Plane or otherwise ? photo

Mountainsandh

Hello, just posted a thread in astronomy about this too, didn't quite know where to go. Took a pic at the Vee in Co Tipp today, and noticed afterwards a funny looking "plane" and trail.

The sun was above, behind clouds, not directly ahead of the pic though.

So here is the original pic :

plane (2) by mountainsandheather, on Flickr

And then when I tried to recover my blown out clouds with contrast, curves... this is what it comes out as :

dark plane by mountainsandheather, on Flickr
and

plane - Copy (2) by mountainsandheather, on Flickr

So, to your expert eyes, plane, or not ?

Hadn't noticed when I took the pic, and it's the only one taken, so I don't know if the trail stayed up there after it passed. Thanks !

edit : mods please delete if posting thing in 2 forums is not allowed, or if you find it not relevant here.

Photos can be enlarged in Flickr, click on pic itself, then on top right click the + /all sizes sign.

andy_g

looks like a meteor or sun glare option one goes better

moss.ie

heya, imho andy is probably correct, it looks a sun reflection on your lens, the end of the ''trail'' looks too large to have originated from an airplane, looks a bit like a rocket/orbiter launch trail but thats highly unlikely, it could be a meteor, but its back to the meterology buffs for an opinion on that one im afraid.

to rule out an aircraft, goto the following site, you can do a replay of aircraft movements for the time the pic was taken and move the map to your general location.

http://casperflights.com/eidw/

you could allways photoshop it out and carry on! might upset the conspiracy theorists tho!

Mountainsandh

Maybe someone got raptured by mistake and decided to beam themselves back down to Earth

Seriously though, I've had sun glare/flare on my photos before, and I don't think it can look like this. That sunglare might turn an aircraft shape into this maybe, but just a lens sunglare, wouldn't think so.

And I don't care about the pic, not a good one.

b318isp

It's not lens flare, but I'd be inclined to believe that when highlights are very overblown, it will easily distort the object causing it to lose its original shape.

Mountainsandh

b318isp you might well be right.

I checked and it was taken around 12.40, so the sun would have been not exactly above, but close enough.

moss.ie great link thanks, there was a BA flight passed over on the way towards Waterford direction, but I don't think the flight path would have brought it all the way down towards the Vee, unless they're allowed veer a fair bit out of their path, and I don't think the times quite matched, but I've to check again.

I've been trying to find pics of meteors by daylight but can't find any really they're all at night time, wonder if they would be that visible.

castie

Area 51 doing some covert surveillance ahead of Obama's visit!

The truth is out there!!!!!

tippilot

Hi Mountainsandh,

Sure doesn't look like lens flare to me. Astronomy Ireland would be a good next port of call for you. You may have captured a meteorite on camera.

smelltheglove

Did you shoot in RAW or jpeg? I'd love to see if some details at all can be brought back through raw

Mountainsandh

ah Dammit Smelltheglove, I shoot JPEG, only tried RAW once and don't have anything to convert.

The pic that all overblown is the original without anything touched (I think !) so if you feel you could do something with it processing wise you're welcome to try. To get the really dark and greyish photos I only messed around in the Windows Fix thing, haven't even tried to open it in Gimp.

smelltheglove

I dont really think it is flare at all tbh. Dont want to assume anything though until I zoom right in and see what the craic is with it. Have photoshop running stuff but will finish in a few and I will open it up then.

smelltheglove

I cant get anymore detail out of it but I seriously doubt it is lens flare. Lens flare usually seems closer to the lens in comparison to the objects in the distance and it often also has a pattern to it, this doesnt seem like it.

Have you asked in Astronomy? This looks like it is coming from behind the clouds in the distance so I dont know what is the story with shooting stars....

Mountainsandh

Thanks Smelltheglove, yes, I have a thread in Astronomy too. I am trying to recover files from the SD card, just in case there was another shot faced that way, but I don't think so, I think I chanced just the one and gave up what with the sun being on that side.

A colleague of mine today rightly pointed out that that direction and estimated distance would probably place the "thing" above the sea. This is taken from very near the lake up the Vee, facing towards the Melleray/Lismore/Cork side.