5 ms·

Vega is pointed out because in relation to the galaxy in the picture it allows the author to locate where Polaris should be (above the frame). Polaris being abo

Vega is pointed out because in relation to the galaxy in the picture it allows the author to locate where Polaris should be (above the frame). Polaris being above the frame is a problem because it is never above the horizon where the photograph is supposed to have been taken.

leereeves 7y ago
I get that, but if that bright dot isn't Vega, then the argument falls apart. How do we know it's Vega?
- michelpp 7y ago
  From the article "The night sky offers an unlimited source of markers (e.g. stars, constellations, Milky Way, etc.) that never lie about the time of year and location in the world you shot a night sky picture from." The key word is unlimited. Vega is correctly identified by the many stars around it that are in turn correctly identified by the many professional astronomers and astro-photographers discussing these very pictures. The photo mentions polaris to point out the absurdity of the north star being in the sky of a picture taken in the southern hemisphere.
  - leereeves 7y ago
    That's an argument from authority without even establishing the authority in question. Evidence, please. Edit: Well, that's a lot of downvotes. So you all see the pattern? Why not point it out? Or are you merely accepting this blog post without question?
    - FPGAhacker 7y ago
      So you don't believe Vega can be identified by the pattern of star visible around it?
      - leereeves 7y ago
        I believe that if it's correct, the pattern can easily be pointed out and verified. But a mere claim without evidence, I question.
        metaphor 7y ago
        The pattern was clearly pointed out in the article: > You can perhaps recognize NGC 7000 (North American, Pelican nebulae, Sadr region)... Keyword: perhaps...everything else was redundant prose.
    - Thorrez 7y ago
      From the article: >About the author: Adrien Mauduit is a professional astrophotographer and cinematographer and the CEO and owner of Night Lights Films. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. Mauduit also does science education, communication, and public outreach for Project PoSSUM. You can find more of Mauduit’s work Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
      - leereeves 7y ago
        From the comment I replied to: > the many professional astronomers and astro-photographers discussing these very pictures That's what I was talking about. Even if we're just talking about the author, and you accept those qualifications, it's still an argument from authority without evidence.
        inflatableDodo 7y ago
        With light pollution, northern hemisphere; https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/Vega_SummerTriangle_DanielJohnson.jpg https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/Vega_SummerTriangl... from here - https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-resources/stargazing-basics/learn-the-sky/meet-vega-the-jewel-of-the-lyre/ https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-resources/stargazi... Notice the four tiny stars below Vega and the clear pattern of stars above and to the left of it. Now look at the photo that is being questioned; https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2019/05/image2-800x541.jpeg https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2019/05/image2-800x541.... Same four dots below, same pattern of stars above and to the left, so not just same pattern but same orientation of pattern. And a lot more other visible stars as there is less light pollution and probably a much longer exposure. That took me a lot less time than you have spent crafting comments complaining about lack of actual evidence.
        leereeves 7y ago
        Someone else pointed it out already, but thank you as well. But I'm not going to apologize for expecting more evidence in a blog post accusing someone of fraud.
    - teraflop 7y ago
      Are you actually in doubt that the star in question is Vega, or do you believe that the author knows what they're talking about but just think it would be an amusing thing to start an argument over? I'm hoping it's the former. Here is a photo of the so-called "summer triangle" consisting of the bright stars Vega, Altair and Deneb: https://astrobackyard.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/the-summer-triangle-asterism.jpg https://astrobackyard.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/the-sum... And here is an animation showing that same photo, roughly superimposed on the photo in question: https://i.imgur.com/MM37zt3.gif https://i.imgur.com/MM37zt3.gif (EDIT: Imgur seems to be redirecting to a badly converted version of this animation, try copy-and-pasting the link into the address bar.) Even without being able to identify individual matching stars, you can clearly see that the shape of the stars and dust lanes in the Milky Way are the same.
      - leereeves 7y ago
        Thanks for that, that's helpful. That's pretty damning evidence, and I can't find anything that might look similar from Namibia in Stellarium. Since you mentioned my motives, I'll address that: I'm just tired of the Internet falsely accusing people and want to see more evidence before the pitchforks come out. But in this case, I'm convinced.
        teraflop 7y ago
        Fair enough. For my part, I'm tired of the internet (and HN in particular) being quick to dismiss the opinions of actual experts in any given field for superficial reasons. Your original comment that started this thread strikes me as a good example of the so-called "middlebrow dismissal": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5072224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5072224 Yes, one shouldn't blindly accept the words of an authority. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to constantly demand that those authorities constantly back up every little thing they say, even on topics about which they are more knowledgeable than you are. That gets irritating really fast (which I suspect is why you got downvoted), and more importantly, it tends to derail more interesting and productive discussions.
        7y ago
    - coldtea 7y ago
      >Or are you merely accepting this blog post without question? We are accepting this blog post with knowledge of stars -- and knowing that it aligns with what the article says and not with what the photograph shows. Not everything has to be proven from first principles in all posts when many readers people already know the proof (and those that don't can look it up). To understand the downvotes, imagine an article on some class of algorithms, and someone writing X algorithm is "O(N^2)" and so is worse than Y which is "O(logN)" -- them somebody asking similar to your comment "This is an argument from authority, where's the proof that X is O(N^2)". If X is well known and established in all kinds of textbooks about algorithms, it's trivial to look up on the internet, or open a reference book, then there's absolutely no reason a random post should prove it's O-complexity again -- nor is "argument by authority" merely taking it for granted/as known.
- empath75 7y ago
  Well you can look at the picture and look at any star chart and compare them. It doesn’t take specialized knowledge to do this.
  - leereeves 7y ago
    I did. I found Vega in Stellarium. I see Polaris, the Milky Way, and the dippers in Stellarium. I don't see any pattern that matches the claim made by this blog post. But I'm no expert, so I'm asking for a clear demonstration of the evidence the author sees.
- nsilvestri 7y ago
  Services like http://nova.astrometry.net/ http://nova.astrometry.net/ provide celestial location data of any image of the night sky. Plug the image into it and check that it is indeed Vega.

leereeves 7y ago

I get that, but if that bright dot isn't Vega, then the argument falls apart. How do we know it's Vega?

michelpp 7y ago
From the article "The night sky offers an unlimited source of markers (e.g. stars, constellations, Milky Way, etc.) that never lie about the time of year and location in the world you shot a night sky picture from." The key word is unlimited. Vega is correctly identified by the many stars around it that are in turn correctly identified by the many professional astronomers and astro-photographers discussing these very pictures. The photo mentions polaris to point out the absurdity of the north star being in the sky of a picture taken in the southern hemisphere.
- leereeves 7y ago
  That's an argument from authority without even establishing the authority in question. Evidence, please. Edit: Well, that's a lot of downvotes. So you all see the pattern? Why not point it out? Or are you merely accepting this blog post without question?
  - FPGAhacker 7y ago
    So you don't believe Vega can be identified by the pattern of star visible around it?
    - leereeves 7y ago
      I believe that if it's correct, the pattern can easily be pointed out and verified. But a mere claim without evidence, I question.
      - metaphor 7y ago
        The pattern was clearly pointed out in the article: > You can perhaps recognize NGC 7000 (North American, Pelican nebulae, Sadr region)... Keyword: perhaps...everything else was redundant prose.
  - Thorrez 7y ago
    From the article: >About the author: Adrien Mauduit is a professional astrophotographer and cinematographer and the CEO and owner of Night Lights Films. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. Mauduit also does science education, communication, and public outreach for Project PoSSUM. You can find more of Mauduit’s work Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
    - leereeves 7y ago
      From the comment I replied to: > the many professional astronomers and astro-photographers discussing these very pictures That's what I was talking about. Even if we're just talking about the author, and you accept those qualifications, it's still an argument from authority without evidence.
      - inflatableDodo 7y ago
        With light pollution, northern hemisphere; https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/Vega_SummerTriangle_DanielJohnson.jpg https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/Vega_SummerTriangl... from here - https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-resources/stargazing-basics/learn-the-sky/meet-vega-the-jewel-of-the-lyre/ https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-resources/stargazi... Notice the four tiny stars below Vega and the clear pattern of stars above and to the left of it. Now look at the photo that is being questioned; https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2019/05/image2-800x541.jpeg https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2019/05/image2-800x541.... Same four dots below, same pattern of stars above and to the left, so not just same pattern but same orientation of pattern. And a lot more other visible stars as there is less light pollution and probably a much longer exposure. That took me a lot less time than you have spent crafting comments complaining about lack of actual evidence.
        leereeves 7y ago
        Someone else pointed it out already, but thank you as well. But I'm not going to apologize for expecting more evidence in a blog post accusing someone of fraud.
  - teraflop 7y ago
    Are you actually in doubt that the star in question is Vega, or do you believe that the author knows what they're talking about but just think it would be an amusing thing to start an argument over? I'm hoping it's the former. Here is a photo of the so-called "summer triangle" consisting of the bright stars Vega, Altair and Deneb: https://astrobackyard.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/the-summer-triangle-asterism.jpg https://astrobackyard.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/the-sum... And here is an animation showing that same photo, roughly superimposed on the photo in question: https://i.imgur.com/MM37zt3.gif https://i.imgur.com/MM37zt3.gif (EDIT: Imgur seems to be redirecting to a badly converted version of this animation, try copy-and-pasting the link into the address bar.) Even without being able to identify individual matching stars, you can clearly see that the shape of the stars and dust lanes in the Milky Way are the same.
    - leereeves 7y ago
      Thanks for that, that's helpful. That's pretty damning evidence, and I can't find anything that might look similar from Namibia in Stellarium. Since you mentioned my motives, I'll address that: I'm just tired of the Internet falsely accusing people and want to see more evidence before the pitchforks come out. But in this case, I'm convinced.
      - teraflop 7y ago
        Fair enough. For my part, I'm tired of the internet (and HN in particular) being quick to dismiss the opinions of actual experts in any given field for superficial reasons. Your original comment that started this thread strikes me as a good example of the so-called "middlebrow dismissal": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5072224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5072224 Yes, one shouldn't blindly accept the words of an authority. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to constantly demand that those authorities constantly back up every little thing they say, even on topics about which they are more knowledgeable than you are. That gets irritating really fast (which I suspect is why you got downvoted), and more importantly, it tends to derail more interesting and productive discussions.
        7y ago
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >Or are you merely accepting this blog post without question? We are accepting this blog post with knowledge of stars -- and knowing that it aligns with what the article says and not with what the photograph shows. Not everything has to be proven from first principles in all posts when many readers people already know the proof (and those that don't can look it up). To understand the downvotes, imagine an article on some class of algorithms, and someone writing X algorithm is "O(N^2)" and so is worse than Y which is "O(logN)" -- them somebody asking similar to your comment "This is an argument from authority, where's the proof that X is O(N^2)". If X is well known and established in all kinds of textbooks about algorithms, it's trivial to look up on the internet, or open a reference book, then there's absolutely no reason a random post should prove it's O-complexity again -- nor is "argument by authority" merely taking it for granted/as known.
empath75 7y ago
Well you can look at the picture and look at any star chart and compare them. It doesn’t take specialized knowledge to do this.
- leereeves 7y ago
  I did. I found Vega in Stellarium. I see Polaris, the Milky Way, and the dippers in Stellarium. I don't see any pattern that matches the claim made by this blog post. But I'm no expert, so I'm asking for a clear demonstration of the evidence the author sees.
nsilvestri 7y ago
Services like http://nova.astrometry.net/ http://nova.astrometry.net/ provide celestial location data of any image of the night sky. Plug the image into it and check that it is indeed Vega.