even on the same lens when color
| photos are taken in the single frame.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_aberration
| bragr wrote:
| True but if that were the case here it would also likely
| affect the ground.
| trothamel wrote:
| Is it possible this is a a pushbroom sensor, where red, green,
| and blue sensors are moved along the path of the plane or
| satellite that's taking the image? My understanding is those
| have a higher effective resolution than frame-based sensors,
| which would make sense here.
| bragr wrote:
| Seems unlikely to me. With push broom, I'd think you'd get
| characteristic squishing, stretching, or skewing of objects
| in motion depending on whether the object was moving against,
| with, or perpendicular to the push broom path. In this case
| with the imaging satellite probably in polar orbit and the
| plane flying east, you likely see the plane horizontally
| skewed as each horizontal row of pixels captured the plane
| further east.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| These are pushbroom linear sensors stacked up in the focal
| plane. The spectral channels are physically separated by larger
| distance than neighboring pixels in a Bayer grid. There is a
| time delay between each channel sweeping over the same location
| that gets corrected when the final imagery is aligned. The
| moving plane at altitude violates assumption of a static scene
| and exposes the scanning behavior.
| amcoastal wrote:
| Exactly! I'm working on some stuff now to exploit this very
| effect, the small time difference in the bands can be used to
| find velocities of moving objects.
| samhw wrote:
| This is incredibly cool. What's the application (if it's
| possible to obscure whatever details you don't want to
| divulge)?
| amcoastal wrote:
| Its coastal physics work, you can infer near shore
| conditions by watching wave propagation.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Is the R/G/B separation greater because these sensors are
| built like TDI CCD lines?
|
| edit: Seems like pushbroom is the name for TDI when it's put
| in a satellite.
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| For anyone wondering about what a pushboom sensor is - http:/
| /citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.72....
|
| Basically a 1D sensor that acquires a 2D image because the
| camera itself is moving.
|
| In this case, I'd imagine that there are 3 such sensors for
| RGB.
| chris_va wrote:
| FWIW, depending on the satellite (this one is probably
| WorldView 3), there usually more like ~6-7 channels in the
| visible.
|
| It makes for easier top-of-atmosphere correction, and can
| be useful for things other than pretty pictures.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| Is CMOS a type of pushboom sensor?
| baybal2 wrote:
| I think modern satellites have matrix sensors
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| It depends on the satellite. Weather satellites in GEO do
| because they aren't moving relative to the surface and they
| have time constraints for scanning the full earth disc.
| Higher resolution imaging satellites use linear sensors.
| However, they use TDI imaging which at a low level makes
| them superficially like an area array with limited vertical
| resolution but the light collection is still fundamentally
| different.
| gswdh wrote:
| I don't think this is the case as we don't see any rolling
| shutter distortion. The linear sensor scans just like a
| shutter curtain exhibiting the same distortion. The plane is
| proportioned correctly. Maybe the scan time is fast enough.
| pp19dd wrote:
| I grabbed my red and blue glasses because this vaguely looked
| like a 3D anaglyph to me, and while it's not the clearest such
| image, it definitely appears as a cohesive object hovering
| above a flat map. Further I zoom out, it definitely looks like
| it. Inadvertent byproduct of however this was photographed or
| stitched?
| threevox wrote:
| That's a lot of words to rationalize away what is very clearly
| and obviously a cloaking device at work!!
| t0bia_s wrote:
| Shadow of this object is also distorted:
| https://goo.gl/maps/VWwtt1PbLJVkbiBS9
| diggernet wrote:
| Thank you. I was wondering where that was. Now, can someone
| calculate the plane's altitude?
| willis936 wrote:
| The shadow is about 2500 feet away. Judging from nearby
| houses the sun is probably about 15 degrees SouthEast of
| noon. 2500 ft * sin( 15 ) = 650 ft
|
| Someone should double-check my geometry though.
| tomerv wrote:
| I think you need to divide by tan(15) instead, which
| would give 9330 ft.
| willis936 wrote:
| Wouldn't that be the 3D distance between the shadow and
| the plane?
|
| https://i.imgur.com/HWA1iZu.png
|
| Edit: nope you're totally right. Brain fart. It's toa,
| not soa.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| My napkin calculations are that the three channels are ~10ms
| apart, given the bomber is 69 feet nose-to-tail* and an
| assumption of 400 mph velocity.
|
| * http://www.dept.aoe.vt.edu/~mason/Mason_f/B2Spr09.pdf
| [deleted]
| okl wrote:
| Can you calculate the time of day from the shadow's length as
| well?
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/39%C2%B001'18.5%22N+93%C2%.
| ..
| 0xQSL wrote:
| One might be able to calibrate this by using cars in the area
| close to the shot [1]. Assuming most cars are driving at the
| speed limit
|
| [1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B059'37.1%22N+93%
| C2%...
| myself248 wrote:
| The cars aren't flying at altitude though. They're farther
| from the satellite.
| contravariant wrote:
| How low are these satellites? I wouldn't expect the
| altitude of a plane to be any significant proportion of
| the altitude of a satellite.
| natosaichek wrote:
| The satellites are probably greater than 400 km altitude,
| or so, while the plane is probably 10 km. The plane is in
| the same rough order of magnitude as really tall
| mountains, which the satellite is presumably designed to
| compensate for, so I agree with your general assessment.
| exabrial wrote:
| That bomber is also likely quite low, since it's based
| out of an air force base in that area.
| myself248 wrote:
| Sure, but when the word "calibrate" comes up, you want to
| account for even the not-very-significant factors.
| willis936 wrote:
| The google maps scale shows the plane as being pretty close
| to that length as well. I think the satellite is high enough
| up that altitude scaling for aircraft is going to be minimal.
|
| I see about a 10 foot separation between colors.
|
| Velocity = distance / time
|
| 400 mph is 587 fps.
|
| 10 / 587 = 17 ms
| fullstop wrote:
| Do they actually use satellites for their "satellite" view?
| I always assumed that it was done by aircraft.
| willis936 wrote:
| Flying a plane around the planet sounds a lot more
| expensive financially and thermodynamically than just
| beaming down images from an object constantly falling
| into the views you want to see.
| omoikane wrote:
| It's also the case that often there are more legal
| regulations around aerial imagery compared to satellite
| imagery.
| fullstop wrote:
| I looked it up. There are some satellite images, but a
| lot of it is done by aircraft.
| op00to wrote:
| Or you could just strap a camera to a few commercial
| airliners and have full coverage.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You'd only have full coverage of the jet routes. They
| don't just fly willy nilly across the globe.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| You are only interested in urban areas which is less than
| 1% of total earth surface
| reportingsjr wrote:
| They only use aircraft around larger urban areas.
| Satellite imagery is used for rural areas. You can see
| the resolution difference by seeing how far you can zoom
| in.
|
| If you zoom in on a road near the pinned location for
| this post, and then go to, say, downtown kansas city, and
| zoom in you'll see a pretty significant difference.
| Cd00d wrote:
| Depends on the needed resolution. You can cover a lot
| more earth, far more cheaply with a satellite with
| several meter wide pixels.
|
| When I used to work in remote sensing I remember that
| Bing Maps had a very distinct resolution transition from
| spacecraft to aircraft. Aircraft coverage maps were a
| small subset of the total earth land area, but most US
| towns had some coverage at that time (~2012).
|
| As you zoomed in, you could tell when Bing switched
| capture methods because the aircraft cameras were clearly
| off-nadir, and you'd see off-angle perception
| differences.
| ATsch wrote:
| I would assume that the plane or satellite moving affects
| this too, it's presumably being corrected but there might be
| some parallax.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| You're absolutely correct, but as the aircraft is much
| closer to the ground than the imaging satellite I
| disregarded it. Spherical cows and all that :) I'm sure a
| military analyst would do the calculations!
| jcims wrote:
| It actually works out to be pretty close. A satellite
| flying ~17k mph at 250 miles altitude would largely have
| the same angular displacement from the ground as a plane
| moving 400 mph at 31,000 feet. Most satellites fly in an
| easterly direction, so the question would ultimately be
| what the inclination of the orbit is relative to the
| direction of flight.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| That's super interesting! I love this discussion. Would
| the satellite be that low though? 250 miles (400km) is
| still going to experience significant atmospheric drag.
| Fine for a cheap mass deployment like Starlink, but I'd
| expect an imaging satellite to be set up for a longer
| mission duration. Then again maybe the cost of additional
| mass for station-keeping is worth it for the imaging
| quality.
| penagwin wrote:
| You can find a list of satellites here:
| https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/satellite-database
|
| According to the image on Google maps it was taken by
| Maxar. Maxar appears to have a few satellites, looks like
| 5 in geostationary orbit (~35,700km), 3 at about 400km
| and 1 at about 500km.
| Koshkin wrote:
| https://globalcomsatphone.com/satellites-and-their-
| altitudes...
| chrissnell wrote:
| I think this plane is flying much lower and slower. The
| B2s are based at Whiteman AFB, which is about 25 miles
| south of this photograph. The prevailing winds in this
| part of the country are from the south, so I suspect that
| it is about to turn onto the final leg of its approach
| for a landing to the south. I'd guess that it's no more
| than 8-10K' and traveling at a 2-300 knots max.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I asked google maps to get directions from there to
| Whiteman AFB. Unfortunately, flight directions were not
| available.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| Definitely. Rule of thumb in a jet is to slow down if
| you're closer than 3x the altitude. So at 8k feet you
| want to be at least 24 nautical miles (27 normal miles)
| away or if closer you want to be slowing down (or
| descending). If you don't slow down before you're going
| to have to do so in the descend and typical jets can't
| really slow down much in that.
| bragr wrote:
| Most imaging satellites are in sun synchronous orbits so
| likely in this case moving north or south and slightly
| retrograde e.g. west.
|
| I'd bet orbital motion is negligible here because the
| distortion seems to the eye to be entirely in the
| direction of the plane's apparent motion vector and I
| don't see any significant skew to that.
| the-dude wrote:
| Isn't the speed of the sat irrelevant as it should
| correct for this anyways for all images it takes?
| xmonkee wrote:
| yeah, exactly
| [deleted]
| joan_kode wrote:
| Interesting, I would have made the opposite assumption
| ("the satellite is moving so much faster than everything
| else, we can estimate the interval from the satellite's
| speed alone). It seems both speeds might have a similar
| impact, as per sibling comment.
| goblin89 wrote:
| I wonder if there are ways to get superior (compared to Bayer)
| color images from conventional raw-capable monochrome digital
| cameras (like Leica Q2 Monochrom) in static scenes using
| similar workflows of taking three separate shots.
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| Absolutely! [0]
|
| In fact, the first color photos in the world were taken this
| way in the early 1900s [1]: take three monochrome exposures
| onto black and white transparencies with R/G/B filters, and
| then project the three images together.
|
| [0] https://leicarumors.com/2020/01/29/color-photography-
| with-th...
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Prokudin-Gorsky
| goblin89 wrote:
| Interesting. Sadly, I believe the Photoshop approach would
| not produce a DNG file that you could normally interpret in
| a raw processor of your choice. Looks like pixel shift
| cameras (which apparently still use Bayer sensors, just
| moving them around, to debayer at capture time so to speak)
| is the most practical option at the moment.
|
| I'm curious if it is technically possible for a digital
| sensor to capture the entire light spectrum of the scene,
| without the need for RGB separation at any stage--similar
| to Lippmann plate[0].
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lippmann_plate
| tpolzer wrote:
| There are Sigma cameras with a Foveon sensor that can do
| it:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foveon_X3_sensor
|
| Though they're not as good in most other dimensions as
| conventional Bayer filter sensors (most Amazon reviews
| e.g. say that it's impossible to photograph moving human
| subjects without daylight iirc).
| goblin89 wrote:
| I looked at Foveon before, and got the impression that it
| still effectively relies on RGB separation/recombination,
| though in a more elegant way than Bayer sensors. (That
| said, Sigma's doing some really cool stuff.)
| skhr0680 wrote:
| Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky's work shows both the benefits and
| drawbacks of the swapping filters approach
| Koshkin wrote:
| [1909]
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| The first imaging driver that I wrote was for an HD frame
| store that had a camera with a spinning filter disk.
| [deleted]
| goblin89 wrote:
| That sounds very interesting. I feel like firmware/hardware
| automation combo that swaps RGB filters and takes exposures
| in accord could provide interesting workflows for owners of
| those monochrome digital cameras.
| dheera wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if these military bombing dudes not
| only took R, G, B, but also near IR, far IR, UV, and various
| other things. If they did it would make no sense to try to
| make a Bayer filter for all of that and rather just have
| multiple filtered cameras pointed at the same direction.
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| Many cameras, especially medium format like Fuji GFX, can do
| "pixel shift" capture, where they use the sensor
| stabilization to shift the sensor by one pixel at a time to
| ensure red, green, and blue are each captured at all pixels,
| without needing demosaicing. The camera has to be mounted on
| a tripod for this to work - like any stacking requires,
| really.
| c54 wrote:
| Your guess is exactly right, this type of imaging is pretty
| common with satellite imaging for the reasons you mentioned.
| Scott Manley talks about it in this video iirc
| https://youtu.be/Wah1DbFVFiY
| aeroman wrote:
| You can use this difference in time to calculate the speed
| (although you also have to account for parallax for an
| aircraft)
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6651096/
| [deleted]
| HPsquared wrote:
| Doing it this way allows not only higher resolution, but you
| can also use different types of filter for specialist
| applications. Infrared for example, or some kind of narrow band
| pass filters etc.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Unless you aren't military and then no infrared for you
| wantsanagent wrote:
| Oh? Planet offers infrared imaging to farmers.
| urschrei wrote:
| Nonsense. Landsat 8 bands 5, 6, and 7 are infrared bands (5
| is NIR, and 6 & 7 are shortwave or SWIR), and bands 10 and
| 11 are lower-resolution thermal infrared (TIRS).
|
| Source: http://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-are-band-
| designations-landsat-...
| can16358p wrote:
| I literally have a 720nm lowpass infrared filter in front
| of me for use in photography.
|
| Infrared imaging is not "military", it's public, common,
| and legal.
| dsl wrote:
| I think what they meant is prior to the "digital farming
| revolution" if you called up a satellite/arial imagery
| company and requested anything other than visible
| spectrum, you'd not only get some strange looks - they'd
| also alert the government.
| jerry1979 wrote:
| Interesting. A search for those gradients could help find all
| fast moving objects in the satellite images.
| perilousacts wrote:
| That's a super interesting idea. I would love to see
| something like this.
| crehn wrote:
| Is there a dataset with all the close-up satellite images
| somewhere?
| dsl wrote:
| https://www.nro.gov/
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| Now that's an interesting idea. Anyone care to spin this up?
| druadh wrote:
| Is there a way to subscribe to comments? I'd love to see
| the result of this idea but am not savvy enough to spin it
| up myself very easily
| coldpie wrote:
| Click the timestamp for the comment, then click
| "favorite", then set a reminder in your calendar to check
| your favorited comments (link in your profile).
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Can Siri work with whats in your copy/paste cache?
| mmaunder wrote:
| Also came here to discuss this. Super interesting opportunity
| to reverse what they're doing. Yeah I'd agree it's color
| filters which would avoid duplicating lenses (probably the most
| expensive component) or dividing the light energy. Filters
| would give you the most photons per color per shot. I wonder if
| the filters are mechanical or electronic somehow. As another
| commenter calculated, it's 10ms between shots, which is not
| that impractical to move physical filters around when you
| consider modern consumer camera shutter speeds of around 0.125
| milliseconds max.
| malfist wrote:
| This is what we do all the time for astrophography! We buy
| monochrome cameras without an IR filter and take 3 photos and
| recombine them.
| dougSF70 wrote:
| If you look at the photo of the B-2 on the ground I think you can
| make our the 14 hangars where they would park them overnight (I
| heard street crime is pretty hot on Whitman AFB) to the right of
| the staging area.
| coolspot wrote:
| They smash-and-grab thermonuclear bombs all the time over
| there.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| I was googling to see what shape matched that and found this.
| Looks like not the first time this (probably b2?) type of plane
| was caught on candid camera ;0
|
| https://www.kmbc.com/article/satellite-image-b-2-stealth-bom...
| anormalpapier wrote:
| Not so stealth eh?
| birdyrooster wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr9KS-hmXyU
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| During the 1999 yugoslavia bombings, after the first one was
| shot down, there was a joking apology on the TV, something
| along the lines of "Sorry, we didn't see it" :)
| kens wrote:
| The Serbians made a poster saying "Sorry, we didn't know it
| was invisible" after they shot down a stealth F-117. The full
| story and a picture of the poster at this link:
| https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/serbs-
| shot...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > During the 1999 yugoslavia bombings, after the first one
| was shot down
|
| That was a F-117 Night Hawk "Stealth Fighter" (a type which
| is now retired), not a B-2 Spirit "Stealth Bomber".
| BrazzVuvuzela wrote:
| Incidentally, the F-117's fighter designation was a
| misnomer; they were only armed with bombs.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Trevor Paglen would agree.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| Interestingly, it gives us information about the orientation of
| pixels on the satellite.
| monocasa wrote:
| Sort of. IIRC they take quick back to back photos with
| different filters that share an image sensor, so the smearing
| you're seeing is the combined motion vectors of the satellite
| and the aircraft.
| pensatoio wrote:
| to be fair, stealth has never meant "invisible" when it comes
| to planes
| trhway wrote:
| you can see the engine exhaust plums, and that would be pretty
| bright in IR. Very hard to hide burning that much fuel. If you
| magnify a bit you also can see that the engine exists are
| pretty bright even in visible wavelength (though that isn't
| visible from the below and front of the plane).
| capableweb wrote:
| I'm sure you wrote this in jest, but in case people aren't
| aware: The "Stealth" in "Stealth bomber" refer to hiding the
| plane from anti-aircraft defenses like radar, infrared,
| acoustics and some optical visibility, but the anti-reflective
| paint that is used for hiding it optically is only on the
| underside, not on the top.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I wonder if imaging from above could actually be a threat for
| these planes. I mean -- stick cameras on all the SpaceX
| satellites and you've got an awful lot of eyeballs in LEO,
| right? Might at least be able to tell a ground based radar
| where to focus their search...
| t0mas88 wrote:
| They fly in the dark and IR imaging doesn't work very well
| due to coatings and trying to hide the engine heath
| signature.
| andrelaszlo wrote:
| When each signature refers to the previous one, it forms
| a Heath Ledger?
| tener wrote:
| Pretty sure you need powerful lenses to do useful things
| though, but who knows, maybe this is workable with some
| image processing of multiple satellite feeds?
| bee_rider wrote:
| Yeah, I'm sure somebody is already doing good work on
| whatever the photographic equivalent of Synthetic
| Aperture Radar is. They should call it Synthetic Lens
| Aperture Photography, so they could use SLAP as the
| acronym (the most important property of a research topic
| is of course the ability to come up with good titles).
|
| For example:
|
| SLAP BASS: a Synthetic Lens Aperture Photography,
| Bandwidth Augmenting Sensor Suite
|
| Does it make technical sense? I have no idea. But it
| sounds cool!
| cooljacob204 wrote:
| They often fly their missions at night time, so this would
| mitigate that.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| soheil wrote:
| Given the distance between the different colors in the photograph
| and the internal refresh rate of the camera one should be able to
| calculate the speed that the plane was traveling at.
| qrohlf wrote:
| Interesting how you can see the chromatic aberration on the
| bomber but not the ground. I guess that this implies that the
| optical and/or software correction that they're doing only works
| within a _very_ narrow focal plane, given the relative proximity
| of the bomber to the ground.
|
| This is kind of surprising, because if the tolerances for
| avoiding chromatic aberration are that small, whatever is
| collecting this data would have to be constantly adjusting its
| optics or software based on the topography.
|
| EDIT: it's not chromatic aberration, it's pixel misalignment
| caused by the object being in motion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29627917
| [deleted]
| sudoaza wrote:
| I wonder how low it is, found the shadow of it close by
| 39.02468482732915, -93.6023120071418
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/39%C2%B001'28.9%22N+93%C2%...
| taddeimania wrote:
| nice catch! I think the altitude could be calculated roughly
| if we knew the the day of the year the photo was taken.
| taddeimania wrote:
| okay so i'm not sure how accurate any of this is since it's
| overlaying sun angles over a photo that is very likely not
| taken from a 90deg overhead angle to the bomber... and the
| scale of the image may be distorted a little...
|
| I discovered on google earth that the image was taken May
| 16th.
|
| I used this site http://shadowcalculator.eu/#/lat/39.023977
| 54136213/lng/-93.6... to draw a fence around the bomber and
| defined the "structure" to be an arbitrarily tall height
| until the sun angle lined up.
|
| Then I lowered the height until the sun angle touched the
| location of the shadow and I came to an altitude of 1100ft
| / 335.28m (rough height of the "structure")
| jpablo wrote:
| This kind of looks like purple fringing but it's not, see other
| comments saying this is lag in a multi shot image.
| syngrog66 wrote:
| that's me. sorry guys. my bad
| lbj wrote:
| Imagine the chills you'd get seeing that on GEarth if you're just
| looking to see a picture of your fields.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| I'd guess if you have fields in that area, seeing a B-2 over
| them is routine.
| MobileVet wrote:
| Its twin sitting on the tarmac at Whiteman
|
| https://goo.gl/maps/tvNapjiLCJMVa3fx6
|
| Edit: grammar
| t0bia_s wrote:
| There is a shadow of stealth bomber:
| https://goo.gl/maps/VWwtt1PbLJVkbiBS9
|
| I'm curious... Will google delete it too?
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| Plane: 39.02177585879624, -93.59455907552 Shadow:
| 39.024670893611805, -93.60232594974401
|
| I wonder what this can tell us about it's speed, altitude, etc.
| omnomynous wrote:
| I found where they parked it.
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B043'29.8%22N+93%C2%...
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Awesome! There was a commercial jet caught in the imagery of
| Downtown San Mateo for about a year, and I always loved looking
| at it when I was looking up an address. It's cool how much more
| pronounced the separate RGB is - It was pretty clear even on that
| commercial jet, but it's very psychedelic here.
| jdlyga wrote:
| afternoon delight
| thanatos519 wrote:
| soheil wrote:
| Now that we have an exact match of what a plane like this looks
| like from the point of view of a satellite, one could scan the
| entire Google maps for this same image.
| benatkin wrote:
| These are the sort of posts I can do without. It's like the stuff
| that goes to the top of reddit. Reddit has a way to keep
| frontpage of your home page for a reason.
| soheil wrote:
| Interesting that Google hasn't taken this down yet or at least
| blur out the map tile.
| rmrfchik wrote:
| Now I know bombers are fed by green trails.
| teodorlu wrote:
| The aircraft seems to be a Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit.
|
| > The Northrop (later Northrop Grumman) B-2 Spirit, also known as
| the Stealth Bomber, is an American heavy strategic bomber,
| featuring low observable stealth technology designed for
| penetrating dense anti-aircraft defenses. Designed during the
| Cold War, it is a flying wing design with a crew of two.[1][3]
| The bomber is subsonic and can deploy both conventional and
| thermonuclear weapons, such as up to eighty 500-pound class (230
| kg) Mk 82 JDAM GPS-guided bombs, or sixteen 2,400-pound (1,100
| kg) B83 nuclear bombs. The B-2 is the only acknowledged aircraft
| that can carry large air-to-surface standoff weapons in a stealth
| configuration.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-2_Spirit
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| My father-in-law helped design the pilot seat for that.
|
| Unfortunately he was unable to make the transition to computer
| aided design. After the defense cutbacks in the 90s, he could
| only find minimum wage jobs for the rest of his working life.
| PostOnce wrote:
| In case anyone else is reading and thinking of that
| predicament, it needn't be a showstopper.
|
| You have a couple of options:
|
| You can do it the old way, and pay someone to convert it into
| the new way (I know a mechanical engineer who either sketches
| things or does 2D on a computer, and pays someone else to 3D
| it) which can then be sent to the client or manufacturer or
| whatever.
|
| Or, if you're doing the whole product to sell, you can do it
| however you want, no one cares how their product was
| designed, just that the end product is good. I don't know how
| the housing on the monitor I'm looking at was designed, and I
| don't care, I just care that it's decent.
|
| I feel like I count rant about this for a while, but all the
| "rules" change if you're taking clients or customers and not
| looking for FTE. It's got its own challenges, but with a few
| good / high paying clients, it's even easier than FTE, you
| can grow or not if you want.
| a2800276 wrote:
| Not sure if the Air Force will buy bomber seats from the
| back of a truck of some guy who designs them with paper and
| pencil.
| abhiminator wrote:
| >After the defense cutbacks in the 90s, he could only find
| minimum wage jobs for the rest of his working life.
|
| That's unfortunate to hear. Hope he's doing well now, in his
| retirement life.
| geph2021 wrote:
| And The B-2s are apparently stationed at Whiteman Air Force
| Base[1]. Just due south of the image. Perhaps lining up for a
| landing approach?
|
| 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteman_Air_Force_Base
| systemvoltage wrote:
| The B-2 Spirit is insane. People usually know the SR-71, but I
| personally think the B-2 is straight up savage - aesthetically
| alien, impossibly aerial, and incomprehensibly powerful. Its
| silhoutte is terrifying: https://i.imgur.com/WqMvxXg.jpg
|
| What a beast: https://www.northropgrumman.com/what-we-
| do/air/b-2-stealth-b...
| Phrodo_00 wrote:
| That's while probably really effective at its job, it's not
| really the most of anything. The B-1B for example is faster
| and can carry more ordinance.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| B-1B is not as stealthy. B-2 Spirit is in a different
| league along with the F-117.
|
| Also I learned something new: It's not 'ordinance', but
| 'ordnance'[1]. Almost looks like a spelling mistake.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordnance
| bnastic wrote:
| It's effective enough to have bombed the shit out of a
| chinese embassy in '99. Look it up.
| dougSF70 wrote:
| Here is a stealth Bomber on the ground...
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/eJ2SU9SzE8D6JaZN9
| rgblambda wrote:
| Shouldn't military bases be blurred out on Google Maps?
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| Military adversaries have plenty of sources of their own
| imagery, and the commercial imagery industry is large and
| international. It's just not a tractable problem to try to
| keep people from obtaining good aerial imagery of military
| installations, and it's become fairly rare for anyone to try.
| We know that various military organizations have taken active
| measures to prevent imaging of sensitive activity (e.g.
| returning vehicles to same parking positions before passes of
| known IMINT satellites) but it's not a very easy thing to do,
| especially in the US which is heavily covered by both
| commercial and foreign satellites in various orbits like sun-
| synchronous and Molniya.1
|
| Some military installations do receive a degree of protection
| by means of restricted airspace which mostly prevents
| commercial aerial imaging, meaning that only lower spatial
| resolution satellite images are available. But even this
| isn't really that common, and there's no systematic
| restriction on commercial imagery operators overflying
| military installations if airspace permits it.
| rgblambda wrote:
| I put forth the question because I know that in some places
| (i.e. Northern Ireland), police stations and army barracks
| are obfuscated on Google Maps to prevent terror groups from
| using it to easily gather information for mortar attacks.
|
| I suppose the chances of that happening in a remote part of
| the United States is much smaller but that with the
| resources the U.S Department of Defence have, I would have
| thought that they would take every precaution.
|
| Edit: It appears it's no longer done in Northern Ireland.
| jwithington wrote:
| how do people find these things
| [deleted]
| joering2 wrote:
| Interesting in itself there is this, but we never manage to find
| similar gems for UFOs.
| toast0 wrote:
| UFOs tend to come at night, but aerial/satellite photography is
| done during the day.
| aawalrik323 wrote:
| Parked aircraft, same model, just south at Whiteman AFB.
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/@38.7249682,-93.5601479,19z/data...
| ashleyjoyce wrote:
| xuhu wrote:
| For a few minutes I was convinced this one had crashed on that
| mountain top:
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lake+Tarni%C8%9Ba/@46.7229...
| CarVac wrote:
| The measured wingspan (using the Google Maps distance measure
| tool) is around 200 feet whereas the measured wingspan of a B-2
| on the ground at nearby Whiteman AFB is the nominal 172 feet, so
| its altitude AGL is roughly 14% of the altitude of the camera
| plane that took the photo.
| lopuhin wrote:
| A small roll of the place at the time the photo was taken could
| also explain this difference.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Good math. I don't know why everyone else is assuming this
| photo is from a spacecraft. Virtually all of the aerial images
| of America on Google Earth are taken with aircraft, not
| spacecraft.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| The attribution on google maps for the image is for a
| satellite imaging company.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Interesting, but I'm not sure that is dispositive. That
| company is credited for images even where they are
| obviously aerial. Google Maps images are an algorithmic
| mash-up of many sources, I imagine they credit partial or
| possible sources conservatively, to keep from omitting any
| potentially relevant rights.
|
| In many tiles they don't credit anybody, so the absences of
| Google's own image credit doesn't mean anything. The first
| party does not need to credit themselves.
| Quentak wrote:
| Screenshot for when it will have been deleted by Google
| https://i.imgur.com/toSC5a0.png .
| carabiner wrote:
| lol why would they? The B-2 even flies with radar reflectors in
| civil airspace so that ATC can track it.
| [deleted]
| okl wrote:
| Here's another:
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/39%C2%B001'18.5%22N+93%C2%...
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| Is Google taking their own satellite pictures now, or are these
| from Maxar, or another provider?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Super, thank you!
| ssnistfajen wrote:
| Would be disappointing for them to remove it for basically no
| reason, especially considering you can see a B-2 parked on the
| tarmac (https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B043'29.9%22N+9
| 3%C2%...) in the nearby Whiteman AFB. The B-2 was first flown
| 32 years ago. Its existence is neither covert or secret, but
| often used to do flybys at freaking football games where
| thousands of recording devices are present and active. There's
| virtually no national security risk with these images because
| any imagery obtainable by Google Maps would've been obtainable
| by whatever adversary long ago, plus some more.
| zelon88 wrote:
| Correct, but don't misunderestimate the power of knowledge.
|
| Let's assume that some adversary is out there keeping track
| of these planes, and knows that they can scan Google maps for
| the RGB artifact by the engines to locate them reliably and
| programmatically.
|
| Now Google maps becomes a repository for information that
| adversary may use to validate other information. Maybe this
| confirms the schedule for some training excersise. Maybe this
| particular B2 being in this location validates or invalidates
| other information about US troop strength abroad.
|
| I was taught to always "assume your adversary is capable of
| going through your trash" and try to prepare my "trash"
| accordingly.
| ssnistfajen wrote:
| The fatal premise is assuming Google Maps updates these
| areas frequently enough to provide useful info. The
| military security implications of Google Earth have existed
| since its launch and Google Maps by relation is no stranger
| to it. This is not new info and it hardly counts as
| "knowledge" much less with "power".
|
| Reconnaissance satellite technology isn't US-exclusive
| (https://www.dw.com/en/modern-spy-satellites-in-an-age-of-
| spa..., Ctrl+F "Spy satellites in numbers") and those who
| have a meaningful need to track B-2 movements most likely
| have their own tools that are up to date, more accurate,
| and not bound by laws or regulations a US domiciled company
| is subjected to. What we see on Google Maps is almost
| guaranted to be 100% "trash" from a military intelligence
| perspective because actual valuable information has always
| been obtainable without Google Maps for entities who are
| capable and in need.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Similar to how the president brings his own toilet when
| doing foreign visits so enemies can't analyze his poop to
| see what medicines he's taking or what medical conditions
| he has.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| Spare a thought for the presidential aide responsible for
| safeguarding POTUS's poop, so that it doesn't fall into
| the wrong hands. I'd hate to be the person assigned to
| "doodie duty".
| carabiner wrote:
| Kim Jong Un does that, but I can't find record of any
| other world leader doing so. That takes a special level
| of paranoia.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Can't find a source on the president doing that at the
| moment, but Stalin examined the poop of visiting leaders:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35427926
| adolph wrote:
| That would be some Gattaca level paranoia
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca
| serf wrote:
| Honestly with the known ties between the US government and
| Google, if I were a state-level adversary I'd probably be
| wondering why Google _wasn 't_ scrubbing the plane
| programmatically, rather than assuming that I had caught
| someone in a 'Gotcha!' moment.
|
| In other words; this google maps link has been circulating
| around the net for the past week and a half _at least_ --
| seemingly originating from either a Discord or the chans;
| if I were some foreign intelligence analyst I 'd definitely
| be considering the premise that these photos have been so
| widespread and uncensored simply as an online show-of-
| force.
|
| ( personal anecdote : as an amateur aviation
| enthusiast/plane-watcher, the B2, as majestic as she is,
| isn't particularly rare to catch in the skies -- and
| nowhere near 'secret' )
| throwaway21_ wrote:
| Impressive level of paranoia from a citizen of a country
| with 800 bases around the world. Mad propz for your mass
| media.
| zelon88 wrote:
| So the US should have no defensive doctrine at all
| because we have so many spoils of war?
|
| Whatever country you are in would do the same if it
| could.
| notatoad wrote:
| i doubt they'd remove it for security reasons - as you say,
| there's nothing secret about what this plane is doing here.
| more that they'd remove it for the same reasons they remove
| clouds or any other in-air objects that obscure the thing
| they're actually trying to take photos of.
|
| the plane isn't part of the map, so it shouldn't be on the
| map. even if it's not obscuring anything, they use satellite
| photos to generate building outlines, and this isn't a
| building. given how many planes there are flying all the
| time, and how infrequently you see them on google maps, they
| must make an effort to publish satellite imagery that
| doensn't have planes in it.
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| I wouldn't expect it to get deleted for any kind of security
| reason... but it will get replaced, and possibly faster
| because there's a defect. Moving object artifacts are
| undesirable and make the image more difficult to use
| especially for automation (such as Google's registration).
| They tend to get knocked out automatically over time as the
| composition algorithms try to keep a neatly consistent scene.
| They may even be handled as clouds depending on which methods
| Google uses to avoid cloud cover. This is the same force that
| has slowly worked most alignment and registration marks out
| of Google imagery (for a long time aerial imagery usually
| contained registration marks etched into the camera optics),
| although you will still find them especially in areas that
| are more challenging to register by machine vision (deserts,
| etc).
|
| Aircraft in Keyhole and Google Earth used to be _extremely_
| common before the composition methods improved and more
| imagery sources became available. You could just about make
| out the traffic pattern at some airports. You can still find
| them but they 're much rarer today.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| He thought he could hide from google
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Is that an F-117 Nighthawk?
| HideousKojima wrote:
| B-2 Spirit, not nearly ugly enough to be a Nighthawk.
| foobarian wrote:
| Yeah quite the opposite. This is easily my favorite plane
| design ever made.
| jacquesm wrote:
| What an interesting design for a lawnmower. Joking aside, better
| make a screenshot because this is liable to be blurred soon.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| Why would this be blurred? There is nothing in the picture
| that's not already known in far more detail. I have some B-2
| pictures with way more detail I took in Pasadena during the
| Rose Bowl.
| mynameismon wrote:
| Archived before it's taken down: https://archive.ph/E8xih
|
| (don't spam click it, it is already extremely slow to load, the
| last thing we want to do is DDOS archive.ph)
| jmacd wrote:
| To many of us these are technological marvels. Defenders of our
| lifestyle and enabler of our ambitions and dreams.
|
| To many people in the world these are insidious death machines
| that lurk unimpeded and can rain down death on entire villages.
| The embodiment of evil.
|
| Without peeling back the veneer of right and wrong, I think it's
| worth pausing to both appreciate the wonder of the machine and to
| consider the implications of its existence.
| anovikov wrote:
| Not surprising really because it's less than 40km from Whiteman
| AFB.
| snshn wrote:
| It was photo bombing
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| This makes me wonder. Obviously everyone in the world knows that
| USA operates a few dozen "stealth bombers" and has for the last
| couple decades, or so. Has any other country developed these
| kinds of aircrafts? Similarly, submarines. USA operates many
| stealth submarines as well. Does any other country operate
| stealth submarines?
|
| I'm aware that USA spends about 1 tril a year on military stuff
| but these just seems bizarre to me.
| xvector wrote:
| That is an interesting point.
|
| Both China and Russia have stealth fighters, but not stealth
| bombers, from my understanding.
|
| China's Xian H-20 was to be announced this year. Russia's
| Tupolev PAK-DA is scheduled for 2028.
|
| I suspect that the need for stealth bombers is rather low:
|
| - If you want to carry large bomb payloads, ICBMs do the trick.
|
| - For smaller bomb payloads, they can fit in the fighters.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Hmm. Perhaps networked imaging satellites is a viable way to
| limit the use of stealth aircraft?
| tinyhouse wrote:
| Can someone explain? I don't see anything, just a location in MO.
|
| Update: oh cool! I see it after moving to Satellite and zooming
| in.
| saberdancer wrote:
| Now a real catch would be to get a B21 raider or some other
| prototype/secret airplane.
|
| There were a couple of sightings of it - usually it was so high
| that it's hard to be sure but it looked different enough to B2.
| Jiocus wrote:
| Artist James Bridle calls them "Rainbow planes" and has used this
| in his art.
|
| Rainbow Plane 002: Kiev. October 29, 2014:
| https://booktwo.org/notebook/rainbow-plane-002-kiev/
|
| Rainbow Planes:
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/stml/sets/72157637938061015/
| robocat wrote:
| "Rather than taking a photograph, satellite sensors record
| electromagnetic radiation in the red, blue, green, and high-
| resolution panchromatic (black-and-white) bands (as well as
| several not visible to the human eye, as this Mapbox[2] post
| helpfully explains). When these bands are combined to produce a
| visible image, fast-moving objects - like planes in flight -
| don't quite match up, producing the rainbow effect.
|
| [2] https://blog.mapbox.com/putting-landsat-8s-bands-to-
| work-631...
| Phrodo_00 wrote:
| > Rather than taking a photograph, satellite sensors record
| electromagnetic radiation in the red, blue, green, and high-
| resolution panchromatic (black-and-white) bands (as well as
| several not visible to the human eye, as this Mapbox[2] post
| helpfully explains). When these bands are combined to produce
| a visible image
|
| That's the same as taking a (normal, digital) photograph
| (sans additional non-rgb layers), just explained.
| ihattendorf wrote:
| The difference is typical digital cameras have a bayer
| filter in front of the sensor to allow taking a single
| color picture vs. here it sounds like multiple captures
| with individual filters (e.g. 1 blue, 1 red, 1 green, 1
| monochrome) that are later combined into a color picture.
| djmips wrote:
| Does anyone have a theory on why some photos have a rainbow
| plane and a solid white place offset?
| kqr wrote:
| They take a separate high-res monochromatic picture. (As
| image compression theory tells us, if you can afford to
| sacrifice some colour resolution for monochromatic resolution
| -- do it.)
| mcdonje wrote:
| It's interesting how some satellites take the alpha channel pic
| before the RGB channels, and some do it after. The lag also
| changes. Alpha & RGB have similar lags for some, but alpha is
| way off on others.
| fred_is_fred wrote:
| I would love to know if this was found other than randomly poking
| around and if so how it worked specifically. "out of place shapes
| in the middle of fields" might find out some other neat stuff
| too.
| pintxo wrote:
| Looks like their home base is nearby. So maybe not too
| surprising?
|
| https://www.google.com/maps?ll=38.730306,-93.547864&z=12&t=h...
| mikeyouse wrote:
| It's only ~25 miles from the one base in the US that hosts an
| active B2 wing. There's another on the ground there in Google
| Maps;
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B043'29.7%22N+93%C2%...
| bicx wrote:
| I don't think I realized how huge the B2 actually is.
| Drew_ wrote:
| Google maps measures the wingspan at ~170 ft which is about
| 4-5 school buses.
| throwaway946513 wrote:
| The college town near the airbase made it pretty well known
| that the airforce base nearby has these B-2s when I took a
| campus tour years ago.
|
| Granted I like aerospace engineering as a software engineer so
| I grew up knowing about it ahead of time, and it's only an hour
| and a half drive away.
| zeitg3ist wrote:
| Not a stealth bomber but this Google Maps picture from a few
| years ago presents a similar effect:
| https://i.imgur.com/P8XVo.jpeg
|
| (Sorry for the imgur link, I can't find a proper source)
| metaphor wrote:
| Literally 30-min drive north of Whiteman...not a coincidence.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The new normal of 100% satellite coverage and high resolution
| daily pictures means future wars will be fought under water by
| the underdog.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| I guess this comment would have been really insightful in 1910.
| It didn't wait for the satellites to be the norm for the
| underdog in a global war see [1] and [2].
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-boat_campaign
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Atlantic
| ericmay wrote:
| Bit of an aside but I like that the B-2 Spirit has different
| "Spirit of..." for each aircraft. There are Spirit of New York,
| Spirit of Ohio, etc. [1]
|
| Also if you're ever in Ohio and you're an aviation or engineering
| geek, or have kids, or are looking for something to do the USAF
| Museum is pretty cool! [2]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-2_Spirit
|
| [2] https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/
| lpghatguy wrote:
| I visited the USAF Museum earlier this year. It's breathtaking
| just how large the B-2 Spirit is. You can know the plane's
| dimensions going in and it'll still blow you away standing next
| to one.
| bell-cot wrote:
| If you are a fairly-serious aerospace, history, or military
| equipment buff, then allow 2 days for the USAF Museum. It's
| very good, and it's huge.
| janmo wrote:
| Not so stealth anymore I guess
| mattrighetti wrote:
| How does people find thins kind of stuff willingly?
| jp57 wrote:
| Look out, St. Louis!
| ilhamsgenius wrote:
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