Rich
Those that desire, find a way..... Those that don't, find an excuse.
Rich, I guess at this point, we really don't know what we're looking at for sure....But, after checking them for some time now, first, I believe the "cluster" of lights are at a fixed location.
The distance / atmospheric conditions with the lights, making the blinking, "moving" appearance.
Quentin
I live in Martinsville, Virginia which is about 60 miles south by southwest of Roanoke which in turn is in the general direction of our rail cam view of the Blue Ridge mountains. I had a bite to eat at the local Taco Bell and when I was leaving, I noticed the distant mountains to the west (because the range was being backlit by the setting sun that was causing the profile of the mountains to be most distinct. I wasn't expecting to see this sight, but I'm reasonably sure that the profile that I was gazing at is very close if not the same mountains that we're able to see in the rail cam field of vision.
I'll have to wait until tomorrow to take a picture of the range, and if it proves to be the same profile at a closer point of observation, that could locate the source of flickering lights coming from the Greensboro, North Carolina area, and the GSO Greensboro Int. Airport, (but it seems to be much too much activity from our lights to be explained by an airport.
Let's face it guys, the only thing that would explain those lights woud be a continuous fireworks grand finally and that ain't a happening! I wonder if one of the local TV stations has a helecopter that might be interested in flying toward the profile that was posted here with landmarks notated?
Considering the cost of operating one of those copters will probaly nix that idea.
....At about 8:10 this evening, I was looking at the distant ridge location of the {?} "lights"....The sky had just a little light in it yet and the cam was still in color....I could see our "lights". After just about a minute, the B&W cam pic. came on.
I could see the lights do extend above the fartherst ridge somewhat. As opposed to being behind trees, etc....as I once suggested. Or on this side of the ridge.
From what I could observe both in color, and B&W....my opinion of what we're seeing is: Distant communication towers of some kind with the distance, atmosphere producing the twinkling, etc. Perhaps a "hot spot" for locating antennas, producing quite a few structures.
switch7frg Norm, that info confirms my thoughts on the "sparklies" . It was a bit fillingin between watching the trains. I will be able to sleep now at night knowing that there is no Martian space port there.LOL Cannonball
Norm, that info confirms my thoughts on the "sparklies" . It was a bit fillingin between watching the trains. I will be able to sleep now at night knowing that there is no Martian space port there.LOL
Cannonball
"Space Port"?? ?? Hadn't thought of that... Whoa, maybe that accounts for all the "lost time" I have experienced since I noticed them????
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
UFO's, unidentified flashing objects, create a hazard to nighttime navigation in a small airplane. I would have to ask some local pilots if I got this right.
Norm
Y6bs evergreen in my mind
CMBY,
Thanks for trying to confirm my research. It was the best thing I could find.
There being so many towers atop Poor Mountain on Honeysuckle Rd. would account for the 'dancing lights' because those lights would not fire in synch, and their distance from the camera would also contribute. Each tower would have it's own schedule of lights. All the towers on Poor Mountain are tall enough to require lighting so as to reduce the hazard to air navigation. Atmospherics in the eastern US would contribute to their 'twinkling'.
Six miles northeast of the airport at Mt. Pleasant, NC are two 2,000ft towers that are unpainted and have white strobes during the day, and I presume red at night. In daylight, with the normal haze, they are difficult to spot from the air. I flew there in June, in daylight, and found them difficult to detect. Given the limitations of the Roanoke camera and an internet connection I feel this is the most plausible explanation.
Norm48327 A bit of research using Google Earth and the FCC's database found at least four towers on Honeysuckle Rd. atop Poor Mountain. That's 12.8 miles from the location of the camera, bearing 246 degrees, and at an elevation of 3725 ft. Multiple towers, atmospherics, and the distance involved, would explain why the lights seem to dance around. They can be seen better on Google Earth than on Bing Maps.
A bit of research using Google Earth and the FCC's database found at least four towers on Honeysuckle Rd. atop Poor Mountain. That's 12.8 miles from the location of the camera, bearing 246 degrees, and at an elevation of 3725 ft. Multiple towers, atmospherics, and the distance involved, would explain why the lights seem to dance around. They can be seen better on Google Earth than on Bing Maps.
Some time ago in looking at Google Earth, I saw those buildings in that spagetti set of roads there, wondering what they were. I could not make out any towers because the image is pretty much straight down on them and the sun must have been right over them too, as they cast no shadows. But I think I can now make out at least 6 or 8 towers of different types in a small cluster there. Most definitely at least a portion of the sparklies we are seeing.
Whilst typing this I paused to look again and ran the Google Earth 'Time Line' feature back to 2006 and there are some more distinct images available in that area (better shadows) and I see yet another almost straight line of towers to the north of the spagetti area on that road that must add yet another 6 or 8 towers. Most definitely a portion of the sparklies.
Good work! I think this satisfies me for what I am seeing.
Thanks!
Now back to watching for trains!
Modelcar Edit: Another thought....Fixed lights {of some sort}, being viewed thru trees at the ridge line....Lights of some distance beyond. And up on the ridge there is no doubt some wind most of the time to move the trees.
Edit: Another thought....Fixed lights {of some sort}, being viewed thru trees at the ridge line....Lights of some distance beyond. And up on the ridge there is no doubt some wind most of the time to move the trees.
That is another possibility. Atmospherics play their game without regard to sunlight. A second thought is that it could be cars on a highway that is not evident during the day.
.....Just took a look at about 9:30 this evening.....{B&W} picture....Yes, I see the lights. It certainly does look like lights shining thru the thickest part of the atmosphere {fixed position lights}, from a great distance. Maybe 20 miles.
Almost like looking at a fixed object thru heat waves....
The sparklies showed up at 8:27 pm, while there was still some ambient light in the western sky. Other than that, nothing to report
Tom
COAST LINE FOREVER
It is better to dwell in the corner of a roof than to share a house with a contentious woman! (Solomon)
A contentious woman is like a constant dripping! (Solomon)
Way too many lights to be even a few radio/tv towers.
I have also gone back to Google Earth to look again for airports and there are none at all anywhere near a line extending from the walkway, over the elevator shaft and beyond at the approximate 245-degree angle. I could not find a listing for the "Blue Ridge Regional Airport", (only some libraries and other non-airport type associations). Even "Regional Airport" only turned up a couple of airports and they were all north or northwest of Roanoke, not between southwest and west (the general direcion the camera is facing).
Highway 220 extends south from Roanoke for the most part. The only section close to the direction the camera is facing is perpendicular to the line of sight and is much too close to the camera and well below the lights in elevation to be source of the sparklies.
At least nearly everytime I go looking for the lights I get to see a train on the tracks in the foreground (the whole purpose of the cam in the first place! )
grampaw pettibone I am familiar with lighted towers and pretty much have ruled them out. Unless the FAA rules have changed, a tower above 200 above grade, it has to be painted red and white and have a flashing red light every 200(?) feet with a faster red flasher at the top. A plain tower with white strobes overrides the above requirements. There would have to be 20 or more towers to generate the amount of light we are seeing.I do agree tho, that the lights could be and apparently are very distant and actually are very faint. The night enhancement of the camera makes them stand out. I watched them dim out a considerable time before sunset this morning just as the sky began to light up. Let's wait and see what the Roanoke newspaper has to say. I will post their response here if they answer
I am familiar with lighted towers and pretty much have ruled them out. Unless the FAA rules have changed, a tower above 200 above grade, it has to be painted red and white and have a flashing red light every 200(?) feet with a faster red flasher at the top. A plain tower with white strobes overrides the above requirements. There would have to be 20 or more towers to generate the amount of light we are seeing.I do agree tho, that the lights could be and apparently are very distant and actually are very faint. The night enhancement of the camera makes them stand out. I watched them dim out a considerable time before sunset this morning just as the sky began to light up. Let's wait and see what the Roanoke newspaper has to say. I will post their response here if they answer
http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/service_units/systemops/fs/alaskan/towers/obstruction/media/AC70_7460_1K.pdf
Then scroll down to chapter 3, then to paragraph 36 a&b, and you will find this.
OMISSION OR ALTERNATIVES TO MARKINGThere are two alternatives to marking. Either alternative requires FAA review and concurrence.a.High Intensity Flashing White Lighting Systems. The high intensity lighting systems are more effective than aviation orange and white paint and therefore can be recommended instead of marking. This is particularly true under certain ambient light conditions involving the position of the sun relative to the direction of flight. When high intensity lighting systems are operated during daytime and twilight, other methods of marking may be omitted. When operated 24 hours a day, other methods of marking and lighting may be omitted.b.Medium Intensity Flashing White Lighting Systems. When medium intensity lighting systems are operated during daytime and twilight on structures 500 feet (153m) AGL or less, other methods of marking may be omitted. When operated 24 hours a day on structures 500 feet (153m) AGL or less, other methods of marking and lighting may be omitted.
Well, my link doesn't work. I hope you have the patience to type it in.
Norm48327; that is likely. At South Mountain in Phx. Az. there is a tower farm of radio and TV . Also the Phx. Sky harbor air port close to this mtn. With all the red lights flashing it is quite a sight at night . Here in the Jct.of I-17 & sr.69 is a tower with a white flasher day and red at night fall .
Jim
Looking at the aeronautical chart for the Roanoke area along the line described in the discussion reveals several tall broadcast towers on top of the mountains between fifteen and twenty miles distant. Those towers are tall enough to be required to have white flashing strobes during the day and red blinking lights at night. That's to make the towers visible to pilots.
I believe they aren't visible during the day because of the sky background. At night they would more likely be visible because of less ambient light. Of course with the camera reverting to B&W at night those lights would appear white. If they always appear in the same place that would be my best guess. With normal visibility in the eastern sky rather poor compared to out west there may be some atmospheric distortion.
TV stations in particular like to build their towers on mountains when possible. It increases their viewing area while saving on construction costs.
.....In view of recent posts, including mine....I now have a thought that the light sourse is very distant....Many miles. And if so, perhaps they really are permanent lights on some business, public or similar location. Blinking caused by {explained well on previous posts}, the distance phenomenon.
I haven't looked at the satellite vision of the area if a distance is visable from the camera location, but it certainly appears to be very distant.
I sent an email to the local newspaper in Roanoke to see if they can help. If I get a reply, I will post it here. I watched them dim out this morning long before they streetlights turned off. They must be either a long way off or not at all bright to the naked eye. When the color kicked in, they disappeared completely.
Semper Vaporo Did anybody see the train (EB) with all the large covered grain type hopper cars followed by the one tiny little tank car... that tank car was about 1/4 the size of the hoppers. I suppose it was a standard car of some sort, but being the last car after all those hoppers I wasn't sure what it was going to be until it got close to the left edge of the screen where the lighting was better. Nearly 1/2 the height and less than 1/2 the length of the rest of the cars in the train. Looked kind'a cute trundling along on the rear. Semper: Now you have done it. You really opened a can of worms for me. Down here on the CSX I have observed 2 different grain trains with a single tank car at the end. Thought maybe it was a bad order car but for this to happen at an entirely different location and RR has me puzzled?
Did anybody see the train (EB) with all the large covered grain type hopper cars followed by the one tiny little tank car... that tank car was about 1/4 the size of the hoppers. I suppose it was a standard car of some sort, but being the last car after all those hoppers I wasn't sure what it was going to be until it got close to the left edge of the screen where the lighting was better. Nearly 1/2 the height and less than 1/2 the length of the rest of the cars in the train. Looked kind'a cute trundling along on the rear.
Semper: Now you have done it. You really opened a can of worms for me. Down here on the CSX I have observed 2 different grain trains with a single tank car at the end. Thought maybe it was a bad order car but for this to happen at an entirely different location and RR has me puzzled?
I have seen the change over to B&W and the lights cannot be seen in color mode before the change over but will be quite bright and very noticable when the B&W starts. The camera switched over early tonight and the horizon was still very bright, but last night it changed over much later when it was much darker and the sparklies were not visible in the Color mode.
When I first noticed them I assumed they were actually blinking lights, hence my search of the newspaper for fires in that area (and what a coincidence that there was one right in the line of sight that night!), it is possible that the blinking is caused by intervening trees blowing in the wind, but I think it is more likely caused by atmospheric disturbance (heat waves).
Stars twinkle because they are so distant that the eye is seeing a point of light that is smaller in the eye than just one rod or cone nerve ending sensor and when the light waves from the star pass through the atmosphere the lightwaves are bent and impinge on different nerves and sometimes strike the retina at a place where there is no nerve ending at all, thus he light is alternately seen to move slightly and periodically "goes out".
I think the same is occuring here... The lights are so far away (at least 17 miles, maybe more) that heat waves off the ground are bending the very tiny light beams to sometimes miss the camera pixel sensors.
As to why we cannot see them when in color mode... I think the B&W mode is in the near infrared and is much more sensitive to those frequencies. Somehow the lights on the horizon are bright in that range. Remember when I reported the bright flashes coming from the elevator light on the car park roof. It would go dim and then give a brilliant flash, almost like a flash grenade. It would even illuminate a large area on the roof of the parking garage. I have seen these types of lights when on their last legs and they do dim and then re-ignite to come back on and although there is often a bit of a flash it is nowhere near as bright as what I saw from the webcam that night... I was wondering what kind of mischief was being perpetrated on that roof!
I notice the same effect in the sparkeling of these lights... Sometimes some of them look to be a larger flash. It is reminiscent of a full scale war battle on the horizon! I realize that the news media would much rather report on what starlett was caught with drugs last night, but I think if there was a battle of the size these flashing lights suggest, it might have been reported, at least as an afterthough of some sort in the days since I first noticed them!
.....It's now 12:30 am....and checked over on the rail cam. Yes, I finally see the flashing lights. And no, I don't have any answer to what they might be. They do seem to me to be distant.....Perhaps a mile or more. And, as I was taking a look, a double stack train was passing by W B. So a small bonus.
Well gentelmen, I think it's safe to say that we have a bonofied UFO on our hands! That's as in a Unidentified Flashing Object. I just checked in on the Roanoke cam and was surprised to see how active the lights were sparkling like a black and white telecast from the 1960's
I was going to suggest two posibilities to explain the lights, the first being that Highway 220 North is in that general direction, which is passing through a night construction job and second is the fact that the Blue Ridge Regional Airport lays in the same general direction, but those are intellectual suggestions that in no way explain what I was looking at a few minuets ago!
I wasn't able to check on the lights this evening before the cam turned B&W, but I'm sure that you all have determined it the lights can be seen befoe the web change over takes place.
On another subject, I was at a fle market today and noticed a set of N&W Conductor's gold buttons in a presnetation box. It didn't occure to me that J610 identifies with the N&W and might be interested in having me go back this weekend to see if I can run across them again.
Oh, I was looking at the wrong ridge peak. You are showing the one a bit to the left that I thought was it. I have it now.....Right above the parking gar. elevator.
I'll check and see if we can ID anything tonight.
Just so you'll have an idea where to look:
....Just took a look in daylight re: flashing lights. {Did see a standing freight stretched across the screen, and in a minute, it started to move out...W B.
From description of flashing lights location on recent post, that seems to line up with the nearest RR signal on the right....and straight up on the ridge line from there. The RR signal that has a tree in view just above it. So now I believe I know where to look for it tonight. I have not seen these lights yet....
This may be a bit of a long shot, considering the mountainous area, but what about the strobes in the flight path for an airport..... A smaller lesser used field could have the strobes, but seldom have a landing after dark. That's the way it is locally
When I made my overlay drawings yesterday I did not include the ridge lines (thinking the lights would be on the near ridge). Last night the sparklies were very vivid and large. When I shut down last night I left a Post-It note on the screen with an outline of the sparkly area drawn on it. The ridges are not at all visible at night and the sparklies are not visible durring the day.
This morning when looking at the scene, I see that the sparkly lights area is well above the FAR ridge. It is roughly a semicircular area (flat on the bottom, coinciding with the top of the far ridge) just to the left of the higest peak on the right of the far ridge. But since it extends above the ridge, I can't believe it is actually ON that ridge, it must be well beyond it on land that is just too far away to see, except the lights from it at night.
I put a piece of paper over the screen and traced the outlines of some of the buildings in the background during the day and then placed that outline over the screen after dark to see just where the lights are. Then I went back to Google Earth and again drew a line from my best estimate of the location of the camera in the walkway over the street and tracks and passed the line over the parking garage at where I figure the lights are directly above and then followed that line for 30 miles.
There are no places that I can see that have large sets of lights like a parking lot, car sales lot, sports stadium, airport, etc. Nuttin but residential streets.
In a previous post I wrote that maybe Grandin Court, a street that runs parallel to the angle of the line I drew, might be the source of the light if the view were along that line and seeing the streetlights seemingly all bunched together, but I now think that Grandin Court is on the closest ridge and well below the peak.
With my overlay I now see that the lights are well above BOTH ridges on the horizon.
There are two towns in that general direction that I am now wondering if it is their downtown streetlights! One is Shawsville at 18.8 miles and the other is Christiansburg at 27.5 miles (straight line 'as the crow flies', not road distance).
Shawsville is not really big enough (in my thinking) to account for the size of the area that is sparkling, but it looks like Christiansburg is possibly 'over the ridge' and down in a valley and would thus be too low to see.
Tis a mystery.
Wish someone could take a telephoto shot from the camera location aimed directly over the elevator house of the parking garage, high enough to see over that farthest ridge.
I may have to get up REALLY early in the AM to see what it looks like with the sun coming up.
Trying to conjure up relative distances from a 2-D image is difficult at best. And although Google Earth has some elevation information I can't seem to get enough of a feel of it to know exactly where those two ridges are.
I am still working on a way to get a screen capture of the railcam image. PrtScreen just gets a blank screen. I found a program named PicPick (which does some neat stuff) and it has managed to get a BitMap (.BMP) image, but the image in the bitmap is "live" when I call it back using the Winders Paint program. I never knew that a bitmap image could contain a live web link! If I display the bitmap file with Paint and then unplug the network cable the image disappears! (I shore does larn sumpin everday!) If I terminate the Windows Media connection and restart it, the bitmap file link is still broken then.
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