WOW

[kyburg]

That's what the blackout last week looked like from space.

Comments

[caitlin.livejournal.com]

Looks like someone cut a section out of the Night Map of North America.

[miwasatoshi.livejournal.com]

Hmm ... the surface albedo from the land should be brighter than pitch-black (refer to northern Quebec for what the surface albedo SHOULD look like in the blackout area).

Looks strange - if anything, the land area should not be darker than the nearby ocean.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

They might have intentionally brought out the artificial lights alone just to make the contrast clear.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

But you can see where the shores of, say, the Northern Territories are. If they'd only shown artificial lights it should all be black, like NY is.

[miwasatoshi.livejournal.com]

Plus I saw the latest issue of NewsWeek, and there were still isolated pockets where local power agencies had cut themselves off the grid, and there was still light.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

here's space.com's satellite photos of the day of the blackout and the day before. NYC is much, much dimmer (as are DC and Toronto) but there's still some lighting. Maybe there were emergency generators in some places?

btw, thanks for teaching me the world "albedo". I like it.

[lostboydv.livejournal.com]

I suspect in addition to the effect of emergency generators, you're also seeing car headlights there.

[miwasatoshi.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. ^_^ Learned it from, of all things, SimEarth ...

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

...and more images from NASA, showing much the same. I think this shows the problem with the original image quite well.

[makeitepic.livejournal.com]

O___o wow. My house is in that mess of darkness O_O

[sisterdark.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting that...it's incredible...

[washuotaku.livejournal.com]

That picture doesn't look right. Like somebody simply dabbed black on the area; you sure that's an official picture?

[washuotaku.livejournal.com]

I know replying to myself is stupid, but I realized something else which leads me to believe this is a farce pic. The fact it says 23:15 EST. We are in Daylight Savings Time, so it would be EDT; also, being that we are in Summer, it should still be daylight around Alaska (7:15pm) and twilight on the West Coast (8:15pm). An awesome night shot of North America wouldn't be possible yet at that time.

Lets face it, it's doctored!

[varna.livejournal.com]

Donna, where'd you pick up the pic?

Since everyone's questioning it, I looked it up. The pic matches in the light areas to http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/49261main_usa_nightm.jpe which is the nighttime lights map of the US. NASA compiled it from the October 1994 - March 1995 data, which was collected when moonlight was low. The light patterns are the same. However, the parts of Canada in the original where there are no lights show as a midnight blue, not pure black. In this one, northern Canada shows as the same midnight blue, while the US eastern seaboard shows as black. Taken into PSP and blown up to 10x magnification, some of the pixels ARE sharper than they show in the rest of the image, which could mean possible tampering in the image.

I'll take it to work, compare it to the original, and let you know from there. From what I can see in the image comparison and in the magnified image, there is at least potential for the image to have been altered.

One other quick thing of note: I'm in NJ and didn't lose power at ALL. There should be some flickers of light in there, not the utter blackness. I know our county pretty well wasn't touched at all. Little and rural we may be, but we can't be the only ones. There should be something there, even slight.

~ Varna
Who LOVES picking apart stuff. ;)

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

It looks very contrasty, doesn't it? I think they dialed it up to make a point -

I've got a bud who does imaging for the CIA - going to forward it to him and see what he says.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

A few days ago I posted a before/after pic set in my journal that showed *some* lights in the area.

[auntiesiannan.livejournal.com]

Oh, now THAT is FAB. :)

[kusoyaro.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'm a few measly millimeters from the bottom of the darkness!