Australia's second moon - Ursu's 911! 8.5.11

This image from weeklyworldnews.com is presented as an evidence that there is a second moon in the sky

Now, I took the to the moon to right in the image above, rotated it -80°, stretched it somewhat and made it grey-scale. Apart from my result not being stretched exactly the right way, what makes my manipulated image below different from the one to the left above?

So my point is : since I could so easily create one of the moons above from the other, isn't it extremely likely that the "acctual" image is manipulated in the exact same way?
And if you download the original image and look at the Exif-information you see this :

So the photo is taken Aug 26 2010 and edited in Photoshop. Case closed.

Update Aug 6 2011:
This is apparently a recurring post as it was published in Aug 2010 in the Frank Lake Report along with news that Fidel Castro hopped a raft to America, Michelle Obama being pregnant in Jan 2011 (she should be due about now then) and lets not forget about Tuna Boy...

The blue moon

In previous videos Ursu's been seeing blue planets behind or next to the moon.
The image below, taken from a photography forum discussing problems with lens reflections, was taken by a guy (Ben_B) who also explains how he created it.

 

This image is linked from http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?189158-Strange-Lens-Flare









In many of his videos, especially the one where he uses a camera with lower resolution, you can clearly see the features of the-man-in-the-moon/the-rabbit-in-the-moon.
In one video (the one with the silent homeless guy) the blue thing can't even be seen until the angle between the camera and binoculars is adjusted.

The current bright spot on SOHO

Ursu says that the white spot in this image from SOHO's Lasco3 is not Venus :

This image is taken from the Lasco 3 detector at http://sohodata.nascom.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/data_query on Aug 05
















In one video it is correctly pointed out, from the Wiki page, that the nex transition of Venus is not until 2012.
The speed the current object is moving is also compared with the transition made in 2004, which took 11 days.
A transition of Venus, per definition, is when it travels in front of the disk of the sun, as seen from SOHO and the earth.
Today it's traveling behind the sun, so the crossing will take a much longer time.
If you look at http://gunn.co.nz/astrotour you can clearly see this, and you can also see that Mercury will probably come in from the left in SOHO's view sometimes around Aug 10-15 or something.

Edit and update 6 Aug 2011 : 
In the "NEW! 8.5.11" video at around 4:30 it's said that the current object on SOHO Lasco3 isn't diminishing in the same way Venus did in the end or 2009.
If you look at the superimposition of two SOHO images taken when the 2011-object is at about the same distance from the sun as 2009-Venus you see that it indeed seems slightly larger today, but you can also see that I had to move the 2009 image upwards and to the right to make the solar-mark fit, which indicates that SOHO (quite obviously) isn't in the exact same position regarding the sun as it was in 2009. That might account for the percieved slight discrepancy between the objects.

And another thing to consider : if this isn't Venus, then where is it? It should be in SOHO's view right now...

Thoughts regarding the "black spot" in front of the sun

In many videos Ursu sees a black spot in front of the sun and is convinced it's a planet or somthing similar parked in front of the sun.

This image, from a Flickr group about back dots in photos, shows that not only the sun has a black spot, sometimes asian performances gets a visit as well :

The full size image that this thumbnail is produced from is taken by Flickr-user Ahopsi and the URL to it is http://www.flickr.com/photos/publish9/4489832126/in/pool-1354324@N23





A few other things to consider :

• These groups (http://www.flickr.com/groups/1354324@N23 and http://www.flickr.com/groups/burntchips ) have images dating back to at least 2000. How come a spot that's been around for eleven years hasn't made the regular news and become common knowledge?
• How come you can't take a welding mask or similar protection, look at the sun and see it for yourself?
• How come it can only be captured on digital cameras?
• In one video Ursu pointed out that the spot made reflections, but the majority of those reflections were a white spot. How can a black face produce a white reflection?
• How come the black spot is always seems to be directly in the center of the sun, regardless of when and where the photo is taken?

The simplest answer is that it just IS a flaw (if you will) of the way certain camera sensors behave when they are asked to print something they consider is brighter than "max bright".
That's also why you CAN see black reflections in the water of the spot - in those reflections the image is too bright as well.

Correcting the 8.1.11 video

Correction : The triangular ship over Neumayer is the constellation Canis Major

At 43:25 in the video Ursu points to the triangular ship seen over the Neumayer Station lately :

If you look closely you see that the left line is made up of two bright objects and a faint one close to the upmost.

If you go to Your Sky, enter the lat/long for Neumayer, point the camera to SouthEast (the camera is facing the north side of the station according to the web page) and set the time to 2011-08-02 02:30:00 you see this :

What's being interpreted as a triangular ship is actually the ass of poor Canis Major :

Corrections of the 8.5.11-video

Correction 1: The formation presented as Elenin is the constellation Taurus

In the 8.5.11 video at 10:07 UrsuAdams counts to seven objects worth of Elenin just below the Pleiades (also called M45) :

and then compares it to the first image of Elenin which, if you count them, have nine objects (4+4+1).

If you look at the Horizons Views on Your Sky you see this (except the yellow line which I added) :

Mauna Kea, on which the CFHT is located, is at lat/long 19° 49'  N; 155° 28'  W and the webcam is facing east according to the info on the web page.
Below the Taurus text you see the exact triangular formation showed in the video and you see that M45 lines up perfectly when you draw a line from the brightest lowest star and between the two above, like in this (edited from the original to show line-up and the objects) image :

 

Correction 2 : The sun rises at the Antarctica stations.

In the 8.5.11 video Ursu says that the sun doesn't rise in Antarctica during
the winter currently down there.
That's kinda true - it doesn't rise on the direct pole, but in the outskirts it surely does as these shots from timeanddate show for Davis and Mawson :

Edit 6 Aug 2010 : The explanation that used to be presented below regarding the time discrepancies between the noted sunrise/sets above and the one seen in the Mawson video was wrong and has been corrected in a newer blog. An image of what it looked is shown  but should not be considered accurate.