What's this unusual Lunar feature, showing in Google Moon?

[Smersh]

Go into Google Earth and select Google Sky, then "Moon" and enter the following co-ordinates:

19 58 48.31 N 21 11 35.57 E

When you zoom in a bit, this appears:



A very interesting mountain and rock formation that. I wonder if it's been given a name yet?

[jim48]

Why not name it after Richard C. Hoagland?

[Smersh]

Not a good idea imo - he's arrogant enough as it is.

[andrew_t1000]

That's just the secret Nazi blimp refuelling station or a CIA bed and breakfast or a McDonalds.

[Mee_n_Mac]

That's just the secret Nazi blimp refuelling station or a CIA bed and breakfast or a McDonalds.

Crap !! I was hoping for a Wendy's. Can't beat their spicy chicken sandwich.

[jim48]

It's Hugo Drax's latest secret facility. Well, it was secret. Oh do come along, 007. This is not a toy!!! You must hold it this way. That's right. KA-BOOM!!!

[andrew_t1000]

You do all realise the foil hat brigade are going to go nuts over this.....

But seriously, what is it?

[kelvinzero]

Is the odd thing how it stands out from its surroundings?

I wonder if this is the result of some sort of image processing. Here is another odd one: 20° 9'0.18"N 19°50'20.22"E .
It is just a dark black squiggle, next to an absurdly high hump, obviously an error unless those 1940s spikey moon mountains really exist

[CommonMan]

Well, aphh, come on, is this picture real? Or is it a fake, or is it really a picture of something on Earth? What is your opinion?

[a_lost_packet_]

Go into Google Earth and select Google Sky, then "Moon" and enter the following co-ordinates:

19 58 48.31 N 21 11 35.57 E

When you zoom in a bit, this appears: A very interesting mountain and rock formation that. I wonder if it's been given a name yet?

I think it's a weird isometric/false-topology effect. I assume they used some topology algorithm that uses the 2D imagery to fake a isometric topology view. It's just way too "off" to be anything real, at least with those apparent "shadows" and "highlights."

PS - I don't have Google Earth and no room to install it atm.

[dragon04]

Don't you guys know ANYTHING, for cryin' out loud? That's Moon Base Alpha


Sheesh.

[a_lost_packet_]

It's... the S.H.A.D.O. Moonbase from UFO!

http://ufoseries.com/photos/moonbaseAbove.jpg

They had hot chicks in silver tights and see-thru unitards with purple hair! HOW FRIGGIN COOL IS THAT!

http://ufoseries.com/photos/fosterHarrington.jpg

(Pics too big, don't feel like re-upping them to resize )

I'm actually working on some 3D models from that series. heh heh

[Smersh]

You do all realise the foil hat brigade are going to go nuts over this.....

But seriously, what is it?

Hi Andrew, that's a very good question. Here's another shot I just saved from Google Moon, showing the object as it first appears when zoomed in on:



It appears in the southern part of Mare Serenitatis, so it's quite a flat area and devoid of mountains. Seems too sharp and well defined to me to be a real feature, but it's still there nevertheless.

[ZenGalacticore]

I'm no photographer, but can someone explain to me why the 'unusual feature' is in the foreground and blurry, while the crater background left is in focus?

[jim48]

My YouTube video seems to have disappeared. This is a strange site, stranger than what's on the Moon.

[ZenGalacticore]

Go into Google Earth and select Google Sky, then "Moon" and enter the following co-ordinates:

19 58 48.31 N 21 11 35.57 E

When you zoom in a bit, this appears:



A very interesting mountain and rock formation that. I wonder if it's been given a name yet?

Actually, it's my second home. I put it on the Moon to get away from everybody. The bright spot in the lower right of the square is my plasma BBQ, nice and fired up. I'm fixin' to slap a few alien rib cages on there. Y'all come on up!! Bring beer.

[MeteorWayne]

I'm no photographer, but can someone explain to me why the 'unusual feature' is in the foreground and blurry, while the crater background left is in focus?

You must be looking at a different image. I see the unusual feature as very sharp relative to the crater background left.

[CommonMan]

Since a lot of people are interested in this picture, will Nasa try to get a better more clear picture anytime soon to put all the questions at ease?

[ZenGalacticore]

I'm no photographer, but can someone explain to me why the 'unusual feature' is in the foreground and blurry, while the crater background left is in focus?

You must be looking at a different image. I see the unusual feature as very sharp relative to the crater background left.

So you see the foreground as crisp and the background left as blurry? I guess we are looking at different pics. But then again, this is on Google Moon, and when you zoom in it's always blurry, at least on my monitor. But then the background would be blurry too, hmm.

I agree CommonMan. Maybe it's an old robot lander that set down there.

[a_lost_packet_]

I'm no photographer, but can someone explain to me why the 'unusual feature' is in the foreground and blurry, while the crater background left is in focus?

I missed your question earlier.

This may have to do with texture filtering. If that displayed image is an "isometric" image using 2D photographs to generate a 3D landscape so you can see it in an isometric view then it's going to be using a graphics engine to render that.

Texture filtering does a number of things. For one, it can speed up rendering time (depending upon how its done). But, its most often done to remove artifacts in a 3D display that can appear when using 2D images which, depending on the quality, can actually slow down rendering processes.

Here's a simple image for illustrative purposes only:

From: Maya-Eliptical Filtering

See the image on the left. Well, that is the actual texture. See the moire pattern? Thats one of the natural artifacts possible of a 2d texture in a False-3D display. (For this example, it's OK to look at it like that. "False 3D" is what you see on a computer or at the movies. True 3D is what you see when you open your eyes if you haven't been drinking too much.)

But, with texture filtering, you can remove some of those artifacts and make it look more "realistic." It's still the exact same image. It has only been filtered for rendering/display purposes in relation to the camera to give a nice presentation. There are many different texture filtering techniques, some more destructive than others in presenting a true representation of a 2d image in 3d space. Some supported in only certain graphic environments, some common amongst video cards or certain software, etc..

There are some problems, however. Notice in the OP picture how the foreground looks pixelated and the background isn't? That's filtering. The foreground is closer to its native resolution in the display so it is rendered as true to original as possible. The background has a filter applied which tends to even things out a bit so it's smoother. If the original texture was of higher resolution, the foreground wouldn't look so pixelated. Think of it as a step-progression method with full texture resolution only right at the surface of the object and only when viewed at the resolution of the texture itself. So, if you rendered the image at 800x600 and the texture was also 800x600, you would only have a small bit of filtering depending upon how far the image continued away from the camera. The foreground would look nice and crisp. If the texture image was 640x480 and you rendered at that resolution, the foreground would look a bit blocky, wouldn't it? That's because the texture IS a bit blocky compared to the rendered resolution at 800x600.

Zoom it out to its original size and display the texture at its original resolution and I be it looks awesome. Kind'a like a 1:1 Map of the World.

All of this is meant to accomplish one thing: It simulates the viewing of a 2D image in a False-3D environment. If it was a truly a 3D environment with an image that stretched for 200 miles or so, you wouldn't need a filter for it to look decent.

Note: You can also get a similar effect like this with simple image compression as many techniques automatically include certain sampling methods like anisotropic filtering and the like to render a good image. Such techniques are aimed at preserving as much information as possible yet their main purpose is to render a good image in the chosen format above all else. So, some information may be altered. Yet, those techniques apply themselves across the entire image. Taking an image from an uncompressed form like a tiff and then compressing it down to a jpg, you'll enter a dialogue where you'll typically have compression and filtering options. Where's that 10-year-career photo-expert scientist dude? He should be in here 'esplainin' all that stuff...

Of course, I could be totally full of BS as I don't even have Google Earth and couldn't even tell you if such mechanisms are used. But, that's what it looks like to me being completely ignorant of anything "Google Earth" related. (Well, except that I know it exists, I'm pretty sure I live on Earth and I'm pretty sure that Google is a Megacorp bent on stealing my precious bodily fluids...)