What's this unusual Lunar feature, showing in Google Moon?

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Smersh

Guest
Go into Google Earth and select Google Sky, then "Moon" and enter the following co-ordinates:

19 58 48.31 N 21 11 35.57 E

When you zoom in a bit, this appears:

MoonFeature01.jpg


A very interesting mountain and rock formation that. I wonder if it's been given a name yet?
 
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jim48

Guest
Why not name it after Richard C. Hoagland? :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
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Smersh

Guest
:lol:

Not a good idea imo - he's arrogant enough as it is. :eek:
 
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andrew_t1000

Guest
That's just the secret Nazi blimp refuelling station or a CIA bed and breakfast or a McDonalds.
 
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Mee_n_Mac

Guest
andrew_t1000":152zeem4 said:
That's just the secret Nazi blimp refuelling station or a CIA bed and breakfast or a McDonalds.

Crap !! I was hoping for a Wendy's. Can't beat their spicy chicken sandwich. :twisted:
 
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jim48

Guest
It's Hugo Drax's latest secret facility. Well, it was secret. Oh do come along, 007. This is not a toy!!! You must hold it this way. That's right. KA-BOOM!!!
 
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andrew_t1000

Guest
You do all realise the foil hat brigade are going to go nuts over this.....

But seriously, what is it?
 
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kelvinzero

Guest
Is the odd thing how it stands out from its surroundings?

I wonder if this is the result of some sort of image processing. Here is another odd one: 20° 9'0.18"N 19°50'20.22"E .
It is just a dark black squiggle, next to an absurdly high hump, obviously an error unless those 1940s spikey moon mountains really exist :)
 
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CommonMan

Guest
Well, aphh, come on, is this picture real? Or is it a fake, or is it really a picture of something on Earth? What is your opinion?
 
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a_lost_packet_

Guest
Smersh":1eub3mii said:
Go into Google Earth and select Google Sky, then "Moon" and enter the following co-ordinates:

19 58 48.31 N 21 11 35.57 E

When you zoom in a bit, this appears: A very interesting mountain and rock formation that. I wonder if it's been given a name yet?

I think it's a weird isometric/false-topology effect. I assume they used some topology algorithm that uses the 2D imagery to fake a isometric topology view. It's just way too "off" to be anything real, at least with those apparent "shadows" and "highlights."

PS - I don't have Google Earth and no room to install it atm. :)
 
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Smersh

Guest
andrew_t1000":z89kvz5u said:
You do all realise the foil hat brigade are going to go nuts over this.....

But seriously, what is it?

Hi Andrew, that's a very good question. Here's another shot I just saved from Google Moon, showing the object as it first appears when zoomed in on:

MoonFeature01longrange.jpg


It appears in the southern part of Mare Serenitatis, so it's quite a flat area and devoid of mountains. Seems too sharp and well defined to me to be a real feature, but it's still there nevertheless.
 
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ZenGalacticore

Guest
I'm no photographer, but can someone explain to me why the 'unusual feature' is in the foreground and blurry, while the crater background left is in focus?
 
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jim48

Guest
My YouTube video seems to have disappeared. This is a strange site, stranger than what's on the Moon.
 
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ZenGalacticore

Guest
Smersh":sun6o533 said:
Go into Google Earth and select Google Sky, then "Moon" and enter the following co-ordinates:

19 58 48.31 N 21 11 35.57 E

When you zoom in a bit, this appears:

MoonFeature01.jpg


A very interesting mountain and rock formation that. I wonder if it's been given a name yet?

Actually, it's my second home. I put it on the Moon to get away from everybody. The bright spot in the lower right of the square is my plasma BBQ, nice and fired up. I'm fixin' to slap a few alien rib cages on there. Y'all come on up!! Bring beer.
 
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MeteorWayne

Guest
ZenGalacticore":2gjpbfa7 said:
I'm no photographer, but can someone explain to me why the 'unusual feature' is in the foreground and blurry, while the crater background left is in focus?

You must be looking at a different image. I see the unusual feature as very sharp relative to the crater background left.
 
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CommonMan

Guest
Since a lot of people are interested in this picture, will Nasa try to get a better more clear picture anytime soon to put all the questions at ease?
 
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ZenGalacticore

Guest
MeteorWayne":3r1lhq2e said:
ZenGalacticore":3r1lhq2e said:
I'm no photographer, but can someone explain to me why the 'unusual feature' is in the foreground and blurry, while the crater background left is in focus?

You must be looking at a different image. I see the unusual feature as very sharp relative to the crater background left.

So you see the foreground as crisp and the background left as blurry? I guess we are looking at different pics. But then again, this is on Google Moon, and when you zoom in it's always blurry, at least on my monitor. But then the background would be blurry too, hmm.

I agree CommonMan. Maybe it's an old robot lander that set down there.
 
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a_lost_packet_

Guest
ZenGalacticore":205xzoke said:
I'm no photographer, but can someone explain to me why the 'unusual feature' is in the foreground and blurry, while the crater background left is in focus?

I missed your question earlier.

This may have to do with texture filtering. If that displayed image is an "isometric" image using 2D photographs to generate a 3D landscape so you can see it in an isometric view then it's going to be using a graphics engine to render that.

Texture filtering does a number of things. For one, it can speed up rendering time (depending upon how its done). But, its most often done to remove artifacts in a 3D display that can appear when using 2D images which, depending on the quality, can actually slow down rendering processes.

Here's a simple image for illustrative purposes only:

comp_elliptical.png
From: Maya-Eliptical Filtering

See the image on the left. Well, that is the actual texture. See the moire pattern? Thats one of the natural artifacts possible of a 2d texture in a False-3D display. (For this example, it's OK to look at it like that. "False 3D" is what you see on a computer or at the movies. True 3D is what you see when you open your eyes if you haven't been drinking too much.)

But, with texture filtering, you can remove some of those artifacts and make it look more "realistic." It's still the exact same image. It has only been filtered for rendering/display purposes in relation to the camera to give a nice presentation. There are many different texture filtering techniques, some more destructive than others in presenting a true representation of a 2d image in 3d space. Some supported in only certain graphic environments, some common amongst video cards or certain software, etc..

There are some problems, however. Notice in the OP picture how the foreground looks pixelated and the background isn't? That's filtering. The foreground is closer to its native resolution in the display so it is rendered as true to original as possible. The background has a filter applied which tends to even things out a bit so it's smoother. If the original texture was of higher resolution, the foreground wouldn't look so pixelated. Think of it as a step-progression method with full texture resolution only right at the surface of the object and only when viewed at the resolution of the texture itself. So, if you rendered the image at 800x600 and the texture was also 800x600, you would only have a small bit of filtering depending upon how far the image continued away from the camera. The foreground would look nice and crisp. If the texture image was 640x480 and you rendered at that resolution, the foreground would look a bit blocky, wouldn't it? That's because the texture IS a bit blocky compared to the rendered resolution at 800x600.

Zoom it out to its original size and display the texture at its original resolution and I be it looks awesome. Kind'a like a 1:1 Map of the World. :)

All of this is meant to accomplish one thing: It simulates the viewing of a 2D image in a False-3D environment. If it was a truly a 3D environment with an image that stretched for 200 miles or so, you wouldn't need a filter for it to look decent. ;)

Note: You can also get a similar effect like this with simple image compression as many techniques automatically include certain sampling methods like anisotropic filtering and the like to render a good image. Such techniques are aimed at preserving as much information as possible yet their main purpose is to render a good image in the chosen format above all else. So, some information may be altered. Yet, those techniques apply themselves across the entire image. Taking an image from an uncompressed form like a tiff and then compressing it down to a jpg, you'll enter a dialogue where you'll typically have compression and filtering options. Where's that 10-year-career photo-expert scientist dude? He should be in here 'esplainin' all that stuff... :)

Of course, I could be totally full of BS as I don't even have Google Earth and couldn't even tell you if such mechanisms are used. But, that's what it looks like to me being completely ignorant of anything "Google Earth" related. (Well, except that I know it exists, I'm pretty sure I live on Earth and I'm pretty sure that Google is a Megacorp bent on stealing my precious bodily fluids...)
 
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ZenGalacticore

Guest
Whoa there dude!! That looked like a Chess game in a nightmare. (Kind of like those 'can't get to, or haven't been to class all quarter and the paper is due tomorrow' nightmares.)! :lol:
 
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Smersh

Guest
Thanks for the chess diagram ALP! As CommonMan said, maybe Aphh needs to take a look at this as he's told us he's an expert in digital processing.

ZenGalacticore":37eql86f said:
...Maybe it's an old robot lander that set down there.

I doubt it's a robot lander Zen as that would be so tiny it wouldn't be visible in Google Moon (none of the Apollo hardware is visible, at the resolution currently available.) This thing has to be pretty big.

Btw, for anyone that hasn't seen this for themselves in Google Moon yet, you need to have the latest version of Google Earth (version 5 as I write) then click on the icon at the top that looks a bit like Saturn and select "Moon" from the menu that comes up and it will switch to Google Moon, then you can enter the co-ordinates.
 
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Smersh

Guest
MacMauro, an Open Minds Forum member and who found this in Google Moon, has seen this thread now and asked me to post this:

MoonFeature01contrast.jpg


It's said to be the object with the contrast enhanced a little.

I've just put a similar overhead view into Paintshop Pro to see if I could reproduce the same effect just by increasing the contrast, but so far I haven't been able to. I don't believe the above photo was enhanced by Macmauro but possibly by somebody at ATS or another board so I can't vouch for how it was done.

CommonMan":2stmudxk said:
Since a lot of people are interested in this picture, will Nasa try to get a better more clear picture anytime soon to put all the questions at ease?

I believe higher resolution pictures will gradually become available and be incorporated into Google Moon, as is gradually happening with Google Earth. Hopefully, pictures such as the ones taken by the LRO will be used by Google Moon, then we can see what appears at the same co-ordinates.

I wonder if anyone has queried this object with Google, NASA or the Japanese (Selene) yet?
 
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Wellington1114

Guest
CommonMan":k9p388nd said:
Since a lot of people are interested in this picture, will Nasa try to get a better more clear picture anytime soon to put all the questions at ease?

Nope
 
A

a_lost_packet_

Guest
Smersh":2rviiv0q said:
MacMauro, an Open Minds Forum member and who found this in Google Moon, has seen this thread now and asked me to post this: ..

Can you get me a top-down image of that area. Something that shows the area in question but also shows some other features nearby?

I can use that to create a false-topo image to see how it compares. It won't, necessarily, show anything. But, it could explain the way it appears in that isometric view.

I think it's just a "blob." Some image processing artifact. However, what would be needed would be to compare that image in Google Earth with other images of the area. I know enough about online Moon maps just to get me in trouble by making false assumptions. BUT, it would seem that since we have a location for the aberration, all that is needed is to reference it against other picture sets from a different source. I don't know the resolution of the source of the pic but, any project with data that is close to the same resolution should still show an anomaly there if it is a "real" terrain feature.

PS- The "checkerboard" pattern is known as a "texture checker." They are used for checking 3D object topology/texture artifacts/image filtering techniques for obvious reasons - Problems show up very well. :)
 
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