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

111–120 of 390 posts

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#111

Post by rootusrootus »

tylerflick wrote: post #64
msisk6 wrote: post #45

I live on a farm very close to this area. All the B-2s are based at nearby Whiteman Air Force Base. They fly over often -- one even fly over my farm today about an hour ago. This one was probably on final approach during the summer when the winds are usually out of the south and was probably about 2,000 feet above the ground.

I was about to say, I grew up about 10 minutes from here and they were a common sight. Always thrilling to see. IIRC Whiteman has an air show every year where you can get "up close" to them.

The best air show I've ever been to was at Will Rogers World Airport in OKC. I figure some of it must be the proximity to Tinker, but also other bases in the area. Back in 95 (could have been 96, but not any later, as I left the area late that year), they brought a B-2 to the show, flew it around the airport for a while, landed it, waited a while so people could get take as many pictures as they wanted, then took off and flew it home. At the same show, they brought an F-117, did the flyby, and landed it. Then taxi'd it over to a static display area so people could get close. I was able to walk underneath it and touch it. As a young airman, I was absolutely floored. And this was in 95 or 96, so we were still really impressed with how exotic these planes were.

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#112

Post by systemvoltage »

teodorlu wrote: post #19

The aircraft seems to be a Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit. > The Northrop (later Northrop Grumman) B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber, is an American heavy strategic bomber, featuring low observable stealth technology designed for penetrating dense anti-aircraft defenses. Designed during the Cold War, it is a flying wing design with a crew of two.[1][3] The bomber is subsonic and can deploy both conventional a…

The B-2 Spirit is insane. People usually know the SR-71, but I personally think the B-2 is straight up savage - aesthetically alien, impossibly aerial, and incomprehensibly powerful. Its silhoutte is terrifying: https://i.imgur.com/WqMvxXg.jpg

What a beast: https://www.northropgrumman.com/what-we-do/air/b-2-stealth-b...

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#113

Post by willis936 »

ericbarrett wrote: post #27
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…

My napkin calculations are that the three channels are ~10ms apart, given the bomber is 69 feet nose-to-tail* and an assumption of 400 mph velocity. * http://www.dept.aoe.vt.edu/~mason/Mason_f/B2Spr09.pdf

The google maps scale shows the plane as being pretty close to that length as well. I think the satellite is high enough up that altitude scaling for aircraft is going to be minimal.

I see about a 10 foot separation between colors.

Velocity = distance / time

400 mph is 587 fps.

10 / 587 = 17 ms

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#114

Post by mcdonje »

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/

It's interesting how some satellites take the alpha channel pic before the RGB channels, and some do it after. The lag also changes. Alpha & RGB have similar lags for some, but alpha is way off on others.

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#115

Post by xmonkee »

the-dude wrote: post #96
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!

Isn't the speed of the sat irrelevant as it should correct for this anyways for all images it takes?

yeah, exactly

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#116

Post by wantsanagent »

birdyrooster wrote: post #99
HPsquared wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing it this way allows not only higher resolution, but you can also use different types of filter for specialist applications. Infrared for example, or some kind of narrow band pass filters etc.

Unless you aren’t military and then no infrared for you

Oh? Planet offers infrared imaging to farmers.

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#117

Post by kqr »

djmips wrote: post #106
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?

They take a separate high-res monochromatic picture. (As image compression theory tells us, if you can afford to sacrifice some colour resolution for monochromatic resolution -- do it.)

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#118

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

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…

These are pushbroom linear sensors stacked up in the focal plane. The spectral channels are physically separated by larger distance than neighboring pixels in a Bayer grid. There is a time delay between each channel sweeping over the same location that gets corrected when the final imagery is aligned. The moving plane at altitude violates assumption of a static scene and exposes the scanning behavior.

Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps

#119

Post by tpolzer »

goblin89 wrote: post #94
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely! [0] In fact, the first color photos in the world were taken this way in the early 1900s [1]: take three monochrome exposures onto black and white transparencies with R/G/B filters, and then project the three images together. [0] https://leicarumors.com/2020/01/29/color-photography-with-th... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Prokudin-Gorsky

Interesting. Sadly, I believe the Photoshop approach would not produce a DNG file that you could normally interpret in a raw processor of your choice. Looks like pixel shift cameras (which apparently still use Bayer sensors, just moving them around, to debayer at capture time so to speak) is the most practical option at the moment. I’m curious if it is technically possible for a digital sensor to capture the entire l…

There are Sigma cameras with a Foveon sensor that can do it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foveon_X3_sensor

Though they're not as good in most other dimensions as conventional Bayer filter sensors (most Amazon reviews e.g. say that it's impossible to photograph moving human subjects without daylight iirc).

Post reply on HN