In article ,
(Bob Jones) wrote:

"James S Williams" wrote in message
. ..
Hi everybody,

I know this has probably already been talked about to death in here, but
I've been doing a bit of research on this video and came to a few
conclusions. Some people asked me questions about my conclusions, so let me
post them he

It's so obviously a result of overzoom it's not even worth discussing
anymore. The shuttle was 200,000 feet up at that point (give or take)
and the aparent size of the shuttle in the zoom in (which purports to
show it travelling sideways at mach 20+ or whatever) is pretty huge.

No consumer grade camcorder is going to make a shuttle wingtip to
wingtip distance of 900 inches (at 200,000 feet away) resolve to what,
a half an inch in this video?

It's nothing more than an illusion.

Bob

This has pretty conclusively shown to be the result of lens flare
causing the iris in the camcorder to become visible. I think someone
calculated the slant range as something on the order of a few dozen
miles, taking into account lateral distance and elevation from the
camera. I challenged one poster to go outside on a sunny day and focus
his camcorder on an DC-9/MD-80 airliner passing overhead at 30,000 feet
and see the best detail he could resolve. Of course, my challenge would
have been a much easier case - 7 to 8 times lower altitude, smaller
lateral distance, etc. And even so (of course!) we never heard from
that particular poster again. What a surprise.

--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
Reformed Aerospace Engineer
"Heisenberg might have been here."
~ Anonymous