What Major World Cities Look Like at Night, Minus the Light Pollution
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What Major World Cities Look Like at Night, Minus the Light Pollution
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Re: What Major World Cities Look Like at Night, Minus the Light Pollution
#2I doubt I'm the only one who read the article with the hope of finding
some new technique to remove light pollution from images to show off the
stars... and was mildly disappointed to find out the beautiful images
were just cut-n-paste jobs (albeit outstanding ones).
I'm wondering what kinds of techniques exist for removing light pollution?
Spectrum sensitivity? Spectrum filtering on exposure? Post processing?
Re: What Major World Cities Look Like at Night, Minus the Light Pollution
#3I doubt I'm the only one who read the article with the hope of finding some new technique to remove light pollution from images to show off the stars... and was mildly disappointed to find out the beautiful images were just cut-n-paste jobs (albeit outstanding ones). I'm wondering what kinds of techniques exist for removing light pollution? Spectrum sensitivity? Spectrum filtering on exposure? Post processing?
You most certainly are not.
I wonder if you could get it done with some kind of manual HDR: tracing out the skyline to explicitly say "stuff below the line should be from the low exposure photo, stuff above from the high exposure photo."
Disclaimer: I know nothing about photography.
Re: What Major World Cities Look Like at Night, Minus the Light Pollution
#4I doubt I'm the only one who read the article with the hope of finding some new technique to remove light pollution from images to show off the stars... and was mildly disappointed to find out the beautiful images were just cut-n-paste jobs (albeit outstanding ones). I'm wondering what kinds of techniques exist for removing light pollution? Spectrum sensitivity? Spectrum filtering on exposure? Post processing?
Tucson, Arizona uses sodium vapor lighting for all its street lighting specifically to allow the nearby observatories easily filter the light pollution.
Re: What Major World Cities Look Like at Night, Minus the Light Pollution
#5After living in Alaska for several years, I don't really think that is how cities would look at all. With just stars and even the aurora borealis, it is incredible how pure darknesss looks. I really didn't know how much light pollution effected the sky until living there, but even in small towns and other less populated areas the light from various sources changes the skyline.
Re: What Major World Cities Look Like at Night, Minus the Light Pollution
#6After living in Alaska for several years, I don't really think that is how cities would look at all. With just stars and even the aurora borealis, it is incredible how pure darknesss looks. I really didn't know how much light pollution effected the sky until living there, but even in small towns and other less populated areas the light from various sources changes the skyline.
Whew. I was wondering if I was the only one who has been out in the mountains and other rural areas, but have never seen a night sky like these.
Re: What Major World Cities Look Like at Night, Minus the Light Pollution
#7I doubt I'm the only one who read the article with the hope of finding some new technique to remove light pollution from images to show off the stars... and was mildly disappointed to find out the beautiful images were just cut-n-paste jobs (albeit outstanding ones). I'm wondering what kinds of techniques exist for removing light pollution? Spectrum sensitivity? Spectrum filtering on exposure? Post processing?
You most certainly are not. I wonder if you could get it done with some kind of manual HDR: tracing out the skyline to explicitly say "stuff below the line should be from the low exposure photo, stuff above from the high exposure photo." Disclaimer: I know nothing about photography.
The problem with light pollution is that the light bounces off of water, dust, and smog in the atmosphere, and back down into your eye/camera. So when you look up, the sky isn't darker, it's a lot brighter! You would need a way to subtract the extra light.
Re: What Major World Cities Look Like at Night, Minus the Light Pollution
#8These are beautiful. I would love to have one of these framed in my house.
Re: What Major World Cities Look Like at Night, Minus the Light Pollution
#9I doubt I'm the only one who read the article with the hope of finding some new technique to remove light pollution from images to show off the stars... and was mildly disappointed to find out the beautiful images were just cut-n-paste jobs (albeit outstanding ones). I'm wondering what kinds of techniques exist for removing light pollution? Spectrum sensitivity? Spectrum filtering on exposure? Post processing?
I read it as a brilliant and elegant hack, a sort of real-world magic. As Vi Hart said (referring to how she builds her comfortable-looking fast-cut accelerated videos of handwriting) it's "tricking your brain into seeing what was actually there."
Re: What Major World Cities Look Like at Night, Minus the Light Pollution
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
You most certainly are not. I wonder if you could get it done with some kind of manual HDR: tracing out the skyline to explicitly say "stuff below the line should be from the low exposure photo, stuff above from the high exposure photo." Disclaimer: I know nothing about photography.
The problem with light pollution is that the light bounces off of water, dust, and smog in the atmosphere, and back down into your eye/camera. So when you look up, the sky isn't darker, it's a lot brighter! You would need a way to subtract the extra light.
Theoretically, it would basically be just a matter of subtracting the "general" light background, and then apply a deconvolution to the remaining "signal" to reduce blurry areas of light into point-like stars.
However, deconvolution is one of those things that's great in theory, but almost impossible to pull off in practice, except under extremely controlled circumstances. And in this case, considering just how much dust/smog/etc. is in the atmosphere, and how it is non-uniform, I expect it would be simply impossible.