Rainbow stealth plane?

[Fat Tone]

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=37.832265,-75.995129&z=18&t=h&hl=en

Can anyone explain that?

[Nowhere]

Layer of water particles at such height that they influence the image of the plane somehow, but image of the Earth - not so much?

[TransformX]

Seems like both are the same plane. Just follow the jet stream and you'll see they're flying the exact same path. The rainbow one looks 'faster' because it's ahead, but then if it was faster, it should've been WAY ahead of the visible plane. It's some sort of a reflection.

[High_Jumbllama]

Prototype inter-phase cloak?

[KRSESQ]

Reflection off of high-altitude ice crystals?

Kevin

[cjolley]

I would be very interested to know where the seams between tiles are in that photo.
Could the plane have been in two tiles, but not alignable because it moved between frames?
It could be that the rainbow plane and trail is an artifact of the tile stitching software.
I don't really like this theory because the contrail shows the same effect, though.


You can see on the plane's left wing that the what ever it is, is above the plane.

But how could ice form ahead of the plane.

Also notice that the mirage is not aligned at the same angle as the shadows in the picture.

Interesting...

PS It's a bright sunny day. Where is the shadow of the plane? The plane doesn't look that high, judging by the relative size of the boats. And the shadows show the sun to be almost overhead.

[VJ]

It is all becoming clear now: http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?t=67474

But seriously: reflection inside the lens/camera...?
edit: see the bottom picture of a diffraction artifact

I do agree with cjolley: would be nice to know where the seems are.
(does anyone else feel the colour of the "real" plane is too red...?)


Jörg

[Wulfman]

how was the image taken? possible multipass-artifact on fast-moving objects?

mfg
wulfman

[cjolley]

But seriously: reflection inside the lens/camera...?
edit: see the bottom picture of a diffraction artifact

My office-mate is a former professional photographer and that was his guess.
But I don't see where the light for such a thing would come from: that plane is pretty dark.

[VJ]

Off camera sun?

Jörg

[Dr Mordrid]

It is all becoming clear now: http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?t=67474

But seriously: reflection inside the lens/camera...?
edit: see the bottom picture of a diffraction artifact
Jörg

That was my impression as soon as I saw it, and the 'rainbow' on the ghost image reinforced it.

[RedRed]

I think Vj& Dr M is right - possibly in combination with a refraction in the lens error emphasised with the plane at a different altitude?

Unlikely to be ice/water, as the contrail (which is water as well) would emphasise it, and it would be a common effect. I thnk it must be at a fairly terrific altitude?

[KRSESQ]

That's definitely not any kind of flare I've ever seen.

Observe from the ground shadows that the "ghost" is probably directly in line with the sun and the aircraft. Also observe that the "Ghost" leads the aircraft at approximately the same angle we see in the ground shadows.

The aircraft is leaving a contrail so it's probably @ 30,000-40.000 feet. The ice crystal layer might be between 45,000-50,000 feet. There might be as little as 5,000 feet seperation between the aircraft and its reflection.

Normally one might not see such a reflection, but the satellite was in a unique position. Once an aircraft passed overhead in such a position that I was actually in the shadow of the contrail. It appeared as a smoky dark curtain reaching into the sky to connect with that unnaturally straight cloud way overhead.

Or it might be photoshopped. I can tell from the pixels.

Kevin

[gt40]

Are these images sometimes composites of infrared/UV/visible pictures?
That might explain it.