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I was one of the data points in that spike related to the Chinese balloon incident though that is not the first time I used sondehub. A couple years before that

I was one of the data points in that spike related to the Chinese balloon incident though that is not the first time I used sondehub. A couple years before that incident I found the site while trying to help someone understand what they were seeing in the sky near where they live. An old dopehead, friend-of-a-friend was paranoid that they were being surveilled by aliens in UFOs, something they could assure you had been happening since the 1970's. Not coincidentally I'm sure, that's when they were a young dopehead. While outwardly funny to most of us, it was a serious issue for them. To help them understand all the shiny things in the sky at night I assembled a list of tools that could help them rule out various terrestrial sources for the shiny things. Stellaris or Celestia could help them identify stars and constellations, even showing them what the sky should look like at their exact location so they could compare in real time. They could also use their digital camera (after instructions on how to take low light photos that show stars) to take photos and later compare those photos to stars and planets that would've been visible when the photo was taken. I pointed them at Flightradar24 and FlightAware for air traffic and recommended they get a license instead of the free version so they could track more things better. They weren't close to an active military base but using either or both of those could help rule out military air traffic when the pilots were flying and broadcasting ADS-B. Since many UFOs in the historical record were blamed on weather balloons I looked around for a way to find weather balloons visible in your area and that is when I found sondehub. The ability to see the balloon track was especially useful since I explained how objects at high altitudes could be visible even if they are hundreds of miles distant when you have a clear line of sight so the balloon doesn't need to be between them and the horizon. It only needed to be visible above the horizon and using the tools they could rule out quite a few things. Around the same time people were posting great photos of sprites associated with powerful thunderstorms well over the horizon so this helped them understand that shiny things in the sky are not necessarily close to them. I also used HeavensAbove to help them track known satellites and the ISS. Having them see the ISS cross the sky at their location a little after dark helped them understand why a bright light crossing the sky can quickly disappear once the concept of the earth's shadow was clear. It was nice and bright while sunlit and winked out as soon as it passed into shadow. I gave them links to astronomy sites so they could know when to expect meteor showers and other celestial phenomena. All in all, they got a nice collection of tools, freely available, that they could use to understand why there were sparkly, shiny things in their sky. I haven't yet had confirmation that any of those sparkly, shiny things could not be explained using those tools. Thanks for this link.

jsrcout 2mo ago
That's really going above and beyond. Hope it helped them.
- doodlebugging 2mo ago
  I believe that it did help. Prior to that I would get sets of photos forwarded a few times a year. There was never enough information or context with them to make any kind of reasonable identification. I decided to change the dynamic a bit by teaching them how to gather data that is useful in providing context for photos. In addition to the software tools I described I also helped them pick out a real telescope, binoculars with good low light performance, a digital camera that takes good photos in low light, etc. I walked them through all the things that a researcher would need to know so that they could determine whether it was swamp gas or something unusual and not explained by all the natural things that one can expect for that date and place. The next set of photos I got had GPS coords of observation location, arrows on google maps showing line of sight for each photo, photos of near-field showing cultural things that can be tied to maps and satellite views with the subject of the photo in view in the sky. A set of progressive zooms thru the digital camera so that one could see the cultural features and the subject in the same view but at zoomed resolution, progressive zooms to the full camera extent and then zooms taken through one side of binoculars using the digital camera and the same through the telescope. Everything had a ground truth location for the viewer, physical context including line of sight, elevation above horizon, time of day, you could infer weather, etc. Photo series like that allowed me to help them understand the changes in a star or planet as viewed from a single location. For example Sirius, the Dog Star in Canis Major has a high rotation rate. It rapidly flashes and really draws the eye as one of the brightest objects when it is visible. As it nears the horizon and the effects of the light passing through an increasingly thicker layer of shitty air act on the light it is seen to flash through the spectrum - red, green, yellow, blue, white, etc very rapidly. By having them spend the time at one location observing one known sparkly thing as it slowly moved toward the horizon they were able to learn things they had never thought about. I helped them understand how to measure time at night when all you have are shiny things in the sky or the moon. We had an opportunity to really cover a lot of ground. The person was and still is paranoid. That is a side effect of early use and a lifetime use of pot and the whole environment that was in place at the time - war on drugs, etc. Back then, dopeheads were paranoid about anyone they didn't know potentially being a narc. Trust of the unknown was near zero with that group. Though this person was paranoid they were not stupid. They're very bright but life had taken them on a path around a university education so a lot of the science-related things that are common knowledge to most were outside anything they had ever thought about. As it is today, I haven't heard from them in a good while. I'm pretty sure they have the tools and skills now to help them answer those questions for themselves in a satisfying way. I think they have less distrust of science than before so that is a big plus for me. Knowledge is power.

jsrcout 2mo ago

That's really going above and beyond. Hope it helped them.

doodlebugging 2mo ago
I believe that it did help. Prior to that I would get sets of photos forwarded a few times a year. There was never enough information or context with them to make any kind of reasonable identification. I decided to change the dynamic a bit by teaching them how to gather data that is useful in providing context for photos. In addition to the software tools I described I also helped them pick out a real telescope, binoculars with good low light performance, a digital camera that takes good photos in low light, etc. I walked them through all the things that a researcher would need to know so that they could determine whether it was swamp gas or something unusual and not explained by all the natural things that one can expect for that date and place. The next set of photos I got had GPS coords of observation location, arrows on google maps showing line of sight for each photo, photos of near-field showing cultural things that can be tied to maps and satellite views with the subject of the photo in view in the sky. A set of progressive zooms thru the digital camera so that one could see the cultural features and the subject in the same view but at zoomed resolution, progressive zooms to the full camera extent and then zooms taken through one side of binoculars using the digital camera and the same through the telescope. Everything had a ground truth location for the viewer, physical context including line of sight, elevation above horizon, time of day, you could infer weather, etc. Photo series like that allowed me to help them understand the changes in a star or planet as viewed from a single location. For example Sirius, the Dog Star in Canis Major has a high rotation rate. It rapidly flashes and really draws the eye as one of the brightest objects when it is visible. As it nears the horizon and the effects of the light passing through an increasingly thicker layer of shitty air act on the light it is seen to flash through the spectrum - red, green, yellow, blue, white, etc very rapidly. By having them spend the time at one location observing one known sparkly thing as it slowly moved toward the horizon they were able to learn things they had never thought about. I helped them understand how to measure time at night when all you have are shiny things in the sky or the moon. We had an opportunity to really cover a lot of ground. The person was and still is paranoid. That is a side effect of early use and a lifetime use of pot and the whole environment that was in place at the time - war on drugs, etc. Back then, dopeheads were paranoid about anyone they didn't know potentially being a narc. Trust of the unknown was near zero with that group. Though this person was paranoid they were not stupid. They're very bright but life had taken them on a path around a university education so a lot of the science-related things that are common knowledge to most were outside anything they had ever thought about. As it is today, I haven't heard from them in a good while. I'm pretty sure they have the tools and skills now to help them answer those questions for themselves in a satisfying way. I think they have less distrust of science than before so that is a big plus for me. Knowledge is power.