Image talk:Earthlights dmsp.jpg

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Never been able to look at this in full size. Freezes my computer. --24.89.225.14 00:50, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

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High resolution link was broken, so I've repared it. Not so much. (unsigned by Quintanar)

Should we add a warning that downloading the picture and viewing it in the browser can cause the computer to use swap and that the computer may crash? --mimithebrain 17:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm putting a warning template on this image because it destroyed my computer. [1] --AAA! ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:27, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

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This is a really cool picture, but it's not exactly a perfect representation of when lights are on, right? {art of the world is asleep and may not need lights and another part is in daylight and having as many electric lights on as, say, at 8PM, is unnecessary. --Fbv65edel ^{(discuss | contribs)} 03:41, 4 June 2006 (UTC) Better click the "save link as..."

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Photo was underexposed and undiscernable...so I fixed it...a lot!

Photo is a great anthropological study of earth illumination by man at night. One can see clusters of metropolitan areas, and spots where illumination is practically nil. You can see islands in the sea. Find Bermuda off the Atlantic Coast. Look at the trancontinental hiway patterns in America. Look at the Sahara. Hawai'i. Canary Islands. Magi Media 21:39, 23 June 2006 (UTC)Magi Media

And galling light location named Las Vegas.

North Koreans and Africans save a heck of alot on their electricity bills--Planetary 23:13, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, as I said a while ago, they may have been asleep or not in need of lights when the image was captured. Alas. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 00:12, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, the whole photo is of when a particular area was at night. It is an accurate representation. Notice how the lights in this image corresponds with the same area of Korea and Japan. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Planetary (talk • contribs).

Okay, see your point. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 12:11, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problems opening

I can't seem to be able to view the high-res version of the image on my computer. I've tried downloading it and opening it both in Paint.NET and GIMP, but neither one was able to open it (even though the text says that GIMP should work). Am I just not doing it right? I downloaded a 5.80mb file called "download.aspx", and it doesn't seem to be opening. Esn 05:57, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I'm trying to do the same thing now and nothing's downloading at all. My download manager is telling me that I just downloaded a file called "Earthlights_dmsp.jpg". Trouble is, it took less than a second (usually an 8mb file would take longer) and I can't find the actual file that I downloaded. What going on here? Does anyone have the link to the original file at NASA? Perhaps I can try my luck over there... Esn 06:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

From the image description page:

A high resolution TIFF image can be found at
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/images/1438/land_lights_16384.tif
16384w x 8192h, 40.6 MB, color (true)
Image description from http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=1438

--howcheng {chat} 07:02, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

It looks like the takers of the photograph deliberately went out of their way to make it look like Africa is an impoverished, underdeveloped continent by snapping the picture when not many lights are on in Africa. It appears biased to me! 24.131.157.78 11:42, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

This was taken by NASA, not just some random Wikipedia user. I think you can trust that they didn't tamper with the picture. However, it may have been a time when Africa was primarily asleep as a continent. You can't ever take a photo of the earth when you'll have an accurate representation of all the light that we use at once – a third of the globe will be asleep. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 15:53, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Well it also might be that Africa is an impoverished underdeveloped continent. Also, even if Africa was developed, the sheer land mass of the continent would make it seem that there aren't many lights, since they would be spread out. Taco325i 01:39, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

You can look at the source page for details, such as the link to an article [2] where it mentions the images are collected during a new moon (apparently of cloudless areas) and several new moons are required. They don't give details, but it is common to collect many images and either create an average image or check that the image used is a typical image. This image should be typical, unless for some reason an area tends to turn off more lights during a new moon. You could look at electricity statistics for a region, but as electricity gets used for things other than light (and not all light is from electricity) the comparison may have difficulties. The lights are thought to indicate land area which is urbanized, not population nor poverty. (SEWilco 02:44, 3 January 2007 (UTC))

Yep, but urbanization is not unrelated to poverty. In the US, you'll see lights scattered throughout the plains states and the rockies, even though they are for the most part rural. Let's not try to be retardedly PC here, this image is a pretty accurate representation of the relative economic status of regions: from the wealthy to the dirt poor. Taco325i 12:29, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

The source says that the creator of the image recognizes it indicates the size of urban sprawl. He'd probably be interested in documentation of other details, such as whether the wealthy with large estates brilliantly illuminate all their land or whether dirt poor areas are dark (or well lit by streetlights to reduce problems or because they're areas where street lighting is easier than wealthy suburbs). (SEWilco 07:01, 4 January 2007 (UTC))