Terry Blanton wrote:
Vorts,
While spying on my neighbors about a mile away, Tournament Players
Club, aka Sugarloaf Country Club, I came across this image:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&z=17&ll=34.010799,-84.115362&spn=0.004562,0.
007231&t=k&om=1
http://tinyurl.com/wclkj
Now, if that is a dirigible, where's the shadow? Does Google do this
for fun? Or is it a UFO?
I don't think it's faked. It looks like an ad blimp, and I see what
looks like a definite shadow.
First, look at the tree line along the highway, and look at the shadows
from the trees. They're falling diagonally, to the upper left of each
tree; you can see them like tooth marks on the highway.
Now, at max zoom, draw a line from the _tail_ of the blimp in the same
direction. Look at the embankment by the side of the highway, just
above and to the left of the blimp. There's a dark area there, which
has a bulge at the end, just like the blimp's tail, just about where the
shadow might fall if the blimp is flying low. That dark area has no
business being there, unless it's a shadow -- but note that its edges
are fuzzier than the tree shadows, both because the blimp is a lot
higher than the trees (and the edges spread at about a 1/2 degree angle,
of course), and because it's falling on rough ground with lots of
vegetation.
Now, trace the body of the blimp in the shadow, which goes down and to
the left. First, the shadow climbs the embankment, faster than you
might expect, because the embankment is sloped. Second, it gets lost in
the line of trees next to the highway, which are somewhat dark.
Finally, the nose of the shadow apparently just barely misses getting
onto the pavement -- or perhaps it runs over a bit, but is superimposed
on one of the tree shadows.
I've outlined the area in which I think the shadow has fallen, here (I
drew the outline a bit outside the area of the shadow):
http://www.physicsinsights.org/images/blimp-shadow-1.png
Again, since the shadow is falling on a hillside, it's not parallel to
the (horizontal) blimp.
Terry
