Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

How come the pictures have such bad quality ? Is it a bandwidth issue ? Or there are really constraints that are not so obvious ?

Because fundamentally it is a large object illuminated by sunlight.

 help



No, it's BBC's compression of that image.

Look at the original: https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/fd02_for-pao/

It's grainy, but the detail is terrific.


No GPS coordinates in the EXIF data. Would've been funny.

@dang, mods: maybe this should be the post's link. The image quality is much higher.

It's the night-side Earth, taken at a high ISO value to keep shutter speed fast to prevent blur.

Ok thank you, makes more sense, I thought it was the day-side

Yes, I was also confused when I first saw it – how could the aurora be visible?! The bright sliver of atmosphere in the lower right is, of course, backlit by the sun which is itself eclipsed by Earth. It's the near-full moon that provides most of the illumination here. Besides both auroral rings you can also see airglow, city lights, and lightning flashes, it's a marvellous photo.



Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: