Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Transit of Sun by Phobos

Original

Reason: Striking animation, once you catch on to what you're looking at. There are longer sets of images at Transit of Deimos from Mars (involving transits by Mars's smaller moon), but it doesn't look like anyone has composed an animation of them yet.
Proposed caption: This sequence of four images shows the Martian moon Phobos transiting the disc of the sun, as seen from the surface of Mars by the Opportunity rover in March of 2004. Because Phobos's apparent size is smaller than that of the solar disc, such events are called transits rather than eclipses. A transit of Phobos from Mars is observable from at least some point on Mars on most days of the Martian year-- the events usually last only 30 seconds or so due to Phobos's rapid orbital period of about 7.6 hours.
Articles this image appears in: Eclipse, Phobos (moon), Transit of Phobos from Mars, Astronomy on Mars, Solar eclipses on Mars.
Creator: NASA opportunity rover

Support as nominator Spikebrennan (talk) 19:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. It is interesting, but gee it's very small, and the quality is frankly pretty terrible. I can't help but wonder whether a normal single photo part way through the transit, but with decent quality and resolution wouldn't be better (if such a thing exists). I also somewhat question its use in Eclipse. --jjron (talk) 08:37, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

CommentThe thing that makes this image is the inclusion of movement. It shows the "transit" of one object across another. If you take a single photo it will just look like a blurry image of a funky cresent moon or Cookie Monster's eyeball. I Support this image *if* this is the most in-focus sequence possible for these objects. Saudade7 12:09, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are other transits of Phobos observed by the rovers (e.g. Spirit sol 1075, 1077, 1078). The unsharpness is due to upsampling. MER-C 12:26, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Of course a single image from here will just be some blurry blobs, because that's what this is. That was my point, if there was something that was clear and informative out there as a single image it would probably be better, despite lacking motion. --jjron (talk) 07:30, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose While it is interesting from an astronomy POV, I don't feel it is high-quality enough to be an FP. To most people, this is just a fuzzy black circle moving across a fuzzy white circle. Clegs (talk) 16:46, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- It looks like Appa flying over the moon:-). Muhammad Mahdi Karim (talk) 17:12, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Each frame has been upsampled by ~550% from original dimensions of 63x63. This is the maximum possible for shots of this type at the moment. The raw product IDs are (I think) 1P132176282ESF05A6P2670R8M1, 1P132176272ESF05A6P2670R8M1, 1P132176262ESF05A6P2670R8M1, 1P132176252ESF05A6P2670R8M1 and 1P132176242ESF05A6P2670R8M1 which you can obtain from here or here (PDS IMG file type warning). MER-C 11:06, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per Clegs. Also oppose Froth's belt, those stats are waaaaay too low xD. --Mad Tinman _T _C 19:36, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

:o you need more levels, seriously XD --Mad Tinman _T _C 12:05, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Sorry, having thought about it a bit more, this has too much lacking, despite the interest factor. Size, upsampled, black and white, blurriness, lack of detail... To anyone viewing this that doesn't look into it, it's just a fuzzy potato silhouette passing across a blurry white light. --jjron (talk) 07:38, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: By jjron. —αἰτίας •discussion• 15:25, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support - the otherworldlyness, the encness, and the inability to (at present) replace with a better version win out for me. --Golbez (talk) 04:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Interesting in an academic way, but certainly not visually arresting. Oscar (talk) 21:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted MER-C 02:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]