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Astrophotographer snaps skydiver falling in front of the sun

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471 points doener | 1 comments | 16 Nov 25 11:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.202s | source
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GMoromisato ◴[17 Nov 25 19:39 UTC] No.45957336[source]▶
This is a classic example of a simple idea that no one had ever done before. The execution was complex, of course, and Andrew McCarthy is one of the most skilled astrophotographers. But once you get the idea, a number of people could have done it--but no one ever did.

Makes you wonder what other similar ideas are out there! You can bet McCarthy is already thinking some.

p.s.: My brush with celebrity is that I saw an Andrew McCarthy post on Quora when he was first getting started with astrophotography and gave him a few tips. Always important to remember that everyone was a beginner at one point: https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-pro-tips-for-astrophotog...

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dylan604 ◴[17 Nov 25 23:52 UTC] No.45959837[source]▶
> Makes you wonder what other similar ideas are out there!

There are examples of planes silhouetting the sun or moon. There are examples of the ISS. There are examples of planets (Mercury/Venus) crossing the sun, not the moon (obviously). I think someone else mentioned rockets being captured too.

People have also done similar with the moons of other planets. And of course that's how exoplanets have been discovered by looking the effects of a planet crossing between our line of sight of its host star.

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schiffern ◴[18 Nov 25 00:34 UTC] No.45960085[source]▶
FYI some of those amazing shots were also taken by Andrew McCarthy.

https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1611128761776492544/

https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1479541092693381120/

https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1837219848478412935/

https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1968658340679921925/

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dylan604 ◴[18 Nov 25 01:22 UTC] No.45960353[source]▶
https://www.planetary.org/space-images/the-iss-and-the-moon

https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Statio...

https://www.universetoday.com/articles/spectacular-image-sho...

Just so we don't all think one person is the only one to do this

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pests ◴[18 Nov 25 06:05 UTC] No.45961879{3}[source]▶
I mean kinda? This thread is about a skydiver. That's a lot less consistent than the orbit of the ISS or some other satellite.
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dylan604 ◴[18 Nov 25 07:37 UTC] No.45962381{4}[source]▶
It's also staged. They did it in multiple takes, and then composited out one of the takes with a mosaic of the clean sun. None of the others are composites, and none of the others got multiple takes
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dmurray ◴[18 Nov 25 08:00 UTC] No.45962512[source]▶
Source for it being a composite? The article says under the headline

> This is not photoshopped. That’s really a person falling in front of the Sun.

I haven't watched all the videos. From the Reddit thread, it sounds like it was photoshopped (using that as a generic term for photo editing with a computer) but in a way acceptable to the astrophotography community. I don't understand where those limits are: somewhere strictly between cropping the photo and photographing the skydiver in front of a white screen before pasting the silhouette into a picture of the sun.

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1. dylan604 ◴[18 Nov 25 14:46 UTC] No.45966843[source]▶
From within this own topic, there are clues:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45951713

Sure, all of the elements were captured, but not in a single image released as the final image. If you look at a search for “solar transit”, none of them have as much detail in the sun as this one. That’s evidence of comping the sky diver onto his mosaic. It’s similar to when people come in a full moon over itself when captured in a wide angle image. Yes, the moon was there and it is just updated with something with more detail and better exposure, but it’s not a single image possible to capture without comping. Maybe it’s not as obvious to someone less familiar with astrophotography, but that just makes the sin that much worse.

At the end of the day, it’s a great artistic shot, but it nothing more than the same level of effort to make a modern Marvel movie