The "Google Maps background"
« on: April 17, 2018, 08:24:50 PM »
https://wiki.tfes.org/Google_Maps_background

I tracked down the original image, which I have attached.

It's a wide-angle shot of the entire station, and there is no obvious way that the shot could have been taken with a camera. This makes me think that it's an artist's conception of the station. For those who doubt that an artist could make it, see this image of ʻOumuamua and this animation of a Falcon Heavy launch.

Actually, what's the original source of it? All I can find from Google's reverse image search are conspiracy sites and a few more that are just selling posters.
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Online AATW

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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #1 on: April 17, 2018, 08:35:27 PM »
The Space Shuttles used to make trips to it quite regularly, could the photo not have been taken from one of those?
(Quite possible that this is an artist's impression, I'm speculating)
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #2 on: April 17, 2018, 08:38:55 PM »
I found this site: http://global.jaxa.jp/projects/iss_human/kibo/ that at least confirms it's from NASA. I've also found these two images:



Thay lend, at least in my mind, credence to at least one being an artists creation. The ISS is just too visually similar with such a difference in the look of the Earth behind it for me to really believe it's two photos from a camera.

Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #3 on: April 17, 2018, 08:42:18 PM »
The Space Shuttles used to make trips to it quite regularly, could the photo not have been taken from one of those?
I don't think that would be possible, but I'll let the FE folks decide on what to do with that point.
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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #4 on: April 17, 2018, 08:49:30 PM »
The Space Shuttles used to make trips to it quite regularly, could the photo not have been taken from one of those?
I don't think that would be possible, but I'll let the FE folks decide on what to do with that point.
Why wouldn't it be possible? I mean, it used to go up there and dock with it quite a lot. Couldn't it have taken it from nearby on one of those missions?
Anyway, I think we can all agree that if it's an artists impression then that definitely proves the whole thing is fake - it's impossible to create an artist's impression of something which actually exists ;)
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #5 on: April 17, 2018, 09:38:48 PM »
It is not an "artists impression." NASA says it is a photograph from the Shuttle.

https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/shuttle/sts-133/html/s133e010447.html

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STS-133 Shuttle Mission Imagery



high res (1.7 M) low res (112 K)

S133-E-010447 (7 March 2011) --- The International Space Station is featured in this image photographed by an STS-133 crew member on space shuttle Discovery after the station and shuttle began their post-undocking relative separation. Undocking of the two spacecraft occurred at 7 a.m. (EST) on March 7, 2011. Discovery spent eight days, 16 hours, and 46 minutes attached to the orbiting laboratory. Photo credit: NASA or National Aeronautics and Space Administration
« Last Edit: April 17, 2018, 09:40:56 PM by Tom Bishop »

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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #6 on: April 17, 2018, 09:39:05 PM »
Oh, cool. So it's from a Space Shuttle which was my guess as the Shuttle used to do a lot of trips there.
I'm not sure what the point of this thread is, to be honest.
I saw a Shuttle launch one time when I was on holiday in Florida. It was awesome, as you Americans say a lot.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline Tumeni

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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #7 on: April 17, 2018, 10:38:00 PM »
They lend, at least in my mind, credence to at least one being an artists creation. The ISS is just too visually similar with such a difference in the look of the Earth behind it for me to really believe it's two photos from a camera.

What difference is there apart from the colour rendition?
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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #8 on: April 17, 2018, 10:50:41 PM »
Ah, okay.

Now that the origin is confirmed, I can move to explanations that don't sound ridiculous.

Now that I think about it, the image is likely a zoomed-in shot from far away. I'd make a diagram if asked, but right now I don't have the time to.
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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #9 on: April 17, 2018, 11:34:21 PM »
They lend, at least in my mind, credence to at least one being an artists creation. The ISS is just too visually similar with such a difference in the look of the Earth behind it for me to really believe it's two photos from a camera.

What difference is there apart from the colour rendition?
Very little I've eventually noticed. The background looks so strikingly different compared to the ISS, it's very jarring. But all of the details look pretty much spot on identical looking at them a bit closer. Must be something to do with either exposure of the two shots, or perhaps how they were treated (assuming film roll)? I don't know enough about cameras and lenses to make any sort of confident guess. They do look incredibly dissimilar when first looking at them though.

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #10 on: April 17, 2018, 11:41:40 PM »
Ah, okay.

Now that the origin is confirmed, I can move to explanations that don't sound ridiculous.

Now that I think about it, the image is likely a zoomed-in shot from far away. I'd make a diagram if asked, but right now I don't have the time to.

The EXIF data of the image shows that the photo was taken with a NIKON D2Xs, using a standard 35.0 mm Focal Length. The Digital Zoom ratio is 1, showing that it is not zoomed in digitally either.

Offline SiDawg

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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #11 on: April 18, 2018, 01:45:50 AM »
The ISS is just too visually similar with such a difference in the look of the Earth behind it for me to really believe it's two photos from a camera.

It's the same photo, with different processing. I hesitate to use the word "photoshop" but it's a very simple process to bring out the contrast, sharpen the image, and adjust the colour so it suits the impact the artist wants to convey

I fail to see how "i can see patterns in the background" is an argument for it being a fake image... You would need to know the size of those fields to be able to claim that. Besides, the clouds are the dead give away that it's an ISS shot (or near the ISS from a shuttle) and not a plane shot. You could argue "pfft, shadows from clouds doesn't prove anything, the clouds could just be inline with the camera" erm yeah but we're all familiar with the shapes and patterns that clouds make... you can deduce the scale of the photo from the shapes of the clouds, and the sharp shadows hint at the distance between the clouds and the earth. Not very scientific, but more scientific than "i can see the shape of a field and i guess that all fields are the same shape and size"
« Last Edit: April 18, 2018, 01:51:04 AM by SiDawg »
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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #12 on: April 20, 2018, 04:52:18 PM »
Ah, okay.

Now that the origin is confirmed, I can move to explanations that don't sound ridiculous.

Now that I think about it, the image is likely a zoomed-in shot from far away. I'd make a diagram if asked, but right now I don't have the time to.

The EXIF data of the image shows that the photo was taken with a NIKON D2Xs, using a standard 35.0 mm Focal Length. The Digital Zoom ratio is 1, showing that it is not zoomed in digitally either.
It's hard to find data on the FOV that would give, but the largest figure I could find was 55°. By my calculations, that makes the background somewhere around 200km on the horizontal edge. The agricultural fields are maybe 1/20 of the width, making them ~10km. That's very large, but it's not too large for a massive corporate farm.

Meanwhile, an Earth curvature calculator gives me a horizon distance of ~1600km, plenty enough for the comparison photos which show entire countries.
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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #13 on: April 27, 2018, 05:07:45 AM »
I found this site: http://global.jaxa.jp/projects/iss_human/kibo/ that at least confirms it's from NASA.
So Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency also publicly involved in faking space travel. Ok, not surprising, but hadn’t heard of them before.

The EXIF data of the image shows that the photo was taken ... using a standard 35.0 mm Focal Length. The Digital Zoom ratio is 1
Ok. So no telephoto lens was used as some asserted before. Is there a small chance however this is inconclusive if lens was not telling camera focal length?
« Last Edit: April 27, 2018, 08:46:30 AM by Treep Ravisaras »

Offline Westprog

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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #14 on: April 27, 2018, 04:48:28 PM »
They lend, at least in my mind, credence to at least one being an artists creation. The ISS is just too visually similar with such a difference in the look of the Earth behind it for me to really believe it's two photos from a camera.

What difference is there apart from the colour rendition?

None whatsoever. It's clearly the same picture, or taken almost instantaneously with slightly different settings.

Isn't it funny that NASA, as part of their conspiracy to pretend that space travel is possible, with their enormous budget, constantly produce photos which are "obviously fake" according to people with no knowledge or understanding of photography. I mean, given that they had the tech to fake transmissions from the Moon back in 1969, they must have a really good Photoshop lab by now. Why so many obvious giveaways?

Of course, the trick of making the ISS actually visible to the naked eye shows just how clever they are. They actually put a fake space station up there where they claim that the real space station is!

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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #15 on: April 27, 2018, 05:31:33 PM »
If they're putting a fake station into orbit, that adds more questions than it solves.
What is it made of?
How do they track it?
Wouldn't this be more far effort than just actually launching a space station?
It's the international space station. Wouldn't other governments know it's fake and tell folks?
How does it stay in orbit?
How do things orbit at all on a gravity-less flat earth?
How do they keep it in orbit?
How do they prevent it from colliding with other space debris?
If there's a fake ISS, does that mean you concede to things being able to orbit, e.g. satellites not being fake?
Does it orbit above or below the moon and sun?
If the UA is real, how does it stay up?
Can you prove it is fake without resorting to "the images are fake" or at least provide discrepancies in the photo that lead one to think it is fake?
Can you see the dome from there?
How did it get its momentum without being launched, unless again satellite launches are possible and real?
How would they transmit audio and video from the ISS of the astronauts? http://www.ariss.org/contact-the-iss.html
What would the benefit be that could outweigh all of that work and implied bribe money, if it is indeed conspiratorial?
Does this mean they've been sending "fake" satellites up for all these years? How's sputnik doing?
If they can send fake sats, why not real ones?
How do we get satellite weather/mapping without the use of satellites?
Or, possibly, all of that is arbitrary, and the earth is round, the ISS is real along with satellites, and this debate doesn't need to exist.


Also, might I add how we can see clouds but not chemtrails?
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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #16 on: April 27, 2018, 10:50:44 PM »
Ah, okay.

Now that the origin is confirmed, I can move to explanations that don't sound ridiculous.

Now that I think about it, the image is likely a zoomed-in shot from far away. I'd make a diagram if asked, but right now I don't have the time to.

The EXIF data of the image shows that the photo was taken with a NIKON D2Xs, using a standard 35.0 mm Focal Length. The Digital Zoom ratio is 1, showing that it is not zoomed in digitally either.
It's hard to find data on the FOV that would give, but the largest figure I could find was 55°. By my calculations, that makes the background somewhere around 200km on the horizontal edge. The agricultural fields are maybe 1/20 of the width, making them ~10km. That's very large, but it's not too large for a massive corporate farm.

Meanwhile, an Earth curvature calculator gives me a horizon distance of ~1600km, plenty enough for the comparison photos which show entire countries.

Can you show your work? Why are you trying to find the biggest FOV possible?

Also,

http://www.fooddialogues.com/agriculture-101/

Quote
According to the USDA 2012 Census of Agriculture data: There are approximately 2.1 million farms in America; the average size is 434 acres. An acre, by comparison, equates to a little less than one 100-yard length American football field.

434 acres = 1.75634 sq km

What is the average size of a farm in a European country?
« Last Edit: April 27, 2018, 10:53:52 PM by Tom Bishop »

Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #17 on: April 28, 2018, 02:27:55 AM »
Can you show your work? Why are you trying to find the biggest FOV possible?
I Googled for FOVs of Nikon cameras. I took the widest FOV because it would give your side the most favorable scenario.

My calculations were pretty rough though, although 100 km2 is still a decent estimate for a sense of scale.

Quote
Also,

http://www.fooddialogues.com/agriculture-101/

Quote
According to the USDA 2012 Census of Agriculture data: There are approximately 2.1 million farms in America; the average size is 434 acres. An acre, by comparison, equates to a little less than one 100-yard length American football field.

434 acres = 1.75634 sq km

What is the average size of a farm in a European country?
Average =/= maximum. As I said, it's the size of a very large farm. There are at least a few that are big enough.
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Offline SiDawg

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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #18 on: April 28, 2018, 07:04:00 AM »
Quote
According to the USDA 2012 Census of Agriculture data: There are approximately 2.1 million farms in America; the average size is 434 acres. An acre, by comparison, equates to a little less than one 100-yard length American football field.

434 acres = 1.75634 sq km

What is the average size of a farm in a European country?

I don't see why people think those shapes are farms. They look more like forest/bush reserves: i.e. they are dark patches of green. Anyway, trying to debate the flat earth based on this image is rather pointless, there are too many unknowns. Knowing what part of the earth they're flying over would be a good start.
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Offline Tumeni

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Re: The "Google Maps background"
« Reply #19 on: April 28, 2018, 11:27:45 PM »
There's a decently-high resolution version at

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/iss_chronology_flights.html



"A view of the ISS at the conclusion of the STS-133 mission on March 7, 2011, captures European ATV-2 (bottom) and Japanese HTV2 (center) cargo ships docked at the outpost."


« Last Edit: April 28, 2018, 11:29:40 PM by Tumeni »
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