From: Martin Shough <mshough.nul>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 13:09:43 -0000
Fwd Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 14:09:52 -0500
Subject: Re: Whittlesea Australia UFO Photograph - Shough


>From: Dan Bright <ufo.nul>
>To: ufoupdates.nul
>Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 22:02:24 -0000
>Subject: Re: Whittlesea Australia UFO Photograph

>>From: Martin Shough <mshough.nul>
>>To: <ufoupdates.nul>
>>Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 21:13:10 -0000
>>Subject: Re: Whittlesea Australia UFO Photograph

>>The wings on the other hand are stopped with very little
>>vertical oscillation during the exposure. You can see this
>>clearly on the wing which is pointed more or less straight at
>>the camera and makes a thin bright highlight.
>>This suggests that the wing is beating slowly relative to the
>>lateral bulk motion of the object, which in turn suggests (to
>>me) the aerodynamic lift of a bird rather than a bug.

>Hello Martin et al,

>Beetle wings move between 46 and 90 beats per second. On
>average, beetles are able to travel at 5km per hour
>(3.106856mph, 1,388.89mm/sec, 54.68 inches/sec).

Hi Dan

Thanks for the interesting information. So given an average
wingbeat period of about 1/80 second one would expect that if
the wings are caught during, say, an upbeat (1/160 sec.) then
they would be blurred through 2/3 of that upward motion in 1/250
sec. The same for a downbeat. If the wings happen to be caught
just at the peak of the cycle then they would appear blurred by
about half this much (about 1/3 of the full up-down cycle).

Given that the near wing is edge-on to the camera and appears as
a _fairly_ sharp and bright line, it seems safe to conclude that
it is not blurred through 2/3 of its motion, and probably not
even by 1/3 either. In other words a 1/250 second exposure would
only 'stop' a wing beat which was at least twice as slow, and
probably at least three times as slow, as the mean insect rate.
This rate is about half the minimum cited rate of a beetle wing.

Therefore although the bulk lateral rate deducible from apparent
motion blurring might be consistent either with a bird or with
an insect, this wingbeat measure serves to test between the
hypotheses. The result is probably inconsistent with an insect,
but is consistent with a bird.


Best

Martin Shough