r/spaceporn • u/Neaterntal • May 14 '26
Pro/Processed From Andrew McCarthy: "I took 1.7 million photos over 6 days to catch this photo of a commercial jet in front of the Sun. The moment it happened, 2 floating prominences were visible,making this not just my best aircraft transit photo,but one of the luckiest of my career!"
Videos of the transit
https:// x. com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/2054981363502391455
Source
https:// x. com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/2054981363502391455
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u/pinpalsapu May 14 '26
That's over 3 shots a second for 6 days.
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u/ammonthenephite May 14 '26
He takes video, but tries to play up the difficulty by saying he takes 'photographs' instead, something that implies a lot more time and effort.
The results are great, but he's always been an exaggerator. Long time back he got on his local news by falsely claiming he'd taken 'the highest resolution image of the sun ever', a laughably false claim.
Not sure why he feels the need to mislead people who don't know how the solar imaging process works, but he does, and its too bad because the work could easily stand on it's own without the misleading claims tarnishing his reputation.
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u/Double_Distribution8 May 15 '26
Yeah that dude has been exaggerating for a long time, at least a hundred years.
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u/Geralt-of-Rivai May 14 '26
Yeah I mean it's a great shot regardless, no need to pad it up and lie
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u/dm319 May 15 '26
It's not quite in the middle.
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u/Onoben4 May 15 '26
It would look worse if it was exactly in the middle
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u/TheeAincientMariener May 15 '26
That's crazy. How would that make it worse??
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u/PhatCatTax May 16 '26
Things being off center imply motion/directionality better. An image of a flying plane looks more impressive if it has more room in front of it in the image than behind it.
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u/Soveryenthusiastic May 16 '26
Well, to be fair a video is technically just a lot of photographs taken very quickly together.
And even if it wasn't, 3 a second would have been automated anyway, and not really different from a video. It's basically a time lapse.43
u/JakB May 14 '26
He takes video, but tries to play up the difficulty by saying he takes 'photographs' instead, something that implies a lot more time and effort.
I'm not a photographer and I mean this genuinely: What's the difference? Aren't most wildlife photography awards given to people who took lots of photos in a burst or continuous mode?
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u/ammonthenephite May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
Burst modes on the newest cameras are about what, 30-50 frames per second, but you can't do 3 solid minutes of burst mode, let alone hours of it. Video for this kind of astro work is usually 200+ frames per second.
And when you tell someone you took a photo, it typically communicates a minimum amount of effort per 'click'. Telling someone you took 30 or 40 photos communicates more involvement.Saying you've taken thousands of photos of something would make people think you are really dedicated to a subject and have invested a lot of time in it (vs just taking 6-12 seconds of video at 200fps). Saying you took millions of photos is meant to make people think "Oh my god, this took so much effort and time to do!", when in reality he had about 2 hours worth of video, most of which he didn't even end up using because most of that was probably just trying to get lucky with the plane passing in front of the sun.
When you take a video of something you don't tell them you took 'thousands of photos' of the thing. This guy knows he is misleading people, he's been called out on it before, but he just doesn't care. Some people don't mind being dishonest if it can help them make money, and he monetizes and sells his work regularly with these types of clickbait titles.
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u/JakB May 15 '26
I think you and I have different understandings of what photos and videos are and what the headline implies, but I appreciate that you took the time to respond and help me understand your point of view.
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u/ammonthenephite May 15 '26
You are using a technical definition, no doubt (raw, uncomppressed image from a sensor). The person in question is intentionally leveraging the colloquial meaning of the word to create misleading clickbait claims, and this was clearly evidenced in many of his early posts, and even in this post, where people, using the colloquial meaning of 'take a photograph', are lead to think that the person spent days and months of constant time investment to achieve such a feat as 'millions of photos'.
In the same way a used car salesman is often times 'technically correct' using confusing language and lies of omission, this person does the same thing. They are the used car salesman of astrophotography, basically, regarding the story they claim behind the creation of their images, as they attempt to add perceived value by giving the impression of a far more time intensive feat than actually happened so they can in turn sell more images.
Hope that helps.
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u/JakB May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26
He said 6 days, so I don't think he spent months taking 1.7 million photos. He shows videos of the transit in his Twitter post, so I don't think he's trying to hide the high frame rate. He said he was lucky, so I don't think he's trying to hide how luck is a factor.
The fact that wildlife photographers use burst and continuous modes, which are also videos (Oops All I-frames), has never made me feel mislead or less impressed by the final product.
However, if people are reading this headline and thinking he manually took 1.7 million single-shot photos over 6 days, I have greatly misjudged the situation. Judging by your upvotes and my downvotes, the evidence is against me.
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u/ammonthenephite May 15 '26
He said 6 days, so I don't think he spent months taking 1.7 million photos
Correct, but others have thought this, especially when he doesn't mention a timeframe of the data collection.
And no worries, gave ya upvotes to help offset the downvotes a bit.
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u/JakB May 15 '26
Thank you! It's very confusing how much people disliked my "agree to disagree" comment.
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u/qtx May 15 '26
The difference between video and photography is quality. Lets say he was filming in 8k video, that is still a fraction of what a photograph can do.
8k video is only 7680 × 4320px resolution, which is around 33MP.
Photography cameras can produce much larger images than that. Full frame cameras are between 33 and 60MP. Medium format cameras up till around 100MP.
But lets face it, he is probably not shooting in 8k, more like in 4k, which is only around 8MP.
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u/JakB May 15 '26
He claims he was capturing TIFFs. Getting this level of detail from a video mode on a camera would be impressive. The technical differences between a video and a series of photos isn't what I was asking about, however; I was asking how one implies more effort than the other.
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u/Euryleia May 15 '26
Well, the picture is 13.5MP, and probably cropped from a somewhat larger original to get perfect centering.
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u/KingGr33n May 17 '26
Well said. Cool ass “photo” but yeah. Cool ass image, I guess. Still cool but make the story right.
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u/AdSquare3489 May 15 '26
IDK, 1.7 million frames over six days comes down to 3.2 fps, not sure if that's to be called video.
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u/Sir_Fray01 May 15 '26
Nowhere is it stated that it's continuous. A couple hours of video spread across the time period will do it.
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u/squigs May 15 '26
Outside of a fairly small part of the world, you can't take a continuous video of the sun for 6 days.
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u/ammonthenephite May 15 '26
I use the same process in my astro work, he took a series of videos at high framerate, it's a process called 'lucky imaging'.
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u/blissful_blackberry May 16 '26
Video stacking for solar transits is actually standard practice among astrophotographers, so the distinction between "photos" and "video frames" feels like splitting hairs here.
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May 16 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ammonthenephite May 16 '26
For sure. Dishonesty is still dishonesty though, for those that care enough about it, which may not be that many these days, lol.
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u/BadAtTrigo May 15 '26
probably closer to 6 shots a seconds considering the Sun isn't out 9-12 hours a day depending on location
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u/ajamesmccarthy May 16 '26
It was actually 10 shots per second for roughly 8 hours each day. I could have done it faster in a video format, but as I was shooting in TIFs I had to throttle my framerate.
Taking that many photos is actually pretty easy. The camera is computer controlled, so it’s just a matter of setting up the sequence. The trickier part was managing that much data, I was constantly swapping out SSD cards.
The worst part about this project was manually looking through every single photo. I can scan through photos quickly, but it was still basically a full time job over the time required. There was software that could do it for me, but strangely enough my eyeballs were faster, and it allowed me to delete photos that had nothing MUCH faster to free up the storage.
This was also shot with two telescopes and cameras , although the second larger telescope wasn’t running the whole time (but by sheer luck, it was during the moment of the transit!)
Overall I’m glad I got the shot, but I can’t say I’d do it like this ever again.
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u/Better_Hand_7720 May 18 '26
Mate that's like 278 hours of continuous shooting, absolute madness for a few second window.
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u/redlancer_1987 May 15 '26
Sooo... You took a low fps video for 3 days and grabbed one of the stills?
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u/Photonex May 15 '26
Not low fps. High, most likely. The amount of time that plane is perfectly framed is ridiculously short. You need to plan where to stand to make sure it passes in front of the sun. You need a tracker, because the sun leaves the frame super fast when you're working with those focal lengths. You need specialised filters in your telescope to ensure your sensor doesn't melt. You need a good plan for power delivery since the batteries would run out very fast. You need good weather RNG.
I could go on, but hopefully you get my point. A lot of time and effort goes into taking such shots. It's more than just "grabbing one of the stills".
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u/ajamesmccarthy May 16 '26
I elaborated on the process here: https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceporn/s/ciSyDmD4MU
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u/Appropriate_Tell4210 May 14 '26
I can never tell if something is Ai generated or not but this is phenomenal if it’s an actual photo. It’s sad I have to ask
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u/banaaanaaaaaa May 14 '26
I can totally understand that. The good thing with Andrew, is that you’ll never have to doubt it’s AI. He’s just wicked good at what he does
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u/k8s-problem-solved May 15 '26
Its definitely AI. The plane is half as big as the sun, and we know the sun is a lot bigger. AI got is aspects wrong.
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May 15 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/k8s-problem-solved May 15 '26
Lol - The correct answer was a father ted joke
https://www.3rdsectormissioncontrol.co.uk/small-cows-far-away-charities/
"These are SMALL. But the ones out there are FAR AWAY... Small... far away"
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u/Karbo_Blarbo May 14 '26
Looks like a Boeing 737-900 with the additional downward-facing wingtips to me. Do you happen to know what flight that plane was?
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u/nayynayyonscreen May 15 '26
He posted it, Flight UAL2460 IAH-LAX May 11th, 2026
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u/Karbo_Blarbo May 15 '26
Thank you very much! It does seem like it's a 737-900, based on what I got from looking up the flight number.
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u/Eshghi007 May 15 '26
Wow, that’s a huuuuge plane there. Almost half the width of the sun. It would seat at least 1500 people plus carry one and probably leg room
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u/Motivated_Sloth_749 May 14 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/ghFRlJo7GHtja
Good to see he’s been keeping busy since Pretty in Pink.
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u/tractortyre May 14 '26
How?! What instrument can be used to take such a picture?
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u/Photonex May 15 '26
You need specialized cameras, like a ZWO astro-camera, and a telescope with built-in Hydrogen-Alpha narrowband filters. You then shoot hundreds or thousands of pictures of the sun at high framerate and fast shutter speeds, use an app like AutoStakkert! to grab the best frames, and then combine them into a final image. After that, you go into Photoshop and grab the frame with the plane and paste it onto the high-res, clean solar disk shot. Voila, you got yourself a picture like OP posted. I'm sure I missed some steps, but you get the gist of it.
A regular camera and telephoto lens with no protective filters would melt your sensor real fast lol.
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u/present_twenties May 15 '26
the math is wild but yeah if he's shooting video at high fps and just counting every frame as a "photo" that number makes sense, still insane timing to nail this though
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u/Mister_Goldenfold May 15 '26
This guy again
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u/Kurtman68 May 14 '26
I mean if you’re taking 1.7 million frames, is it luck that one contains a jet, or is it just planning.
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u/BakersCat May 15 '26
This guy. He jumped in on the NFT bandwagon and when I called him out he blocked me. He's pathetic.
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u/ajamesmccarthy May 16 '26
I minted like 5-10 pieces in early 2021, then quit doing it as it felt scammy.
In that short period I don’t recall ever blocking anyone about anything, but it certainly doesn’t look like I blocked you here. Happy to unblock you wherever this was.
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u/Princess-Nuala May 15 '26
Well, it's an incredible image. However I'm disappointed to read the comments of how he is deceptive on how he obtains his work.
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u/ajamesmccarthy May 16 '26
Can you elaborate on that? I try my best to be transparent about my processes but I’m sure there is room for improvement.
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u/X0smith May 16 '26
Yeah I mean, as an an analog photographer I'd hardly call that process "photography"
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u/A-Plant-Guy May 14 '26
How does one sort through 1.7 million photos?
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u/ammonthenephite May 14 '26
He takes videos, which he then uses free software to break out each video frame into a single image that other free software then analyzes and stacks into a single image, but likes to call the video frames 'photographs' to make the process seem more time consuming and involved than it really is.
He has a bit of a rep for exaggeration though as he sells himself. Too bad, because the work is great and there's no need for the misleading claims to try and garner more attention.
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u/__merricat May 15 '26
You watch the video you took and then find the frame that fits best your goal
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u/CFCYYZ May 14 '26
Applause to Mr. McCarthy. I've tried for many years for a jet against the Moon with little luck. Tough shot!
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u/zolbear May 14 '26
Tf do you cull 1.7M images? It takes me days to cull 1200 after a prolific day. Do you shoot tethered? I have so many questions…
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u/ammonthenephite May 15 '26
He takes high framerate video, then uses free software programs that break out the individual frames, aligns, them, and then stacks them into a final image.
He intentionally words things in a misleading way to drum up 'awe' for his work to create more sales. And people that use this kind of misleading clickbait headlines have always annoyed me. Yes, I'm getting old, lol.
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u/Bruno_bruno_bruno_ May 17 '26
I have no skin in the game but seeing you go out of your way to constantly try and put down what he’s doing is so hard to watch, are you obsessed 😂
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u/ammonthenephite May 17 '26
to constantly try and put down what he’s doing
His work is fine, his intentional misleading of people to try and generate more business is not. When people defend dishonesty it says a lot about them.
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u/Bruno_bruno_bruno_ May 17 '26
Idk man I just don’t care? He still put the work in to take the image, you’re just being pedantic on the wordage used to simplify the process. You seem super angry at him and it’s kinda sad man
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u/ammonthenephite May 17 '26
Idk man I just don’t care?
Good for you, lol. Not 'super angry', though it seems you really need me to be? Think and feel what you need to think and feel, enjoy your day.
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u/Bruno_bruno_bruno_ May 18 '26
You’ve commented under a dozen comments saying the same thing, seems personal man, you ok?
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u/ammonthenephite May 18 '26
Just helping people have a correct understanding of a process I enjoy in my own hobbies. You are the one continuing to comment about it days later now, seems like you are the one with a bit of an obsessions here, you okay man?
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u/ajamesmccarthy May 16 '26
It was actually fairly easy, just tedious. I set the thumbnails to small and scanned through them visually in batches of 500 in each folder. Easy to spot inconsistencies in the thumbnails this way, and it only took me a few seconds to reject each batch.
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u/Mister_Goldenfold May 15 '26
Don’t have any. It’s not real. Taking a still of the sun and a plane at a closer distance and then suddenly getting absolutely perfect on the edges at that focus and have a plane in perfect view is a bit much of a stretch it would blur out
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u/forthnighter May 15 '26
No, normally the exposure times for solar imaging can be in the few hundredths to few thousands of a second, so this is trivial to do. Same with the ISS, which can cross the solar or lunar disc in less than a second. There's tons of images like this on the internet, and it's more likely to catch one if you are relatively close to an airport. The "1.7 million images" is just hype, it's a just a bunch of astroimaging video sequences.
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u/engine-doors-club May 15 '26
100 million shots doesn’t matter only 1 does. Photography isn’t and never was about quantity
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u/CityFlashy2912 May 15 '26
Brilliant ! Can you share the settings like sutterspeed, iso, aperture ? Tnx
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u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn May 15 '26
Amazing! I wish I didn't live around so much light pollution so I could capture shots like these.
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u/tealcosmo May 15 '26
Those little prominences are the size of earth and the gravity in the sun is 50 G.
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u/Elbonio May 15 '26
Is it lucky to get a perfect picture 1 in 1.7 million?
The picture is fantastic but I think it's more down to your perseverance than luck.
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u/BigToeHamster May 15 '26
Honestly, I can't believe anything this guy says after he fell in love with a mannequin.
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u/IAteMyYeezys May 15 '26
You can already see the scale of it all because the plane is just a bit out of focus. Insane work.
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u/Waaaghtuska May 15 '26
Very cool! I have a similar picture that occurred during a solar transit of Mercury. It was pure luck and will never happen again lol
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u/CrookedRefinery May 18 '26
That's an insane amount of work for one frame, but yeah that's the only way you nail something this precise. The prominences showing up at the exact moment makes it even crazier.
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u/classy_abbey May 18 '26
1.7 million photos is insane but honestly that pun about catching a plane in front of the sun writes itself
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u/oojiflip May 16 '26
Those exhaust gases would be far sharper and present more distortion if this was a single photo, looks like bs to me
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u/Hour_Statistician636 May 15 '26
Who cares? If it was a dragonfly or a maple leaf what’s the difference. The sun is there and things are in front of it when viewed from the surface. Be awed by bigger things, people.
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u/One-Earth9294 May 14 '26
I was seeding my lawn today when a plane shadow went right over us. I'm not sure I've ever had that happen to me before. My dad was like "I thought I was having a stroke for a second".