Google Maps Snaps Plane in LA Intersection

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joytech22

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[citation][nom]mrtraver[/nom]Why is this plane all shimmery?[/citation]

Probably because the colours (red, green and blue) are distorted from the fast movement of the jet, you can do something similar with a scanner and a colourful book, just pull it fast while it's scanning.
 

peterkidd

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It looks like a photographic doppler effect. However, none of the airplane seem to be moving toward or away from the camera, but perpendicular.
 

NeeKo

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[citation][nom]joytech22[/nom]Probably because the colours (red, green and blue) are distorted from the fast movement of the jet, you can do something similar with a scanner and a colourful book, just pull it fast while it's scanning.[/citation]


We learn something new everyday dont we? :)
 

lukeeu

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[citation][nom]peterkidd[/nom]It looks like a photographic doppler effect. However, none of the airplane seem to be moving toward or away from the camera, but perpendicular.[/citation]Photographic Doppler effect? The plane is moving at a speed comparable to the speed of light? Wow.
 
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This isn't rocket science, the reason you see the color blur is that the camera uses 3 seperate color paths (RGB) that must have some delay just like a DLP projector. They are going to take a long exposure anyway because of the distance and losses through all the atmosphere. A moving object would blur, and if they are in fact using a color wheel, you would see the rainbow effect. I'm sure there is a lot of post image processing that attempts to make the picture sharper, and that is what makes the "ghost" plane seem more transparent since the software knew to remove the extra leading and trailing images of the plane, but the area under the plane was there the longest so it bleeds through in the image processing. Cheap digital cameras do the same thing in lower light conditions because they must take a longer exposure to get the brightness needed in the image.
 

pharge

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This news was on Gizmodo on July 14th. I like one of the post from propengineer: "This is a small biz jet out of Santa Monica Airport, (Citation maybe?). It is flying low just after take off and close enough to the ground(satellite's focus) that it is captured. The crazy acid trip is caused by the plane moving fast and the way satellites capture images. They don't use a rectangle CCD but rather a single row for each color. Because the satellite is moving so fast it scans the picture in a row at a time (just like a copier light moving across a page). A single pass can be 10 miles wide by 200 miles long, limited by memory. The plane moved a little bit between each color row passing over. Typically they have Red, Green, Blue, and Near Infrared sensors. For higher resolution a satellite will scan the same area twice in a single orbit using inertia wheels that can rotate the satellite using electric motors with weighted fly wheels attached. "

Sounds like a nice explanation to me. Though is it actually the case or not... I don't know...
 
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Why is the plane smaller that real life? If anything, shouldn't it be bigger?
 
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It is not smaller than real life. It is a smaller plane that is still 6 car lengths long. The lens is extremely far away, so the difference in appearance of size is not as pronounced. Like looking at trees on a mountain very far away versus 50 yards away.
 

aje21

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I tried looking for the plane's shadow, but I gave up after 5 minutes. Would be interesting to know if anyone spots it (assuming it can be spotted).
Question is, does Google use aerial photos (from a high flying plane) or actual satellite images?
 
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