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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2817 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 11, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Alright i have an extremely low stakes bone to pick!

So I live in southern Canada, and like many people we got Northern Lights the other night. Except - our northern lights consisted of a greyish haze basically. Yeah you could see something, it was cool! But it wasn't colorful.

Then, when you took a picture with your phone, that monochrome grey turns into a brilliant symphony of color, perfect for social media! But, it's basically a lie - I assume AI upscaling of some kind. And now I'm seeing all these photos from the US/Mexico Border, other southern states, of these brilliant reds and greens and I'm like, is everybody comfortable just lying like this? Surely they didn't actually see any color IRL, right? Did anybody actually see real colors outside of the phone AI upscaling, in any areas of the continental USA?

The Northern Lights just aren't very bright as we're seeing them right now. Also you probably live in a city and are suffering from haze & light pollution, which makes it tough.

I'm out of town, pretty far south and can see them not bad at the moment if I go outside and let my eyes adjust for five minutes first -- but they are quite dim compared to what I've seen during actual Northern winters.

ROV is correct that the reason phone pictures turn out more impressive is camera settings -- mostly exposure time is what I'd crank if I wanted a nice picture with a manual camera, but iphones are probably cranking the iso as he says. But if you go someplace really dark you can probably see them better.

I am lucky to live in a small city with a relatively decent dark sky (can see multiple constellations on a given night), but it's still not ideal for sure

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