If you're gonna fake it, you better be good!

Going round the interweb-thing is the news that NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) on January 22nd was a fake. The image is now deleted from their archive and replaced with a shot of M101 in the 21st Century. However, the offending image - an ISS transit of Saturn - can be found in discussion form here:
www.cloudynights.com/topic/525250-iss-saturn-apod-1-22-2016/

and here (with photo, but you might need to be logged into Facebook):
www.facebook.com/stephenramsden/posts/10156494655195088

It's not the first time a fake entered into APOD and was found out, but it goes to show what digital astrophotography is susceptible to.



Still, I think it's the most publicity APOD has had in ages, it's good for its search engine rankings!

Seanie.

Yes, been following this elsewhere. Needless to say the author of this fiction has substantial previous - you can make your own mind up as to what's real and what isn't here......

jwastronomy.com/

Paul.

Seems he's censored himself and taken the controversial images off his website.

Valerie and I remember greatly enjoyed seeing the ISS transiting the Sun in September 2013. It turned to be our 2nd most favourite observing event that year. Very fond memory indeed.
Albert White announced that event about a week beforehand from the Cal Sky website. Perhaps he will keep us informed as to when such future events will occur again. Thank you, Albert.
I have been persuaded that the ISS -Saturn image is definitely a hoax unfortunately.
I am glad APOD has taken off this image.

Clear skies,
Aubrey.

What an obvious fake !
Ive taken many a Saturn image along with other planets and once got the ISS and I can tell you that Saturn is a fair bit dimmer then the likes of Jupiter or the ISS, you got to turn the gain up abit to get Saturn, yet it and the ISS are of similar brightness in this pic, and see how centered the ISS is on Saturn, what a complete fluke of timing is that ???
and this is not just some over enthusiastic kid, this guy was selling his images, had a little business going, so now what else is a touched up or fake image, and what if you bought one, were you ripped off.. ?

Dave_Lillis wrote: and see how centered the ISS is on Saturn, what a complete fluke of timing is that ???

I read that, geographically, to get it THAT centered he would have to place on the Earth within 40 to 160 metres of the epicentre!

Seanie.