Someone in the comments on the Facebook page found the original on NASA’s site, which doesn’t have that awful post-processed “macro blur” effect (because the unedited photo of a shuttle bursting through a cloud layer isn’t awesome enough?):
In the original, you can just about distinguish the shuttle itself from the external tank too. And, going by the filename, we can infer that it’s a picture of Endeavour on mission STS-134, the penultimate mission of the Space Shuttle programme, and that the picture was taken on May 16th, 2011.
Being picky, but I believe it’s that awful post-processed “tilt shift” effect that is used to simulate a miniaturised model. grossly overused and both inappropriate and totally unnecessary in this case. The original is far more striking.
Someone in the comments on the Facebook page found the original on NASA’s site, which doesn’t have that awful post-processed “macro blur” effect (because the unedited photo of a shuttle bursting through a cloud layer isn’t awesome enough?):
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1105/shuttleplume_sts134_2502.jpg
In the original, you can just about distinguish the shuttle itself from the external tank too. And, going by the filename, we can infer that it’s a picture of Endeavour on mission STS-134, the penultimate mission of the Space Shuttle programme, and that the picture was taken on May 16th, 2011.
Very impressive. I immediately though “that’s exactly what an ICBM would look like on its way to incinerate a few cities”.
Being picky, but I believe it’s that awful post-processed “tilt shift” effect that is used to simulate a miniaturised model. grossly overused and both inappropriate and totally unnecessary in this case. The original is far more striking.