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Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

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Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#101

Post by bragr »

jcims wrote: post #79
ericbarrett wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely correct, but as the aircraft is much closer to the ground than the imaging satellite I disregarded it. Spherical cows and all that :) I'm sure a military analyst would do the calculations!

It actually works out to be pretty close. A satellite flying ~17k mph at 250 miles altitude would largely have the same angular displacement from the ground as a plane moving 400 mph at 31,000 feet. Most satellites fly in an easterly direction, so the question would ultimately be what the inclination of the orbit is relative to the direction of flight.

Most imaging satellites are in sun synchronous orbits so likely in this case moving north or south and slightly retrograde e.g. west.

I'd bet orbital motion is negligible here because the distortion seems to the eye to be entirely in the direction of the plane's apparent motion vector and I don't see any significant skew to that.

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#102

Post by IAmGraydon »

jerry1979 wrote: post #37
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…

Interesting. A search for those gradients could help find all fast moving objects in the satellite images.

Now that’s an interesting idea. Anyone care to spin this up?

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#103

Post by jeffbee »

CarVac wrote: post #63

The measured wingspan (using the Google Maps distance measure tool) is around 200 feet whereas the measured wingspan of a B-2 on the ground at nearby Whiteman AFB is the nominal 172 feet, so its altitude AGL is roughly 14% of the altitude of the camera plane that took the photo.

Good math. I don't know why everyone else is assuming this photo is from a spacecraft. Virtually all of the aerial images of America on Google Earth are taken with aircraft, not spacecraft.

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#105

Post by HideousKojima »

zelon88 wrote: post #80
ssnistfajen wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be disappointing for them to remove it for basically no reason, especially considering you can see a B-2 parked on the tarmac ( https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B043'29.9%22N+93%C2%... ) in the nearby Whiteman AFB. The B-2 was first flown 32 years ago. Its existence is neither covert or secret, but often used to do flybys at freaking football games where thousands of recording devices are present and act…

Correct, but don't misunderestimate the power of knowledge. Let's assume that some adversary is out there keeping track of these planes, and knows that they can scan Google maps for the RGB artifact by the engines to locate them reliably and programmatically. Now Google maps becomes a repository for information that adversary may use to validate other information. Maybe this confirms the schedule for some training ex…

Similar to how the president brings his own toilet when doing foreign visits so enemies can't analyze his poop to see what medicines he's taking or what medical conditions he has.

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#106

Post by djmips »

Jiocus wrote: post #70

Artist James Bridle calls them "Rainbow planes" and has used this in his art. Rainbow Plane 002: Kiev. October 29, 2014: https://booktwo.org/notebook/rainbow-plane-002-kiev/ Rainbow Planes: https://www.flickr.com/photos/stml/sets/72157637938061015/

Does anyone have a theory on why some photos have a rainbow plane and a solid white place offset?

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#107

Post by Koshkin »

skhr0680 wrote: post #47
goblin89 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there are ways to get superior (compared to Bayer) color images from conventional raw-capable monochrome digital cameras (like Leica Q2 Monochrom) in static scenes using similar workflows of taking three separate shots.

Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky‘s work shows both the benefits and drawbacks of the swapping filters approach

[1909]

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#109

Post by serf »

zelon88 wrote: post #80
ssnistfajen wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be disappointing for them to remove it for basically no reason, especially considering you can see a B-2 parked on the tarmac ( https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B043'29.9%22N+93%C2%... ) in the nearby Whiteman AFB. The B-2 was first flown 32 years ago. Its existence is neither covert or secret, but often used to do flybys at freaking football games where thousands of recording devices are present and act…

Correct, but don't misunderestimate the power of knowledge. Let's assume that some adversary is out there keeping track of these planes, and knows that they can scan Google maps for the RGB artifact by the engines to locate them reliably and programmatically. Now Google maps becomes a repository for information that adversary may use to validate other information. Maybe this confirms the schedule for some training ex…

Honestly with the known ties between the US government and Google, if I were a state-level adversary I'd probably be wondering why Google wasn't scrubbing the plane programmatically, rather than assuming that I had caught someone in a 'Gotcha!' moment.

In other words; this google maps link has been circulating around the net for the past week and a half at least -- seemingly originating from either a Discord or the chans; if I were some foreign intelligence analyst I'd definitely be considering the premise that these photos have been so widespread and uncensored simply as an online show-of-force.

( personal anecdote : as an amateur aviation enthusiast/plane-watcher, the B2, as majestic as she is, isn't particularly rare to catch in the skies -- and nowhere near 'secret' )

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#110

Post by bragr »

trothamel wrote: post #92
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…

Is it possible this is a a pushbroom sensor, where red, green, and blue sensors are moved along the path of the plane or satellite that's taking the image? My understanding is those have a higher effective resolution than frame-based sensors, which would make sense here.

Seems unlikely to me. With push broom, I'd think you'd get characteristic squishing, stretching, or skewing of objects in motion depending on whether the object was moving against, with, or perpendicular to the push broom path. In this case with the imaging satellite probably in polar orbit and the plane flying east, you likely see the plane horizontally skewed as each horizontal row of pixels captured the plane further east.
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