Quote:
Originally Posted by hotshot
Couldnt that be because of the position of the phototaking airplane? If it took 2 pictures of the airport and meshed those, the shadows would be different for a plane directly beneath it as compared to a plane towards the outer edge of the shot.
wellll, yes and no. These photos are satellite images. The satellites orbit 4-500 miles up. From that range, the angular difference between two objects would be very small.
To get an idea of this, hold one finger up an inch from your nose and focus on a spot on the far side of the room. It will look like you have two fingers. And if you wink your eye, alternating between left and right, your finger seems to jump from side to side.
Now hold your finger at arm's length and wink again. Your finger will still jump back and forth, but the two images will be much closer than before.
If you had an arm that was 400 miles long and the wall was 401 miles away, as you winked, the angle would be so small, your finger would show virtually no movement.
In the same way, the satellite sees very little angular change in such a small field of view. If you zoom in on both of the planes on the ground, we are looking straight down the vertical stabilizer no mater where the plane is in the picture. Also looking at the buildings, we never see any walls, only roofs.
So, while you are correct there is a zillionth of a degree difference, it is so small we probably would not detect it (especially that magnification and resolution of the google photos). And it certainly is not nearly enough to account for the HUGE differences in the shadows of the Gulfstream and the helicopter only 1500 feet apart.
Sorry to be so long winded. Hope this makes sense.
Here is a photo taken from a U2 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The it is early to mid morning, the plane is flying northwest, and the sun is at our 6 o'clock. All those vertical, dark lines are palm tree shadows. Notice how the are all pointing the same way.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/14.jpg
((this is the sight that has many of the photos the were declassified to prove the Soviets were installing the missles in Cuba. Pretty neat.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cub...cri/photos.htm))