GeekWire reporters and correspondents are documenting the 2017 solar eclipse from the Pacific Northwest, including our home base in Seattle and locations in the “Path of Totality” in Oregon. Follow our eclipse adventures in this running live blog, and check out the headlines below to keep up with our coverage.
- Don’t panic, but be ready: Last-minute guide to the all-American solar eclipse
- As eclipse nears, astronomers issue warning about fake solar glasses
- Here comes the sun’s corona: What eclipse chasers will see during totality
- All along ‘zone of totality,’ small towns make big bets to cash in on darkness
- Oregon’s prime eclipse zone braces for the agony and the ecstasy of totality
1 of 59 years ago08/28/2017
There are lots of pictures out there showing the blacked-out sun during the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse. There’s even a picture of the International Space Station silhouetted by the partially eclipsed solar disk.
But how many pictures catch an airplane flying directly in front of the sun’s corona during totality?
Photographer Dustin Huntington posted just such a picture to SpaceWeather.com’s eclipse gallery, and it looked so good that at least one person was sure it was fake:
Stop flooding people with fake photoshopped pictures ! pic.twitter.com/LhV77HXvdw
— Tristan (@dodubassman) August 23, 2017
Since I retweeted a link to the picture, I felt duty-bound to find out whether this really was a case of Photoshop fakery. The fact that Huntington is a respectable nature photographer made the job easier.
After mistakenly bothering the other well-known photographer named Dustin Huntington (who shoots celebrity pictures), I asked for and received further details about the plane-in-the-eclipse pic, shot from Guernsey State Park in Wyoming.
Here’s what Huntington told me in an email:
“The picture is not fake. I got off 4 frames of the plane and I can send the raw files if you like. I also was shooting video, which shows the same plane fly through. It flew in very near the end of totality. I was shooting with the Sony A9 which shoots at 12 fps and expecting the “diamond ring” at any moment, so I just had it shooting away at full speed. Unexpectedly the plane flew in for a moment. A few people nearby said “was that a bird?” It was gone in a flash.
“At first I thought it must be one of the NASA planes, but I have not been able to find any indication that they were flying in Wyoming, and the shape does not look right for the ones they were flying in the east. I did find this Wired article on people using private jets.
“Seems like an odd way to go, since you can’t see up in normal jet, but who knows? Perhaps there were other non-NASA research flights, but I have not been able to find anything flying in central Wyoming.
“Anyway, the photo is genuine, but I have no idea what the plane is.”
The explanation was convincing enough that even the Twitter skeptic joined the quest to figure out what kind of plane it was. But the solution came from another sleuth, Josh Spradling, who took an almost identical picture at the same time at Glendo State Park in Wyoming:
https://twitter.com/JLSpradling/status/900771460913872901
Spradling checked the timing against flight-tracking databases, and determined that the plane was a Boeing 737 — specifically, WestJet Flight 1582, which was flying over Wyoming on its way from Calgary to Dallas when the eclipse took place.
The key piece of evidence comes in the form of a map added to Spradling’s original Facebook post. “I believe I’ve found the flight. … The green dot was where I was located,” he wrote:
It’s an amazing feat of detective work — so amazing that even WestJet was impressed:
Wow! Great capture!
— WestJet (@WestJet) August 29, 2017
Hat tip to @rainmaker1973, @dodubassman and, of course, Dustin Huntington and @JLSpradling.
9 years ago08/28/2017
There are lots of pictures out there showing the blacked-out sun during the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse. There’s even a picture of the International Space Station silhouetted by the partially eclipsed solar disk.
But how many pictures catch an airplane flying directly in front of the sun’s corona during totality?
Photographer Dustin Huntington posted just such a picture to SpaceWeather.com’s eclipse gallery, and it looked so good that at least one person was sure it was fake:
Stop flooding people with fake photoshopped pictures ! pic.twitter.com/LhV77HXvdw
— Tristan (@dodubassman) August 23, 2017
Since I retweeted a link to the picture, I felt duty-bound to find out whether this really was a case of Photoshop fakery. The fact that Huntington is a respectable nature photographer made the job easier.
After mistakenly bothering the other well-known photographer named Dustin Huntington (who shoots celebrity pictures), I asked for and received further details about the plane-in-the-eclipse pic, shot from Guernsey State Park in Wyoming.
Here’s what Huntington told me in an email:
“The picture is not fake. I got off 4 frames of the plane and I can send the raw files if you like. I also was shooting video, which shows the same plane fly through. It flew in very near the end of totality. I was shooting with the Sony A9 which shoots at 12 fps and expecting the “diamond ring” at any moment, so I just had it shooting away at full speed. Unexpectedly the plane flew in for a moment. A few people nearby said “was that a bird?” It was gone in a flash.
“At first I thought it must be one of the NASA planes, but I have not been able to find any indication that they were flying in Wyoming, and the shape does not look right for the ones they were flying in the east. I did find this Wired article on people using private jets.
“Seems like an odd way to go, since you can’t see up in normal jet, but who knows? Perhaps there were other non-NASA research flights, but I have not been able to find anything flying in central Wyoming.
“Anyway, the photo is genuine, but I have no idea what the plane is.”
The explanation was convincing enough that even the Twitter skeptic joined the quest to figure out what kind of plane it was. But the solution came from another sleuth, Josh Spradling, who took an almost identical picture at the same time at Glendo State Park in Wyoming:
https://twitter.com/JLSpradling/status/900771460913872901
Spradling checked the timing against flight-tracking databases, and determined that the plane was a Boeing 737 — specifically, WestJet Flight 1582, which was flying over Wyoming on its way from Calgary to Dallas when the eclipse took place.
He laid out his case in a map added to his original Facebook post. “I believe I’ve found the flight. … The green dot was where I was located,” he wrote:
It’s an amazing feat of detective work — so amazing that even WestJet was impressed:
Wow! Great capture!
— WestJet (@WestJet) August 29, 2017
Hat tip to @rainmaker1973, @dodubassman and, of course, Dustin Huntington and @JLSpradling.
9 years ago08/28/2017
There are lots of pictures out there showing the blacked-out sun during the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse. There’s even a picture of the International Space Station silhouetted by the partially eclipsed solar disk.
But how many pictures catch an airplane flying directly in front of the sun’s corona during totality?
Photographer Dustin Huntington posted just such a picture to SpaceWeather.com’s eclipse gallery, and it looked so good that at least one person was sure it was fake:
Stop flooding people with fake photoshopped pictures ! pic.twitter.com/LhV77HXvdw
— Tristan (@dodubassman) August 23, 2017
Since I retweeted a link to the picture, I felt duty-bound to find out whether this really was a case of Photoshop fakery. The fact that Huntington is a respectable nature photographer made the job easier.
After mistakenly bothering the other well-known photographer named Dustin Huntington (who shoots celebrity pictures), I asked for and received further details about the plane-in-the-eclipse pic, shot from Guernsey State Park in Wyoming.
Here’s what Huntington told me in an email:
“The picture is not fake. I got off 4 frames of the plane and I can send the raw files if you like. I also was shooting video, which shows the same plane fly through. It flew in very near the end of totality. I was shooting with the Sony A9 which shoots at 12 fps and expecting the “diamond ring” at any moment, so I just had it shooting away at full speed. Unexpectedly the plane flew in for a moment. A few people nearby said “was that a bird?” It was gone in a flash.
“At first I thought it must be one of the NASA planes, but I have not been able to find any indication that they were flying in Wyoming, and the shape does not look right for the ones they were flying in the east. I did find this Wired article on people using private jets.
“Seems like an odd way to go, since you can’t see up in normal jet, but who knows? Perhaps there were other non-NASA research flights, but I have not been able to find anything flying in central Wyoming.
“Anyway, the photo is genuine, but I have no idea what the plane is.”
The explanation was convincing enough that even the Twitter skeptic joined the quest to figure out what kind of plane it was. But the solution came from another sleuth, Josh Spradling, who took an almost identical picture at the same time at Glendo State Park in Wyoming:
https://twitter.com/JLSpradling/status/900771460913872901
Spradling checked the timing against flight-tracking databases, and determined that the plane was a Boeing 737 — specifically, WestJet Flight 1582, which was flying over Wyoming on its way from Calgary to Dallas when the eclipse took place.
He laid out his case in a map added to his original Facebook post. “I believe I’ve found the flight. … The green dot was where I was located,” he wrote:
It’s an amazing feat of detective work — so amazing that even WestJet was impressed:
Wow! Great capture!
— WestJet (@WestJet) August 29, 2017
Hat tip to @rainmaker1973, @dodubassman and, of course, Dustin Huntington and @JLSpradling.
9 years ago08/28/2017
There are lots of pictures out there showing the blacked-out sun during the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse. There’s even a picture of the International Space Station silhouetted by the partially eclipsed solar disk.
But how many pictures catch an airplane flying directly in front of the sun’s corona during totality?
Photographer Dustin Huntington posted just such a picture to SpaceWeather.com’s eclipse gallery, and it looked so good that at least one person was sure it was fake:
Stop flooding people with fake photoshopped pictures ! pic.twitter.com/LhV77HXvdw
— Tristan (@dodubassman) August 23, 2017
Since I retweeted a link to the picture, I felt duty-bound to find out whether this really was a case of Photoshop fakery. The fact that Huntington is a respectable nature photographer made the job easier.
After mistakenly bothering the other well-known photographer named Dustin Huntington (who shoots celebrity pictures), I asked for and received further details about the plane-in-the-eclipse pic, shot from Guernsey State Park in Wyoming.
Here’s what Huntington told me in an email:
“The picture is not fake. I got off 4 frames of the plane and I can send the raw files if you like. I also was shooting video, which shows the same plane fly through. It flew in very near the end of totality. I was shooting with the Sony A9 which shoots at 12 fps and expecting the “diamond ring” at any moment, so I just had it shooting away at full speed. Unexpectedly the plane flew in for a moment. A few people nearby said “was that a bird?” It was gone in a flash.
“At first I thought it must be one of the NASA planes, but I have not been able to find any indication that they were flying in Wyoming, and the shape does not look right for the ones they were flying in the east. I did find this Wired article on people using private jets.
“Seems like an odd way to go, since you can’t see up in normal jet, but who knows? Perhaps there were other non-NASA research flights, but I have not been able to find anything flying in central Wyoming.
“Anyway, the photo is genuine, but I have no idea what the plane is.”
The explanation was convincing enough that even the Twitter skeptic joined the quest to figure out what kind of plane it was. But the solution came from another sleuth, Josh Spradling, who took an almost identical picture at the same time at Glendo State Park in Wyoming:
https://twitter.com/JLSpradling/status/900771460913872901
Spradling checked the timing against flight-tracking databases, and determined that the plane was a Boeing 737 — specifically, WestJet Flight 1582, which was flying over Wyoming on its way from Calgary to Dallas when the eclipse took place.
He laid out his case in a comment added to his original Facebook post:
It’s an amazing feat of detective work — so amazing that even WestJet was impressed: