The photo of the U.S. Air Force's new stealth aircraft is on the left, taken at night, with stars in the background.
We can use them to find the exact location of the jet
(thread)
We can use them to find the exact location of the jet
(thread)
2. Astrometry.net will let us upload a star photo and draw out matching constellations. Also gives us a bunch of star chart files we can use later
3. On the source website of the image, we have some metadata like the date taken. It's been scrubbed since it was posted, probably after realizing their mistake, but I used Waybackmachine to grab the date of the original (right)
4. Importing our star map into Stellarium and the date, we can get the visualization to line up pretty well with our original image. From this, we can estimate by matching constellation angles with the horizon, the time the photo was taken - 1:30am
5. 1:30am is a great time to roll out a stealth aircraft of his hanger with the number of imagery satellites over the US being at its lowest (left). Compared to later in the day (right)
5. We know the angle between the north star and horizon will give us the approximate latitude of where the observer is standing. This comes out to between 34/35 degrees
6. We're going to assume the location is somewhere within the US, so we can plot a 34-degree latitude line across the country. There are a bunch of USAF bases across the country, but not many intersect the line
7. Historically, most stealth aircraft in the US are built in California, and we know this jet is built by Northrop Grumman, who also mainly develop their aircraft there. Narrowing our search to CA, we find only one base that intersects - Edwards AFB
7. Northrop Grumman doesn't have many development facilities at Edwards, but they do 30 miles south at Palmdale Regional Airport. The same place they developed the B-2 aircraft. One is visible from Google Maps view
8. The development facility is pretty small here, so it's not too difficult to find the exact hanger, matching the photo with the additional building to the right and tent behind
9. The press conference to reveal the aircraft was held here last week so we can confirm the location. A guess likely would have landed someone in the same location but fun anyway to star match. I'm sure this entire process could be done with just stars and no google maps as well
10. So now we know the image is of Northrop Grumman's B-21, taken at approximately 1:30am on November 29th 2022 at Air Force Plant 42 (34.6399, -118.0744)
(this data is all public now)
(this data is all public now)
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