Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

If NASA faked the moon landings, does the agency have any credibility at all? Was the Space Shuttle program also a hoax? Is the International Space Station another one? Do not dismiss these hypotheses offhand. Check out our wider NASA research and make up your own mind about it all.
simonshack
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Re: Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

Unread post by simonshack »

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ANOTHER "ISS SUPER-PHOTOGRAPHER" CLOWN EXPOSED

Dearest forum readers and members,

You may be wondering why I think it is important, nay, absolutely crucial to expose the handful of clowns (to be found around the internets) posing as super-duper astrophotographers who've supposedly been able to capture the "ISS" in exceptional / stunningly-high photographic definition, "by virtue of their awfully expensive equipment and superior skills". To be sure, those clowns are the same who claim to have pictured the "THING" transiting in front of the Moon, Jupiter or even ...Saturn.

At this point, after about 18 years since the first 'brick' of the "ISS" was (allegedly) laid in space, we MUST wonder why there is NO OFFICIAL, high-definition photographic record of, for instance, its very assembly phase: the "ISS", we are told, was progressively assembled piecemeal up in space - with bits & pieces & assorted modules carried up by NASA's Space Shuttle, and 'stitched' (or docked) together one by one - over several years. Yet, there exists NO photo/videographic record of what must have been one of the most spectacular 'building sites' of all times! To this day, NO OFFICIAL images of the "ISS" filmed from Earth have been released by NASA or any of the top observatories of this world (all we have seen "filmed from space" are a few lifeless docking maneuvers - presented as 'proof' of the assembly phase of the "Thing"...)

The task of filming the speck of light known as the "ISS" as it passes above our heads has been, absurdly enough, completely reliant on the efforts of private citizens (or, as it has now emerged, by a handful of fraudster-clowns posing as "expert astrophotographers").

In the not-too-distant future, I will do my best to elaborate and expound why I think it is important to expose those clowns - in order for us to finally start a rational, level-headed discussion about what that speck of light regularly traversing our skies known as the "ISS" might be - and the possible / feasible technology employed to generate it. Of course, the fuzzy & grainy shapeshifting blobs (captured by the general public) which we can find on Youtube and on assorted private websites constitute no proof whatsoever of the "ISS" being an actual spacecraft - and this includes the valiant efforts of our member Notrappaport (to whom I will apologize for calling him "full of it" - an insult which I should more wisely keep throwing at NASA et al). For now though, I will - as ever - keep proceeding one step at a time - and the next step is, as I see it, of paramount relevance: to expose the (very few) existing "SUPER-DUPER-DEFINITION IMAGES" of the "Thing" as the frauds that they are.

I have already exposed, in the previous page of this thread, the fraudulent nature of the most incredibly sharp "ISS astrophotography images" ever published - during all of 18 years of the "Thing's" existence - credited to one purported amateur (yet richly-equipped) Italian photographer Alessandro Bianconi.

Most amusingly, as I looked today into another self-proclaimed "ace ISS photographer" named Julian Wessel, I found that he has already been exposed as a fraud by none other than ...Phil Plait! (i.e. perhaps the most prominent NASA-shilling personnages to be found on the internet).

Here is the link to Phil Plait's page where he exposes Julian Wessel as the clownish fraudster that he (obviously) is:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronom ... _real.html

I don't think I need to add any more personal comments to this present post. Please click the above link and read the full story on Phil Plait's website. However, in the event that this particular article of his might be deleted one day, I am mirroring here (see below) the part in which this Julian Wessel clown gets duly exposed.


So, About that Video of the Space Station Passing in Front of Saturn …

by Phil Plait, Jan 26, 2016


Image
^[Alleged imagery of ISS transiting in front of Saturn credited to Julian Wessel - yet exposed as a crude forgery.]^

Last week, a seemingly spectacular astronomy video went viral. It was created by a German astrophotographer named Julian Wessel, and it showed the International Space Station passing directly in front of Saturn. I saw links to it all over Twitter and Facebook, and no wonder: Catching such an event takes an extraordinary amount of skill and planning. Plus, it’s just cool.

There’s only one problem: It wasn’t real.

Wessel used images from different observing sessions and composited them together to make the video and the image. Under some circumstances this is OK—for example, when different telescopes are used, or when you’re reconstructing a scene (like the Earthrise image taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter). But in any case, the important bit is to note that it’s a composite.

Wessel didn’t do this; on his website he said, "I managed it [sic] to photograph the ISS in front of a planet again. In this case it was the Lord of the Rings: Saturn." He also wrote, "Fortunately everything happened as planned and I could make the capture... You can see the Video of the Event on my YouTube... This is a great effort for me as an astrophotographer. It takes time, patience, preperation and a little bit of luck to get a shot like this, but at the end the hard work pays off!" That certainly makes it sound like he got footage of the actual event. He also submitted it to the Astronomy Picture of the Day site, which ran it (though, after review, they have since taken it down).

The video was convincing enough that it got past a lot of people. When I first saw it, I was amazed, but it also set my skeptic sense tingling. It bugged me that he happened to catch the ISS directly in front of Saturn in one frame of the video; the odds of that are pretty low. And it all looked too crisp and clean, but that wasn’t enough for me to declare it a fake.

However, not long after the video became public, a whole bunch of amateur astronomers were on the case. My friend Stephen Ramsden (who does solar observing) sent me a note letting me know that people were buzzing over some serious issues with the video. Also, Christopher Go, who is a phenomenal planetary astrophotographer, also pointed out many problems with the video. As a few examples:

The ISS should have been about twice as big as the disk of Saturn, yet they’re the same size in the video.
ISS is far brighter than Saturn, but they appear equally well-exposed.
Saturn should have been grainy looking, noisy, due to the very short exposure.
At the time Wessel claimed to have taken the video, the Sun had just risen. The sky should have been very bright, and Saturn would have been extremely low contrast, almost washed out by the bright sky. Saturn was also very low in the sky, and atmospheric distortion should have made it look very fuzzy.

It was very cloudy that morning at the location Wessel claims to have taken the video.
I could list many more issues; most are pretty technical and circumstantial, but it’s a long list.

Image

I sent Wessel an email asking him some specific questions, but I did not hear back. Not long after that, he removed the entry about the video from his site and Facebook, and removed the video from YouTube (which is why I didn’t embed it in this post). He also posted to an astrophotography forum, saying the image was a composite, but that doesn’t jibe with the claims he made earlier, which purport it to depict the actual event.

I don’t know what Wessel’s motivations are, and I won’t speculate. I will note that others are looking at some of his previous work and calling foul on that as well. Update, Jan. 26, 2016: Wessel has posted in the APOD message board apologizing for what he did.

But I’m writing about this because I think it’s important to note that it’s easy to get fooled. Software is so good that stuff like this can be created pretty easily, and it can be good enough to fool people passingly familiar with astrophotography, at least at first (though generally not for long, as we’ve seen here). But for people who don’t know much about it, this kind of stuff gets believed, and passed around social media rapidly.

That bugs me for a couple of reasons. One is simply about the nature of truth: People shouldn’t create fakes and then claim they’re real, and if they do then it should be called out. But more, it diminishes the actual photographs, the actual videos, and the very very hard work astrophotographers put into their craft.

For me, I love to share the joy and wonder of the Universe, and when artwork or fakes or computer simulations get passed around as the real thing, it diminishes what’s really going on around us. I prefer to appreciate things as they are.

A lot of fake astrophotographs get shared on social media (especially by those spammy Twitter feeds with handles like SciencePorn and UberFacts, and usually with no links or credit to the original creator). I know a lot of people love seeing these pictures, but I think it’s important to separate fact from fiction. The Universe is actually and truly a stupendously gorgeous and astonishing thing all on its own. We can appreciate artwork depicting it, but we should also understand what’s real and what isn’t.
And here is the link to Mr. Julian Wessel's own website, where he unashamedly keeps boasting about his alleged "stunning ISS imagery":
http://jwastronomy.com/news/ISS-transit ... of-Jupiter
NotRappaport
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Re: Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

Unread post by NotRappaport »

simonshack » December 2nd, 2017, 11:28 am wrote: Most amusingly, as I looked today into another self-proclaimed "ace ISS photographer" named Julian Wessel, I found that he has already been exposed as a fraud by none other than ...Phil Plait! (i.e. perhaps the most prominent NASA-shilling personnages to be found on the internet).
Actually it wasn't Phil Plait who exposed the Julian Wessel clown as the fraud he is - it was the amateur astronomy community who quickly began to realize it was fake within hours of it being posted on APOD back in 2016.

It was posted at 5:12 am and by 5:40 pm some observers were beginning to call it out. By the next day it was being explicitly called a fake, and by the end of the weekend (image was posted on a Friday) the hoaxer's reputation was completely ruined.

Read through the whole thread to see the reactions go from admiration, to skepticism, to denial, and finally acceptance and rage. http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=35581

Some highlights:
Amazing!!!
Considering how much easier this would have been to fake (not that a fake would get by the experts), I'm really impressed!
I'm thinking this photo might not be what it says it is.
There are a few points about this image that just don't ring quite right....
Neat composition, though,photoshopped Big time. No question about it.
I just overlaid one of the instances of the ISS in the photo onto several other ones with the opacity at about 50% to compare the differences (since they looked suspiciously identical), and indeed, all the instances I compared are identical. That could not happen in reality.
As an honest photographer, I get upset when people fake photos to get attention or sell more prints.
The video is too compressed to tell what's going on, but this image is indeed the same ISS copy and pasted over and over and not a stack of video frames. Even the ISS on top of Saturn is the same.
With the exposure times given it's impossible to get such an image of Saturn under these conditions. There is much more here which is wrong. I'm sorry, but I truly believe it's faked. Maybe he did observe the transit, but he did not image it for sure in this way.
C´mon . Astrophotography is ruled by optics. This is fake...
Exposure times are incompatible to get both objects nice together. No way to obtain such Saturn without multi-frame stacking, and then one is obliged to copy/paste of the ISS in front of it...which is well beyond (my) imaging deontology.
Fraud and deceit cannot be trivialized, otherwise it will happen again. And YES, ALL of his work should be suspect now, that is the PRICE YOU PAY FOR DECEIT....G, what is wrong with people?
Unfortunately, I believe that his Jupiter transit is faked as well.
Julian's 'mage' of the Saturn-Venus conjunction is an absolutely clear fake, on many lines of evidence.
I call this fraud. I expect his Jupiter-ISS image is entirely fake as well.
People, stop giving this guy a pass with sympathy! I will NEVER understand the compulsion to defend this guy.....he has brought a stain onto the astronomy world for all to see, especially non astronomers....and given more ammo to the anti-science crowd.....Folks there is damage that has been done to us, do not be swayed by misguided attempts to blow it off with excuse making....
Optics is a piece of science . Does not lie. You can blame Newton. Jupiter transit and the Venus - Saturn photos are fake too.
Some time after those comments is when Phil the Pill made his post (after others had already done all the work detailing exactly why it was a fraud).
molodyets
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Re: Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

Unread post by molodyets »

simonshack » December 2nd, 2017, 8:28 pm wrote:

At this point, after about 18 years since the first 'brick' of the "ISS" was (allegedly) laid in space, we MUST wonder why there is NO OFFICIAL, high-definition photographic record of, for instance, its very assembly phase: the "ISS", we are told, was progressively assembled piecemeal up in space - with bits & pieces & assorted modules carried up by NASA's Space Shuttle, and 'stitched' (or docked) together one by one - over several years. Yet, there exists NO photo/videographic record of what must have been one of the most spectacular 'building sites' of all times! To this day, NO OFFICIAL images of the "ISS" filmed from Earth have been released by NASA or any of the top observatories of this world.
Excellent points.
I am unable to find any video of the ribbon cutting ceremony, when the ISS was filled with air and the first astronots floated inside. That would have been shown on every television, in every nation. All the school children from every school would have been taken to an assembly to see it.

While I'm excited by new clues like this which expose the deceit, I'm more excited to learn what is actually taking place, i.e. what is/isn't up there.

Just as an aside, I've been very curious about the following for a long time. How can someone move their fingers against a pressure differential of 1 atm? I mean, where are the videos of astronots practicing or testing new space suits in a vacuum chamber on Earth? One can imagine the anxiety of having all the air sucked out of a chamber while waiting in a space suit to see if it works. I can imagine a commercial from company x, showing how the space suits made by company y and z explode, killing their test pilots while the test pilot from company x gives a thumbs up and a cheezy smile.
Altair
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Re: Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

Unread post by Altair »

Interesting... It also seems awkward that back in 1969 they managed to transmit live from the Moon, but they had lost the know-how by 1998; maybe the Apollo engineers had retired by then. But anyway, there was no problem in taking a bulky iMax camera in a high risk spacewalk for fixing the Hubble telescope. As it is so strange that the Skylab astronauts enjoyed much better showers and onboard amenities than their succesors in the ISS.

These are just a few among a lot of "space oddities"...
NotRappaport
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Re: Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

Unread post by NotRappaport »

simonshack » December 1st, 2017, 5:15 pm wrote:
NotRappaport wrote:The array edges (i.e. 1,2,3, and 4) are clearly NOT perpendicular to the sun, as they are brightly illuminated - and so should, obviously, the dishes be. In the Bianconi images, those little big dishes are simply NOT THERE. Get it?
Indeed I do "get it" - at a much more circumspect level that you are describing. You seemed to be keen on showing images in which the faces of the dishes are lit, so that is what I presumed you meant, but now that you clarify the edges, let's have a good look at that.

Image
Notice the dishes are mostly dark, with the only reflection coming off the periphery.

Looking at the full-size Bianconi images - https://www.astrobin.com/full/299443/0/ ... &real=&mod - If we zoom in on the same area of the array on the left-most image, we can see it is actually quite pixelated:
Image
The width of that zoom is only 24 pixels. Details as narrow as the edge of that rotator dish would be lost in the pixel size of the Bianconi image just like the grid pattern of the array is lost in it. We can see some lightness, so something is there, but it isn't big enough to fit into a full pixel and is probably washed out by the brightness of the array edge (just like the part of the array face immediately adjacent to the edge is washed out).

To illustrate:
Image
We could also increase the contrast and lower the brightness to more closely match the levels in the Bianconi image, but I don't think that's necessary to illustrate the main point. There is clearly SOMETHING there between the arrays (it is not total blackness), but the resolution is not high enough to actually resolve it.

Does this prove the Bianconi image is legitimate? Of course not. All it does is show that the near-absense of small details attributable to image resolution is not a convincing argument that it is fake.
simonshack
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Re: Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

Unread post by simonshack »

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Dear NotRap,

Thanks for the link to that thread on asterisk.APOD(dot)com ( a forum hosted by NASA ). It was an interesting and entertaining read. Fraudsters are everywhere, see?

So what's your final take on Bianconi's "ISS" imagery? Is it legit? A "yes" or "no" answer will suffice. Of course, more profound comments of yours will be a bonus.

Image

Seems like some nasty meteorites have crashed into the E and F sections of the "ISS" radiators...

Rest assured, dear Notrap, that no paranoia is to be found in my soul : if your personal verdict is *I think it's legit!*, my ego won't be butthurt - nor is there any hostility on my part only for trying to comprehend your stance on this. Just share your thoughts with us, will you please? My stance is the following: the Bianconi images were crafted using a poorly-maintained chocolate-scale-model of the "ISS". To be sure, Bianconi is a regular contributor to NASA's very own... "APOD" website (Astronomical Picture Of the Day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomy ... of_the_Day )

Btw, here's an astronomy webiste that applauds - in standing ovation - Bianconi's "amazing ISS imagery": https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/5807 ... csecpixel/

In short, my personal opinion is that we now can put a question mark over ANY of the handful of HIGH_DEFINITION IMAGES of the "Thing" available on the internets - and supposedly captured from Earth. The reality is that we, the general public, can only hope to capture extremely fuzzy & grainy, "shapeshifting" and erratically-colored pictures of it (much like your own).

In a previous post of yours, dear Notrap, you wrote the following sentence:
NotRappaport wrote:I'm not really sure what the paranoia is about and I've already said multiple times in this thread that the thing needs fuel and fires its engines to maintain the altitude, but for some reason you ignore that.
So let's see: are you suggesting that the "ISS" is an actual aircraft/spacecraft that's been flying around the world at 400 km of altitude for the last 18 years at a velocity of about 22 X the speed of sound - with engines that require to be periodically replenished with fuel to sustain fires in order to maintain its 400 km altitude? Hmm ... sounds pretty dubious to me - to put it mildly.

I'm only curious, you know - curious about your views & opinions. The problem I have with the "ISS" being an actual / physical aircraft/spacecraft is that it would still be submitted to the constant rain of meteor showers which are undeniable recurrences that we can all witness here on Earth. We have all seen meteors ("falling stars") entering our atmosphere and burning up - at about 50-100 km of altitude. Yet the ones we see are only the very largest ones - whereas thousands of smaller objects plunge (and dissolve) into our atmosphere every single day. Each and every one of the latter would be a deadly threat to any aircraft cruising at 400 km of altitude. Yet, in these last 18 years, NONE would have smashed into the "ISS"? Wow.

Unless NASA has invented some kind of indestructible flying machine that can withstand meteor hits (and can revolve around Earth 15 times-per-day, for decades - no fuel needed), one may reasonably suspect that the speck of light flying over our heads (known as the "ISS") is something else than an actual aircraft.

More to follow.
NotRappaport
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Re: Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

Unread post by NotRappaport »

simonshack » December 3rd, 2017, 2:39 pm wrote: So what's your final take on Bianconi's "ISS" picture? Is it legit? A "yes or "no" answer will suffice. Of course, more profound comments of yours will be a bonus.
My opinion is it is probably legit. So I would say mostly yes. But since any picture at all has the potential to be fake, I cannot be totally certain.

In your picture, I've already given my take on A, B, C, D. For "E" and "F" we have to take into consideration that those flat panels are angled differently in an accordion-like way. So half are angled toward the sun and half are angled away from it.
simonshack » December 3rd, 2017, 2:39 pm wrote:In short, my personal opinion is that we now can put a question mark over ANY of the handful of HIGH_DEFINITION IMAGES of the "Thing" available on the internets - and supposedly captured from Earth.
That is fine, and I respect your opinion on the matter. Personally, I'm more inclined to look at it from the perspective of what is achievable given the equipment, number of image frames captured, and how great detail can be achieved using programs like autostakkert and registax.
simonshack » December 3rd, 2017, 2:39 pm wrote:The reality is that we, the general public, can only hope to capture extremely fuzzy & grainy, "shapeshifting" and erratically-colored pictures of it.
I think we can catch better images. There are better telescopes than my Meade Infinity 102mm and also more lightweight astrophotography webcams that can be attached instead of a bulky DSLR camera. But I, for one, will take more time to carefully set up my next photographing session and also see if I can achieve better focus.

These details might be boring, but the way I get the telescope in focus is to use the Moon. I aim the scope at the moon and look through the camera's viewfinder and adjust the telescope's focus until it looks sharp. An additional step that was unfortunately omitted from the 29-Nov session (I only had about 10 minutes to set everything up) is to use the camera's digital zoom to see if it still looks in good focus at 10x, and fine-tune it until it does. But this means I can only hope to get a good in-focus picture during a pass that occurs when the Moon is visible.

So for the next session I will take the time to fine-tune the focus, make sure the adapter is screwed together tightly ( :rolleyes: ), and also not worry about snapping pictures until it is closer to overhead. I'm also going to use a slightly faster shutter: 1/1250. I may also try to use an observing location where I can continue to take pictures as it goes East after passing overhead.
simonshack » December 3rd, 2017, 2:39 pm wrote:are you suggesting that the "ISS" is an actual aircraft/spacecraft that's been flying around the world at 400 km of altitude for the last 18 years at a velocity of about 22 X the speed of sound - with engines that require to be periodically replenished with fuel to sustain fires in order to maintain its 400 km altitude?
I don't buy into the Official story, all I can say with reasonable certainty is some sort of physical contraption that has the dimensions of the purported "ISS" is up there now and given its apparent motion and angular altitude for various observers it is indeed up around 400 km and moving at ~7.7 km/s. I don't think it is a "spacecraft" per se, as much as it is an empty metal contraption with engines and some electronic transponders.
simonshack » December 3rd, 2017, 2:39 pm wrote:The problem I have with the "ISS" being an actual / physical aircraft/spacecraft is that it would still be submitted to the constant rain of meteor showers which are undeniable recurrences that we can all witness here on Earth.
The question would be how often would one of those be expected to intersect with a moving football-field sized target? I know its a big target, but we would really need some way to reasonably quantify the rate that would occur. Looking at the night sky you can see meteor showers. But if you restrict your view to only one little area about 1/30th the angular size of the Moon, how long would you have to wait to see one cross that field of view?
simonshack » December 3rd, 2017, 2:39 pm wrote:We have all seen meteors ("falling stars") entering our atmosphere and burning up - at about 50-100 km of altitude. Yet the ones we see are only the very largest ones - whereas thousands of smaller objects plunge (and dissolve) into our atmosphere every single day. Each one of the latter would be a deadly threat to any aircraft cruising at 400 km of altitude. Yet, in these last 18 years, NONE would have smashed into the "ISS"?
I am sure many such things have smashed into it. But since I maintain it is 99% an empty husk - not pressurized or anything - there is no effect other than punctures far too small to be seen by any ground-based scope. Only if one hits an engine (a vastly smaller target) would there be problems and urgent repairs needed.

It's like you shoot a big empty bus with a rifle. Put a hole in the windows, put some holes through the side, the roof, the doors, etc. No problem - the bus still runs. Somebody looking at the bus from a few km away would think it looks fine. An unscrupulous used-bus salesman could hand you a pair of binoculars and say "look at that fine vehicle over yonder, looks just like the picture in my brochure.It's a party bus, filled with people, and clowns, and balloons. And you'll float, Georgie. You'll float.".

But up close - uh, oh.

The ISS is like the bus and NASA/ESA/Roscosmos is the used-bus salesman.
Only2perCent
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Re: Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

Unread post by Only2perCent »

Hi, everybody.

I would like to touch upon an aspect of the subject at hand, that I did not sift thoroughly through out the forum to check if someone had already pointed out.

It seems the very "weightlessness" of the ISS crew is a dead give-away of the Orbital Fakery. The gravitational situation on low-orbit space station would be mostly no different from that of a conventional plane flying at a lower altitude around the Earth ...

In spite of obscure nature of Gravity it definitely has a direction (cord with a weight attached) and a center (Australians are not falling off the earth).

Some time in the past, by mere word manipulation, the perps managed to trick our minds into believing that the "Orbiting" is the same as "Falling", thus introducing hypnotically flying bodies and objects to our TV screens. Meanwhile, "Orbiting" is synonymous to "Maintaining an altitude" or "Maintaining a distance from the center of gravity" (an engine propels the ship horizontally, while the gravity curves its course).

"Falling", which in our case is accompanied by "weightlessness", only occurs, when distance to the center of gravity diminishes at ever-increasing rate. An example of a falling would be an infamous toss of a coin by irresponsible tourist from the top of the State Empire building in New York that can cause a serious injury to a pedestrian on a street below.

(Have to run. Work. Pray I got it right.)
rusty
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Re: Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

Unread post by rusty »

Only2perCent » December 6th, 2017, 10:12 pm wrote: It seems the very "weightlessness" of the ISS crew is a dead give-away of the Orbital Fakery. The gravitational situation on low-orbit space station would be mostly no different from that of a conventional plane flying at a lower altitude around the Earth ...
The centrifugal force and the gravitational force cancel each other in this model, thus creating weightlessness. It's just like at the top point of a roller coaster looping. This applies to the contraption itself (that's why it's orbiting, at least in theory) as well as to anything contained within.

FYI, some years ago I wrote a simple program performing "discrete simulation" of two objects (a "planet" and a smaller object) in 2D. It only considers the gravitational effect of the planet on the object, which has a given mass and initial velocity (directional). The simulation simply calculates the new position and velocity of the object in little steps (configurable) by performing simple vector geometry. I could confirm, that using such a model an orbit is possible, but it needs a good amount of precision to achieve a perfectly circular orbit, it's much easier to create a more or less elliptical orbit. I later added the option of a simple atmosphere (optionally with rotation) in order to include the effect of atmospheric drag to the calculation (drag coefficient and size of the object must be provided). If anyone is interested in the Program (Windows .net), PM me. I was planning to do a web (JS, HTML) version but have not found the time yet.

Even more off topic...using this program I came up with an experiment that should be suited to provide confirmation (or the lack thereof) for earth's rotation, at least if performed often enough in different places. I don't think rotation has sufficiently been proven or disproven so far. The experiment is simple: Just throw some marbles down a well shaft or something similar (no air movement!), at least 150m deep (200m-300m would be ideal I guess). Record the deviation of the impact points from a plumb line. If earth rotates, there should be measurable deviation in the direction of roation as calculated by the simulation (something like 4cm at 200m depth at the equator, would need to look it up again), because the rotational speed at the top of the shaft is greater than at the bottom.
simonshack
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Re: Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

Unread post by simonshack »

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Dear forum readers and contributors,

In this post of mine over at our thread titled "Amateur astronomy: what can we see?"...

http://cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?p=2404952#p2404952

...I submit my current, working hypothesis as to how the speck of light traversing our skies (known as the "I$$") might be simulated.
bongostaple
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Re: Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

Unread post by bongostaple »

Just a few thoughts I had on the ISS, I have read the recent posts and regardless of the fannying about with measurements and angles and telescopes, I think that's a dead-end.

All these 'amazing' pictures of the ISS taken by amateur astronomers may or may not be real. The thing is, whilst the amateurs draw our attention to their amateur status, they also draw attention to the professionals.

If I were NASA and had spent vast sums of cash spurting a 'space station' up there, I would, amongst other things, use my position and huge budget to take the best possible photographs of the ISS from the ground.

NASA almost certainly has access to the very best equipment and facilities in the world, and they have gone to the trouble of publishing fly-past data for the general public, so it's not as if they wouldn't know where and when the thing was.

So, why have NASA not published any photographs of the ISS taken from the ground? Surely they would best the amateurs in this task. NASA are fond enough of publishing photos of the ISS taken from fairly close by other orbiting spacecraft.

So, why wouldn't NASA take and publish ground-acquired imagery? I'll tell you why - because they can't take photographs of something that is not real.

Unlike the 'from nearby in orbit' pictures, which none of us can try out for ourselves, photos taken from the ground would have to be better than the amateur efforts. But that would only provide amateurs with more information to improve their own photos.

Another thought - NASA do publish photos purporting to be of the ISS taken from Earth; but they do so via 'amateurs', which means almost any amount of inconsistency can be presented without having to explain why the pictures are so shit.

And that thing about the engines? Apparently the value of g at the ISS orbit height is about half that. Also apparently, the ISS crew experience zero gravity because they are 'in free fall'.

The thing is, whilst they claim to 'fire the engines' to adjust the orbit and not leave it to decay, this is done many days apart. If the 0.5g figure is constant, then at times when engines are not firing, the ISS and everything in it should be experiencing about 0.5g. The only way to counter the 0.5g is by having a constant force applied perpendicular to the Earth's gravity.

NASA state that the ISS orbit constantly decays - so that means there is some experienced gravity on board, yes?

Apologies if that sounds a bit jumbled. I thought it might be worth posting this.
NotRappaport
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Re: Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

Unread post by NotRappaport »

The color effects in my photographs arise from chromatic aberration. This is quite easy to show by comparing the aberration in each image to the location within the camera frame.

Please study and comprehend the illustration below. The top part of the image shows the 12 pictures I previously posted, with each one numbered for reference. The bottom part shows exactly where in the camera frame each of those ISS images were located.
Image
The aberration is 100% consistent with the distance from the middle of the frame, and the blue fringe was always toward the outside edge of the frame while the red fringe always toward the center. Only those rare images where the ISS was nearer to the middle of the frame do we see almost no chromatic aberration.

Far from being "erratic", the degree and direction of the chromatic effect correlates exactly to the object's location within the frame. This means it is not an attribute of the object, but is instead an artefact of the optics involved. If Jupiter or Saturn were high enough above the horizon after dark I would take pictures of them and the same chromatic aberration effect would be present (minus the motion blur).

This is a known issue with refractor telescopes (unless one is using a very expensive apochromatic refractor - which I'm not), so it remains to be seen how much of an improvement I can get when I next attempt to photograph it. My best chance is simply luck in getting it in the center of the frame.
molodyets
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Re: Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

Unread post by molodyets »

bongostaple » December 7th, 2017, 7:34 pm wrote: Another thought - NASA do publish photos purporting to be of the ISS taken from Earth; but they do so via 'amateurs', which means almost any amount of inconsistency can be presented without having to explain why the pictures are so shit.

And that thing about the engines? Apparently the value of g at the ISS orbit height is about half that. Also apparently, the ISS crew experience zero gravity because they are 'in free fall'.

The thing is, whilst they claim to 'fire the engines' to adjust the orbit and not leave it to decay, this is done many days apart. If the 0.5g figure is constant, then at times when engines are not firing, the ISS and everything in it should be experiencing about 0.5g. The only way to counter the 0.5g is by having a constant force applied perpendicular to the Earth's gravity.

NASA state that the ISS orbit constantly decays - so that means there is some experienced gravity on board, yes?
0.5g for the gravity at the ISS altitude (250miles) seems too small. I was taught that the gravity field strength is inversely proportional to the distance from the center of the Earth. So according to that, the gravity field strength at the ISS altitude (radius of Earth ~ 3900miles): g*(3900miles)^2/(3900 miles + 250)^2 = 0.88g.

Good points about the small amount of gravity they would feel due to orbit decay and the reasons for why NASA doesn't provide any pictures of the ISS. I wonder if everyone on cluesforum went to their nearest observatory and put in a request to photograph the ISS, if they might try it.
simonshack
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Re: Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

Unread post by simonshack »

*
An interesting read:

"My First Try at Photographing the International Space Station"
2017/08/07 BY SASAJEWUN
https://pineriverobservatory.wordpress. ... e-station/

Image

The speck of light known as the "ISS" is no more than ... a speck of light. Beware of ALL images showing the "ISS" (allegedly captured from Earth) in any sharp detail.
Only2perCent
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Re: Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

Unread post by Only2perCent »

rusty » December 7th, 2017, 6:54 pm wrote:
Only2perCent » December 6th, 2017, 10:12 pm wrote: It seems the very "weightlessness" of the ISS crew is a dead give-away of the Orbital Fakery. The gravitational situation on low-orbit space station would be mostly no different from that of a conventional plane flying at a lower altitude around the Earth ...
The centrifugal force and the gravitational force cancel each other in this model, thus creating weightlessness. It's just like at the top point of a roller coaster looping. This applies to the contraption itself (that's why it's orbiting, at least in theory) as well as to anything contained within."
Flawed reasoning. I wonder, why nobody objected. I was trying to appeal to one's intuition in order to avoid using formulas and numbers. Oh, well ...

New Law of Physics: B)

Weightlessness occurs only, when distance to the center of gravity diminishes with exact acceleration of free fall. Period.

Orbiting is not it! Now, let's entangle ourselves in confusion of the word games ... :D

***

The thing that "cancels out" a rider's flying off the roller coaster is a shoulder harness. The "centrifugal force" on up-curve is greater than "gravitational force", so it lifts the rider above the seat. It is only, when the lifted up rider starts falling back to the seat, the "weightlessness" occurs. Remember too, that for the weightlessness to occur the exact acceleration of free fall (ever-increasing speed of the object moving towards the center of gravity) must be present. :rolleyes:

Now, the "centrifugal force" itself also requires disambiguation. It is all-too-familiar inertia, tendency of moving objects to continue in straight line. Back to empirical reasoning, for a heavier father the shoulder harness will have to work harder, than for a little child. Meaning, the centrifugal forces are not equal for objects of different mass.

Therefore, it is easier for gravity to curve the trajectory of fast moving asstroNot, than to do the same for much heavier spaceship. Due to this difference, gravity instant and all-permeable, asstroNot's body inside the ship will have weight and should be able to stand or walk, though with lesser stress to the knees, on whatever side inside the hull, that is closer to the center of gravity at the moment. Meanwhile, the coordinates of the center of gravity itself for the station would constantly change depending on proximity to the Moon (on Earth, that phenomenon is known as high tide - low tide.) Imagine that!

Oh, by the way, the Moon also orbits the Earth and the "canceling out" should take place there, as well. Where is the "weightlessness" here? Conclusion - weightlessness has nothing to do with the "cancellation", only with "falling" (in relative terms).

***
And then, we stumble upon another problem with this trick imagery - rotation ... :wacko:
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