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Watsisname
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The Photodetective game

16 May 2017 05:09

I don't think the luminous object in Hornblower's challenge can be a red dwarf.  If the red dwarf is in the foreground, then it must be smaller than the planet in the background, but red dwarfs cannot be smaller than solid planets.
 
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Hornblower
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16 May 2017 05:51

Quarior, you are incorrect.
"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space." - Douglas Adams
 
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JackDole
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The Photodetective game

16 May 2017 06:11

Maybe it's a glitch.

Or an image manipulation.
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Xoran
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The Photodetective game

16 May 2017 08:25

It looks like a kind of cosmic death eye weapon thing to me :)
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Hornblower
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16 May 2017 08:38

The image was not edited in any way
"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space." - Douglas Adams
 
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Hornblower
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The Photodetective game

16 May 2017 08:49

If you guys need any hints, here are your options and you can only pick one:
1) Another angle
2) Sizes of the objects in the image
"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space." - Douglas Adams
 
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Mr. Missed Her
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The Photodetective game

16 May 2017 17:34

I was poking around the internet for the minimum typical radius of a black hole, and couldn't find any such numbers. How hard is it to include in your article that a stellar mass black hole has a [distance] event horizon radius? But I did find that a black hole with the mass of the Sun has a radius of 3 km.
3 km is pretty small, at least astronomically. The Sun won't become a black hole; it needs to be larger. So even if we stick to the safe side and say that the minimum radius is 20 times that, we get 60 km, plenty smaller that a planet.
So, my guess is that this screenshot is of a binary system, which includes a normal star and a black hole. The black hole is imaged passing through dusty space, and is sucking up dust and emitting light in the process. A planet is shown behind the black hole, being lit by the normal star that isn't in the image. The black hole should be bright enough to look like a star, but dim enough that the planet isn't visibly lit.
Unfortunately, there's a few problems with this. Why is the black hole not red? It should look redder than that. Also, such an arrangement would be very rare, though Hornblower could have created it; he didn't rule out the possibility directly. Also, I would expect a black hole to look more, well, black, even if it was sucking in matter and emitting light. But I consider it at least plausible.
Space is very spacious.
 
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16 May 2017 17:37

Mr. Missed Her, not even close. This is a procedural system.
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JackDole
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The Photodetective game

17 May 2017 01:37

A white dwarf or a neutron star.
The system still has a second sun, except the neutron star / white dwarf.
The image is created with a relatively small field of view.

I guess a neutron star. :|
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Watsisname
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The Photodetective game

17 May 2017 03:39

I was poking around the internet for the minimum typical radius of a black hole, and couldn't find any such numbers.
About 5 solar masses, which is a radius of about 15km.  I'm basing that on a paper by Kovetz et. al, which looks at the distribution of black hole masses, and in particular see Figure 1.  

Black holes are shown in Space Engine, and if they are swallowing material they do shine quite brightly indeed.  However, they look like this instead. :)
 
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Hornblower
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The Photodetective game

17 May 2017 05:54

Still no. I'll give you a second angle.
SpaceEngine 2017-05-17 06-54-14.png
"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space." - Douglas Adams
 
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Betelgeuze
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The Photodetective game

17 May 2017 07:37

JackDole, Procedural neutron stars can't be red color because Hornblower, said it's a procedural system and it's not edited

-----------

Maybe it's very hot planet with glow
Or older/cooler white dwarf
Or young brown dwarf
 
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JackDole
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The Photodetective game

17 May 2017 09:04

Procedural neutron stars can't be red color because Hornblower, said it's a procedural system and it's not edited
It can.
scr00015.png
But maybe it's after all a white dwarf.
scr00017.png
(The images are made with a bad graphics card that does not work properly with SE (Intel HD 3000))
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Betelgeuze
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The Photodetective game

17 May 2017 11:45

Procedural neutron stars can't be red color because Hornblower, said it's a procedural system and it's not edited
It can.
scr00015.png
But maybe it's after all a white dwarf.
scr00017.png
(The images are made with a bad graphics card that does not work properly with SE (Intel HD 3000))
Oh i didnt see the colors got changed. on 0.9.8.0  all neutron stars and white dwarfs are blue color
 
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Mr. Missed Her
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The Photodetective game

17 May 2017 17:40

Still no. I'll give you a second angle.
From this image, it's clear that the screenshot was not taken in a binary system, at least not in a system with two normal stars. The planet is completely dark on its unlit half, which I wouldn't expect if there's another nearby star. Unless it's hiding behind the planet. Or is off to the bottom right. I meant to say that it had to be a circumbinary system if it was binary. :?
Anyways, with all the possible arrangement of stars, and barring extreme (I mean, more extreme than usual) proportions, the object has to be emitting light rather than reflecting it. So, what's tiny and still emits light? Has Hornblower ruled out the possibility of a white dwarf? Did he drop a flashlight out of his spaceship? Did an advanced species put a mirror in front of him to confuse him?
Space is very spacious.

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