Impressive.
Now do it without using a computer, the old fashioned way, with books, paper maps, star charts, slide rulers, sextants, compasses, and pens. I'm sure some people would be able to.
Finding the B-21's hangar location from the stars in its press image
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Re: Finding the B-21's hangar location from the stars in its press image
#22misleading. was more like: * he got the approximate latitude from the stars (34 or 35) * independently, he found the most plausible airbase based on other information and then noticed that the base is indeed around that latitude
The process can still be done using entirely the star pattern and no Google Maps. There wasn't any reason to exclude other information I could use, so I didn't.
Re: Finding the B-21's hangar location from the stars in its press image
#23This is very cool sleuthing. Really enjoyed the walkthrough.
Though, if you would have asked me, I would have guessed Lancaster/Palmdale, because I know (a) That's where the unveiling was (b) I have seen B-1's fly over me while driving in Palmdale and (c) I know Edwards and a bunch of other spacey stuff is there. I feel like Captain Kirk looking for whales and saying "I think we'll find what we're looking for at the Cetacean Institute in Sausalito" - a far less methodical or impressive approach.
Re: Finding the B-21's hangar location from the stars in its press image
#24I feel like the entire thread should have led off with "This is in fact a publicly known hangar in Palmdale and this was known as public information as soon as the unveiling event occurred, and thus this is just an exercise to show how locating the spot could have been possible from just this photo as a technical demonstration."
Because I guarantee there are going to be a hundred clickbait articles by various 'news' sites now in the next few days about the MASSIVE SECURITY BREACH of the USAF and how US SECRETS have been EXPOSED so and and so forth. When nothing about this is actually the case.
Re: Finding the B-21's hangar location from the stars in its press image
#25so interesting
Re: Finding the B-21's hangar location from the stars in its press image
#26Wow, it's cool to see astrometry.net get put to use! I worked on astrometry.net back in undergrad and grad school. If you have questions about how it works, I can answer them.
How does it work? astrometry.net uses 4-star combinations to define codes, then indexes the codes on the celestial sphere. The particulars of each of these phases matter, but that's the basic idea.
Re: Finding the B-21's hangar location from the stars in its press image
#27Re: Finding the B-21's hangar location from the stars in its press image
#28I feel like the entire thread should have led off with "This is in fact a publicly known hangar in Palmdale and this was known as public information as soon as the unveiling event occurred, and thus this is just an exercise to show how locating the spot could have been possible from just this photo as a technical demonstration." Because I guarantee there are going to be a hundred clickbait articles by various 'news'…
I did mention this later in the thread - was just a fun experiment to see if locating it was possible if we didn't know
Re: Finding the B-21's hangar location from the stars in its press image
#29Heh. This makes me remember how the same technique was used in the "he will not divide us" trolling campaign to locate a video feed of a flag. Internet Historian has a video about IIRC.