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This is a classic example of a simple idea that no one had ever done before. The execution was complex, of course, and Andrew McCarthy is one of the most skille

This is a classic example of a simple idea that no one had ever done before. The execution was complex, of course, and Andrew McCarthy is one of the most skilled astrophotographers. But once you get the idea, a number of people could have done it--but no one ever did. Makes you wonder what other similar ideas are out there! You can bet McCarthy is already thinking some. p.s.: My brush with celebrity is that I saw an Andrew McCarthy post on Quora when he was first getting started with astrophotography and gave him a few tips. Always important to remember that everyone was a beginner at one point: https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-pro-tips-for-astrophotography-How-would-one-photograph-Andromeda/answer/Andrew-McCarthy-18?comment_id=75140208&comment_type=2 https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-pro-tips-for-astrophotog...

mjamil 11mo ago
Your advice there is really valuable. Thanks for providing it. I've always wondered how to post-process my night images, and this is a really good guide for that.
- GMoromisato 11mo ago
  Glad it helped! I definitely encourage you to continue practicing post-processing. There is a lot of magic there, and it's fun too.
  - pdpi 11mo ago
    Love that technique with splitting B&W and colour, doing processing on B&W, then recombining. It's incredibly obvious in hindsight, especially with how common it is in digital art to draw in B&W and colour "in post". A fun little egg of Columbus that I'll be having some fun with over the holidays. Thanks for the link!
nullhole 11mo ago
I had an idea for survey planes once. During calibration, they fly grid patterns, basically like a hashmark (#), to get overlapping data for comparison. Doing that kind of flight at night (makes sense for lidar! not so much for photo..), against a clear sky with at least some stars, and stacking the resulting photos, would give you a grid pattern of green/red/white aircraft running lights in front of the heavens.
- pmontra 11mo ago
  I happen to live at the crossing of two major flight lines, E-W and N-S, so I might actually attempt to do that. Maybe a lot of 1 tenth exposures could be enough. Trial and errors to get started, as usual.
- mxfh 11mo ago
  The overlapping pattern is! the flight pattern. The overlap is not some calibration artifact, it is the product for any sort of stereo evaluation.
  - nullhole 11mo ago
    That is the flight pattern used on calibration flights, which are used to generate the internal/external calibration values for the camera / laser installation. Standard wide area ortho photo collection can be done with a series of parallel lines, as long as there's enough forelap/sidelap between photos. Same for standard wide area lidar collection.
Forgeties79 11mo ago
What a fantastic little story ha I love this. I need to get back out and do some astrophotography myself… not that I’m nearly as good as either of you (even 7 years ago lol)
dylan604 11mo ago
> Makes you wonder what other similar ideas are out there! There are examples of planes silhouetting the sun or moon. There are examples of the ISS. There are examples of planets (Mercury/Venus) crossing the sun, not the moon (obviously). I think someone else mentioned rockets being captured too. People have also done similar with the moons of other planets. And of course that's how exoplanets have been discovered by looking the effects of a planet crossing between our line of sight of its host star.
- schiffern 11mo ago
  FYI some of those amazing shots were also taken by Andrew McCarthy. https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1611128761776492544/ https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1611128761776492544/ https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1479541092693381120/ https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1479541092693381120/ https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1837219848478412935/ https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1837219848478412935/ https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1968658340679921925/ https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1968658340679921925/
  - dylan604 11mo ago
    https://www.planetary.org/space-images/the-iss-and-the-moon https://www.planetary.org/space-images/the-iss-and-the-moon https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Station_Moon_transit.jpg https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Statio... https://www.universetoday.com/articles/spectacular-image-showcases-space-station-transiting-the-sun-with-9-member-crew https://www.universetoday.com/articles/spectacular-image-sho... Just so we don't all think one person is the only one to do this
    - pests 11mo ago
      I mean kinda? This thread is about a skydiver. That's a lot less consistent than the orbit of the ISS or some other satellite.
      - dylan604 11mo ago
ecoled_ame 11mo ago
indeed!
ChrisMarshallNY 11mo ago
> a number of people could have done it--but no one ever did My personal definition of "genius," is someone who sees things from a different angle, and can express it in terms we can implement. It's not doing well on IQ tests; It's that ability to think "outside the box," and, crucially, to express that vision in terms that us normies can use.
- jeswin 11mo ago
  There are all types of geniuses. By confining its definition to selected variants of "outside the box", you've defined a new box in a different coordinate system.
  - fy20 11mo ago
    I somewhat agree that this isn't the only definition of genius, but this is a pretty important one. If you look back at the most successful scientists, they were not just mad scientists with grand ideas, they were also able to explain their ideas in ways that other people could understand and believe it's correct science. Turning that back to HN. You may have an amazing startup idea, but you can't do it alone. You need to convince people to join your team, investors to give you funding and customers to buy your product. Yes, even scientists need to be good in sales.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 11mo ago
    Well … I’m not a genius. I always did well in IQ tests, but I tend to look at things the way most folks do.
- Lio 11mo ago
  I remember Damien Hirst's response to people saying that anyone could have created his "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living"[1]. He'd simply respond with "But you didn't, did you?". I think that Hirst had a point. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physical_Impossibility_of_Death_in_the_Mind_of_Someone_Living https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physical_Impossibility_of_...

mjamil 11mo ago

Your advice there is really valuable. Thanks for providing it. I've always wondered how to post-process my night images, and this is a really good guide for that.

GMoromisato 11mo ago
Glad it helped! I definitely encourage you to continue practicing post-processing. There is a lot of magic there, and it's fun too.
- pdpi 11mo ago
  Love that technique with splitting B&W and colour, doing processing on B&W, then recombining. It's incredibly obvious in hindsight, especially with how common it is in digital art to draw in B&W and colour "in post". A fun little egg of Columbus that I'll be having some fun with over the holidays. Thanks for the link!

nullhole 11mo ago

I had an idea for survey planes once. During calibration, they fly grid patterns, basically like a hashmark (#), to get overlapping data for comparison. Doing that kind of flight at night (makes sense for lidar! not so much for photo..), against a clear sky with at least some stars, and stacking the resulting photos, would give you a grid pattern of green/red/white aircraft running lights in front of the heavens.

pmontra 11mo ago
I happen to live at the crossing of two major flight lines, E-W and N-S, so I might actually attempt to do that. Maybe a lot of 1 tenth exposures could be enough. Trial and errors to get started, as usual.
mxfh 11mo ago
The overlapping pattern is! the flight pattern. The overlap is not some calibration artifact, it is the product for any sort of stereo evaluation.
- nullhole 11mo ago
  That is the flight pattern used on calibration flights, which are used to generate the internal/external calibration values for the camera / laser installation. Standard wide area ortho photo collection can be done with a series of parallel lines, as long as there's enough forelap/sidelap between photos. Same for standard wide area lidar collection.

Forgeties79 11mo ago

What a fantastic little story ha I love this. I need to get back out and do some astrophotography myself… not that I’m nearly as good as either of you (even 7 years ago lol)

dylan604 11mo ago

> Makes you wonder what other similar ideas are out there! There are examples of planes silhouetting the sun or moon. There are examples of the ISS. There are examples of planets (Mercury/Venus) crossing the sun, not the moon (obviously). I think someone else mentioned rockets being captured too. People have also done similar with the moons of other planets. And of course that's how exoplanets have been discovered by looking the effects of a planet crossing between our line of sight of its host star.

schiffern 11mo ago
FYI some of those amazing shots were also taken by Andrew McCarthy. https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1611128761776492544/ https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1611128761776492544/ https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1479541092693381120/ https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1479541092693381120/ https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1837219848478412935/ https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1837219848478412935/ https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1968658340679921925/ https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1968658340679921925/
- dylan604 11mo ago
  https://www.planetary.org/space-images/the-iss-and-the-moon https://www.planetary.org/space-images/the-iss-and-the-moon https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Station_Moon_transit.jpg https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Statio... https://www.universetoday.com/articles/spectacular-image-showcases-space-station-transiting-the-sun-with-9-member-crew https://www.universetoday.com/articles/spectacular-image-sho... Just so we don't all think one person is the only one to do this
  - pests 11mo ago
    I mean kinda? This thread is about a skydiver. That's a lot less consistent than the orbit of the ISS or some other satellite.
    - dylan604 11mo ago

ecoled_ame 11mo ago

indeed!

ChrisMarshallNY 11mo ago

> a number of people could have done it--but no one ever did My personal definition of "genius," is someone who sees things from a different angle, and can express it in terms we can implement. It's not doing well on IQ tests; It's that ability to think "outside the box," and, crucially, to express that vision in terms that us normies can use.

jeswin 11mo ago
There are all types of geniuses. By confining its definition to selected variants of "outside the box", you've defined a new box in a different coordinate system.
- fy20 11mo ago
  I somewhat agree that this isn't the only definition of genius, but this is a pretty important one. If you look back at the most successful scientists, they were not just mad scientists with grand ideas, they were also able to explain their ideas in ways that other people could understand and believe it's correct science. Turning that back to HN. You may have an amazing startup idea, but you can't do it alone. You need to convince people to join your team, investors to give you funding and customers to buy your product. Yes, even scientists need to be good in sales.
- ChrisMarshallNY 11mo ago
  Well … I’m not a genius. I always did well in IQ tests, but I tend to look at things the way most folks do.
Lio 11mo ago
I remember Damien Hirst's response to people saying that anyone could have created his "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living"[1]. He'd simply respond with "But you didn't, did you?". I think that Hirst had a point. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physical_Impossibility_of_Death_in_the_Mind_of_Someone_Living https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physical_Impossibility_of_...