Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 390 posts

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#81

Post by bragr »

mrcode007 wrote: post #76
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #9

Interesting how the three separate R/G/B images are taken independently a few ~seconds~ milliseconds apart, with a different color filter placed over the image sensor. I assume this is to maximize resolution, since no Bayer interpolation [0] is needed to demosaic the output of a traditional image sensor that integrates the color filters onto the sensor pixels themselves. As these satellites are not intended to photog…

Different wave lengths travel at different speeds through glass and air and focus differently even on the same lens when color photos are taken in the single frame. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_aberration

True but if that were the case here it would also likely affect the ground.

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#82

Post by bee_rider »

tener wrote: post #31
bee_rider wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if imaging from above could actually be a threat for these planes. I mean -- stick cameras on all the SpaceX satellites and you've got an awful lot of eyeballs in LEO, right? Might at least be able to tell a ground based radar where to focus their search...

Pretty sure you need powerful lenses to do useful things though, but who knows, maybe this is workable with some image processing of multiple satellite feeds?

Yeah, I'm sure somebody is already doing good work on whatever the photographic equivalent of Synthetic Aperture Radar is. They should call it Synthetic Lens Aperture Photography, so they could use SLAP as the acronym (the most important property of a research topic is of course the ability to come up with good titles).

For example:

SLAP BASS: a Synthetic Lens Aperture Photography, Bandwidth Augmenting Sensor Suite

Does it make technical sense? I have no idea. But it sounds cool!

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#84

Post by coolspot »

dougSF70 wrote: post #75

If you look at the photo of the B-2 on the ground I think you can make our the 14 hangars where they would park them overnight (I heard street crime is pretty hot on Whitman AFB) to the right of the staging area.

They smash-and-grab thermonuclear bombs all the time over there.

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#85

Post by jmacd »

To many of us these are technological marvels. Defenders of our lifestyle and enabler of our ambitions and dreams.

To many people in the world these are insidious death machines that lurk unimpeded and can rain down death on entire villages. The embodiment of evil.

Without peeling back the veneer of right and wrong, I think it's worth pausing to both appreciate the wonder of the machine and to consider the implications of its existence.

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#86

Post by c54 »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #9

Interesting how the three separate R/G/B images are taken independently a few ~seconds~ milliseconds apart, with a different color filter placed over the image sensor. I assume this is to maximize resolution, since no Bayer interpolation [0] is needed to demosaic the output of a traditional image sensor that integrates the color filters onto the sensor pixels themselves. As these satellites are not intended to photog…

Your guess is exactly right, this type of imaging is pretty common with satellite imaging for the reasons you mentioned. Scott Manley talks about it in this video iirc https://youtu.be/Wah1DbFVFiY

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#88

Post by trhway »

anormalpapier wrote: post #2

Not so stealth eh?

you can see the engine exhaust plums, and that would be pretty bright in IR. Very hard to hide burning that much fuel. If you magnify a bit you also can see that the engine exists are pretty bright even in visible wavelength (though that isn't visible from the below and front of the plane).

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#90

Post by ericmay »

Bit of an aside but I like that the B-2 Spirit has different "Spirit of..." for each aircraft. There are Spirit of New York, Spirit of Ohio, etc. [1]

Also if you're ever in Ohio and you're an aviation or engineering geek, or have kids, or are looking for something to do the USAF Museum is pretty cool! [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-2_Spirit

[2] https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/

Post reply on HN