Copenhagen airport closure due to reported drone activity

I could help you with Scandinavian VOs (fluent in spoken English too, but with a slight Scandu accent) Mr Thomas. The AI stuff is a dealbreaker for a lot of folks.

EDIT: but not right now, as I am kind of drunk
 
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I could help you with Scandinavian VOs, Mr Thomas. The AI stuff is a dealbreaker for a lot of folks.
It's too difficult for me to control, I do a lot of cuts, and writes a new text when changing things back and forth, have ChatGPT to correct it for me. But I guess I could have someone speaking over the final edit then.
I always try to find a voice matching, I have thousands to those from, but there are always some words sounding strange, but overall I think this one is ok.

Native english speakers has to accept we're not all having Mick West's calm voice or Morgan Freeman's :D
 
It's too difficult for me to control, I do a lot of cuts, and writes a new text when changing things back and forth, have ChatGPT to correct it for me. But I guess I could have someone speaking over the final edit then.
I always try to find a voice matching, I have thousands to those from, but there are always some words sounding strange, but overall I think this one is ok.

Native english speakers has to accept we're not all having Mick West's calm voice or Morgan Freeman's :D
I do possess a very good voice, give me a sample + description, let's see.
 
I could help you with Scandinavian VOs (fluent in spoken English too, but with a slight Scandu accent) Mr Thomas. The AI stuff is a dealbreaker for a lot of folks.

EDIT: but not right now, as I am kind of drunk

From this year's IgNobels, which have just dropped:
External Quote:
PEACE PRIZE [THE NETHERLANDS, UK, GERMANY]
Fritz Renner, Inge Kersbergen, Matt Field, and Jessica Werthmann, for showing that drinking alcohol sometimes improves a person's ability to speak in a foreign language.
REFERENCE: "Dutch Courage? Effects of Acute Alcohol Consumption on Self-Ratings and Observer Ratings of Foreign Language Skills," Fritz Renner, Inge Kersbergen, Matt Field, and Jessica Werthmann, Journal of Psychopharmacology, vol. 32, no. 1, 2018, pp. 116-122. <doi.org/10.1177/0269881117735687>
-- https://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2025
 
I just thought of something I didn't include in the video.


If the "famous" plane that flew low over the runways at CPH 10 minutes before they closed is a 100% match with one of the videos circulating, then it seems reasonable to assume that this is what triggered the alarm. After all, those who filmed it thought it was a drone.
But after that, I can hardly imagine the scenario where a plane flies low overhead, some people think it's a drone, film it, and report it, at the same time as there was an actual drone from Russia - what are the odds?


But something in me still says that the military, police, and the airport can't possibly be that incompetent — so I'm a bit puzzled.
Therefore it is extremely important that the original drone videos from 22/9 are analyzed; everything else is just irrelevant planes!!
 
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You're right, but the difference here is, that the military and police was on the spot for 4 hours after the report.
Yes I know, we only saw them looking up in the sky, but there have been meetings on highest level all week, they must have seen something?
They would be meeting regardless to either develop a strategy to deal with an actual threat or come up with a response plan that gets the airspace reopened rapidly when they determine it was just another social panic. Either way, they have work to do.
 
There also has to be an element of "taking this seriously" otherwise you run the risk of people stopping reporting stuff, even if there is some team of nerds behind the scenes working out what we do

Metabunk has been practicing identifying planes from dodgy video footage for years now, we have tools and techniques we've made/mastered over the years AND we get to do it without the pressure of responsibility on us.

Who knows what politics/personalities/clashes of agencies/lack of overall command there is behind the scenes on these things, we'd like to imagine our police/military as hyper-competent like is of portrayed on TV and in movies, but the reality is often just a load of people with biases, pressure and difficult jobs.
 
Yes I know, we only saw them looking up in the sky, but there have been meetings on highest level all week, they must have seen something?
I'd agree if the definition of "something" includes misidentified planes, stars and possibly planets! Which we know people, including people who you'd think would know better, identify incorrectly from time to time, especially when a little flap gets going.
 
Who knows what politics/personalities/clashes of agencies/lack of overall command there is behind the scenes on these things, we'd like to imagine our police/military as hyper-competent like is of portrayed on TV and in movies, but the reality is often just a load of people with biases, pressure and difficult jobs.
Even if the Danish government figured out there were no drones, it would be pretty hard to back down from the claims that have been made of Russia being behind the drones, they would look weak and paranoid if they came out and said "We know we said Russia is taunting us, but actually we messed up and it was nothing".

The only way I see this situation ending is either there ARE drones flying around and one gets shot down (leading to god knows what), or they just keep pretending to look until they can say the drones are gone and everyone moves on except the conspiracy theorists that will use it to fuel their beliefs.
 
Oh wait a minute, maybe that video of the thing flying over the airport wasn't confirmed as the plane anyway?
It's flying the wrong way! I just saw the drawing on the Google Earth screen shot but didn't test it myself - damn! :(
 
Any star will move significantly in three hours though. It would cover one eighth of the sky, in fact.
This is a problem that has cropped up in UFO eyewitness accounts quite a few times.

Assuming an observer in the northern hemisphere...

Stars on the southern horizon appear to move slowly - both azimuth and especially altitude. The apparent motion is dominated by the "sideways" motion because altitude doesn't change much. But even the sideways motion looks slow.

Here's what I know...

The true angular speed of all stars is the same : ~15 degrees per hour.

For an observer in the northern hemisphere, stars near the southern horizon appear to drift slowly along the horizon because their diurnal circle is foreshortened from the observer's viewpoint. Diurnal circles are concentric circular paths on the celestial sphere, and are centered on the celestial poles, but the shape of the diurnal circle is distorted according to where you are on the Earth's surface.

The apparent speed of the star is "slowed down." This is why a naïve observer might report that such stars are nearly stationary for an hour or more, while zenith stars appear to "move fast."

I think the Tedesco Brothers were fooled by this effect in this case; Fomalhaut and other stars in Piscis Austrinus near the horizon:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/ne...deo-tedesco-brothers.13684/page-6#post-325024



What I don't know...

I know it's a matter of projection effects and human perception, but I can't describe the geometry of the situation in mathematical terms because my math is too weak.

What's kind of mindbending, to me anyway, is that an equatorial mount, of course, won't slow down when it's tracking a star near the horizon, or speed up when tracking a zenith star. But the motion of an alt-azimuth mount does change.

The way I picture it is that the arc swept out by the telescope on an equatorial mount has a different (distorted) shape due to projection effects, depending on where the telescope is pointing.



Another problem with eyewitness testimony that often crops up was described here: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/my...t-it-could-be-likely-venus.13775/#post-328210
Intermittent observation can lead to a common error. People look at the same part of the sky hours later but aren't considering the fact that stars and planets move across the sky over time just as the Sun does.

They look at the same part of the sky, hours later, but are actually seeing a different astronomical body.

What are the odds that this witness was looking at this light in the sky for three solid hours? It's more likely that the witness saw one star in that approximate place in the sky, went about her business... then three hours later saw another scintillating star in about the same place.

And we can't leave out honest error or telling fibs. Was it really 3 hours? Or did the size of the fish grow in the telling?


Northern circumpolar stars add something besides slow speed. Eyewitnesses describe stars near-ish to the western horizon "going up." In other words, stars a bit to the west of due north.

Everyone knows stars rise in the east and set in the west. "It can't have been a star, because it was going up and stars don't rise in the west. "
 
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This is, 100%, Betelgeuse, all the labeled stars here are visible in the version on Enigma's site.

View attachment 84469

Levels + Echo (8 frames, Max)

View attachment 84470
That's what I was missing. Context. How do we see the (higher resolution) version on Enigma's site? Is there a link you can give us?

And I didn't mention Betelgeuse. Mea culpa. I should have mentioned Betelgeuse as a possibility.
 
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Source: https://youtu.be/NWWW9HFXQZo


"Yesterday I noticed three flying 'things' that were hovering unusually long, about 300 meters from our home.
I recorded a short video, which I sent to my family to get their assessment of the 'phenomenon'. They all thought it could very well be drones."

She is, by the way, upset that the police did not want to watch the video and just said it was probably airplanes.

But it WAS airplanes preparing to land at CPH, respectively 10, 20, 30, and 50 km away.


...BTW the plane 50km away is slightly lower in real life than in Sitrec. Is that because of refraction ?
 
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...BTW the plane 50km away is slightly lower in real life than in Sitrec. Is that because of refraction ?
Refraction would usually increase the apparent altitude of a distant object above the horizon, but that varies. The atmosphere is quirky.

The curvature of the Earth could be the factor for a lower than expected apparent altitude above the local horizon... if Sitrec doesn't account for the curvature of the Earth... but that's just idle speculation.

I have no idea what the real reason is, but the difference is so small that it's probably just a quirk. The data can't be expected to be absolutely precise for one thing. How about the observer's (your) precise location and your elevation?
 
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Refraction would usually increase the apparent altitude of a distant object above the horizon, but that varies. The atmosphere is quirky.
Sitrec has standard refraction, probably implemented via larger globe radius. If refraction is lower, then objects in the sky appear lower. Especially looking over water tends to come with non-standard refraction.
The curvature of the Earth could be the factor for a lower than expected apparent altitude above the local horizon... if Sitrec doesn't account for the curvature of the Earth... but that's just idle speculation.
It does account for it.
 

Source: https://youtu.be/NWWW9HFXQZo


"Yesterday I noticed three flying 'things' that were hovering unusually long, about 300 meters from our home.

Just 300 meters?

Human perception has limits when it comes to judging the distance of a featureless light in a featureless sky.

In other words
Depth Perception/Stereopsis

Depth perception relies on binocular cues: the slight difference in images seen by each eye. The Max distance for that is about 100 meters.

For a star or distant light, stereopsis is useless. The object is too far to produce any noticeable disparity.



But... people learn cues that aren't dependent on stereopsis. You learn by experience how big certain kinds of birds are for example.

A functional adult should have the life experience to have learned what airplanes look like near an airport. You'd think.

It's just another example of "sky shock." Adults have gone decades living under the sky, but have never looked at the sky. When they suddenly get the motivation to look at the sky... it's full of things they haven't learned how to recognize. Then they insist that there's never been any such thing before.

Personally I can't identify with that at all. That kind of lack of curiosity, or just looking at things for the fun of it...

And the lack of self-awareness... It's still bemusing.
 
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I honestly think it's more "these are drones, therefore because they are drones, they must be close enough for me to see them" and the brain arrives at 300m.

The distance misperception comes from the assumption they are seeing drones.
Expectations shape perception.

But only when the visual stimulus is truly ambiguous. Life experience should have trained people to see airplanes as airplanes. You'd think.

Airplanes look a certain way, they move a certain way. You shouldn't have to rely on depth perception alone. An airplane shouldn't be an ambiguous visual stimulus that is subject to interpretation by expectations. How do people recognize their own car when they see it? Because they've looked at.

This just proves that people haven't been looking at the sky, even if they insist that they have been. And they have no self-awareness that haven't been looking. That's the part that really gets me.
 
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Depth perception relies on binocular cues: the slight difference in images seen by each eye. The Max distance for that is about 10–20 meters.

For a star or distant light, stereopsis is useless. The object is too far to produce any noticeable disparity.



But... people learn cues that aren't dependent on stereopsis. You learn by experience how big certain kinds of brids are.
Somewhat relevant to this... I don't have proper stereo vision, as I have one very dominant eye and my brain tends to discard the information from the weaker eye. So I can't generally use 3D glasses, or see Magic Eye pictures etc (although occasionally with great effort I have managed this). One of my friends at university did her PhD thesis on non-stereoptic depth cues and I realised that I unconsciously use such methods, eg moving my head from side to side to generate parallax. Perhaps because I cannot rely on stereopsis, I think I actually have better 3D spatial awareness than many people - in fact I am constantly amazed by how many people cannot "see in three dimensions" and I have said many times before that I am convinced there is a link between conspiratorial thinking and poor spatial awareness.
 
Sitrec has standard refraction, probably implemented via larger globe radius. If refraction is lower, then objects in the sky appear lower. Especially looking over water tends to come with non-standard refraction.

It does account for it.
Ok thanks. So it's because the refraction is not a fixed value we see this.
 
Just 300 meters?

Human perception has limits when it comes to judging distance of a featureless light in a featureless sky.

In other words
Depth Perception/Stereopsis

Depth perception relies on binocular cues: the slight difference in images seen by each eye. The Max distance for that is about 10–20 meters.

For a star or distant light, stereopsis is useless. The object is too far to produce any noticeable disparity.



But... people learn cues that aren't dependent on stereopsis. You learn by experience how big certain kinds of birds are for example.

A functional adult should have the life experience to have learned what airplanes look like near an airport. You'd think.

It's just another example of "sky shock." Adults have gone decades living under the sky, but have never looked at the sky. When they suddenly get the motivation to look at the sky... it's full of things they haven't learned how to recognize. Then they insist that there's never been any such thing before.

Personally I can't identify with that at all. That kind of lack of curiosity, or just looking at things for the fun of it...

And the lack of self-awareness... It's still bemusing.
There are aprox. 400 meters to that thing in the middle, so that's where people see the "drones" are hanging.
Like I said in my other video, when we can't see how far away thing are, we have to use our common sense.

...and living where she does, she must have seen this before, there are 1000's of planes landing from that angle every day!
 
Sometimes people just want a few mins of fame, or have some views that are connected to a situation being interpreted a certain way which leads them to "forgetting" they are planes they have seen before.
 
The drone flap playbook is

Some initiating sighting by officials
Later swarm of mis-identification of normal things by people (both civilian and officials)
Adoption of it by fringe believers pushing conspiracy
Then intentional hoaxes and rehashes of older footage
 
...and living where she does, she must have seen this before, there are 1000's of planes landing from that angle every day!
Seen, but not notices, I'd suspect. They were just planes, boring, not worth noting. But once you are primed to look for mystery drones, that's INTERESTING, and you go out and anything you see that is not immediately identified as something else must be one of those drones!
 
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Somewhat relevant to this... I don't have proper stereo vision, as I have one very dominant eye and my brain tends to discard the information from the weaker eye. So I can't generally use 3D glasses, or see Magic Eye pictures etc (although occasionally with great effort I have managed this). One of my friends at university did her PhD thesis on non-stereoptic depth cues and I realised that I unconsciously use such methods, eg moving my head from side to side to generate parallax. Perhaps because I cannot rely on stereopsis, I think I actually have better 3D spatial awareness than many people - in fact I am constantly amazed by how many people cannot "see in three dimensions" and I have said many times before that I am convinced there is a link between conspiratorial thinking and poor spatial awareness.
Because you are aware of the problem, you engage in a purposeful effort to gain the information you need about your environment. This generates feedback that you can use to improve your spatial awareness. It's the continued practice that makes you better.

People not working in and around aviation don't normally get any feedback regardless how inaccurate their estimates of a visually 'flying' object's speed and distance are. There are no consequences to being wrong about it and no benefit to expending effort to get better at it. "I know what I saw," is simply default human behavior and is actively supported in today's gate-keeper-free social media environment.

Placing this in context, people do have extensive experience with automotive travel and get regular feedback on their performance in the form of honking horns, terrifying near misses, and traffic tickets. This level of effort results in ONLY about 4.5 million people injured in reported traffic accidents per year as of 2019.

Source - https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-crashes-cost-america-billions-2019

tl;dr - people suck at this
 
Still continuing, apparently:

External Quote:

Droneobservationer i nat

Der er observeret droner ved flere af Forsvarets lokaliteter i nat.
28. september, 2025 - Kl. 11.15

Af Forsvarskommandoen
Forsvaret kan bekræfte, at der er blevet observeret droner ved flere af Forsvarets lokaliteter i nat.
Flere kapaciteter var indsat.
Forsvaret har ikke yderligere kommentarer på nuværende tidspunkt.
https://www.forsvaret.dk/da/nyheder/2025/droneobservationer-i-nat/

External Quote:

Drone sightings last night

Drones were observed at several Danish Defence locations last night.
28 September 2025 - 11:15 a.m.

From the Defence Command
The Danish Armed Forces can confirm that drones were observed at several of the Armed Forces' locations last night.
Several capabilities were deployed.
The Armed Forces have no further comments at this time.
 
Denmark has ordered a near-total ban on civilian drones until next Friday Oct 3.
https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/indfoerer-droneforbud-over-danmark
ChatGPT translation: https://chatgpt.com/share/68d9660f-0810-8005-af06-a31c6297989e
External Quote:

It is not an easy task for the police that Denmark is to host an EU summit if, at the same time, "reports come flooding in" from citizens who have spotted a suspicious drone.

Therefore, from Monday to Friday next week, it will be prohibited for private individuals to fly drones, the government announces.
"It is no secret that we are currently receiving a huge number of reports about drone flights," says Transport Minister Thomas Danielsen, adding:

"We are in fact pleased about that, but the ban is to avoid unnecessary noise for the police so they can focus on carrying out the EU summit, which Denmark is about to host."

No exemptions for weddings or similar


It is possible for private individuals to apply for an exemption with the Danish Transport Authority.

But it is only in cases of "urgent, socially critical tasks" that commercial operators can hope for a green light from the authorities.
"We do not want civilian flights in our airspace in the coming week unless they are absolutely urgent.
What about the many private companies that had planned to use drones in the coming week?
"If you run a business and carry out civilian flights, I strongly appeal to you to postpone them," he says, elaborating:

"If it is urgent, for example due to economic circumstances, then you can apply for an exemption. But it must be truly urgent: it is not in cases where a company wants to drone-photograph a wedding or similar," he says.

A violation of the ban can result in a fine or imprisonment of up to two years, according to a press release.

Who is affected by the ban?


The ban applies to:
  • Commercial operators (except for "urgent, socially critical tasks")
  • Private flights with both drones and model aircraft, the Danish Transport Authority tells TV 2.
The ban does not apply to:
  • Military drone flights, state aviation with drones, including police and emergency drone operations
  • Municipal and regional emergency and health-related drone operations
Source: Ministry of Transport


NATO has sent a frigate to Copenhagen


Denmark is currently in a tense situation, where its airspace has in the past week been violated to a degree "not seen since the Second World War," Thomas Danielsen also says.

Other countries have also been affected by drone flights that have violated their airspace in the past week. These include Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Romania.

As a response, NATO has decided to increase surveillance in the Baltic Sea, including by sending an air-defense frigate.

The frigate arrived in Copenhagen earlier today, where it will dock during the upcoming summit, which takes place from 29 September to 2 October, according to a spokesman for NATO's naval command (MARCOM), speaking to TV 2.

DR is seeking a comment from NATO.
 
The noise is not going to go away, the planes will still be flying.

If anything it will get worse because planes that are reported as "drones" during a drone ban are now "actual problem drones" rather than "normal drones" even though they are not drones, so more likely to be reported.

Will any evidence emerge of these drones? My understanding is that the drones over other NATO countries are Shahed "suicide" drones which are basically unmanned fixed winged aircraft and are being intercepted, but these Danish drones are undefined, but probably it is suspected they are quadcopter type UAS.
 
Copenhagen airport installed a mobile drone detection vehicle some time yesterday (Sep 27) prior to 17:00UTC (19:00 local) when DR news posted this picture of it:

Source: https://x.com/Nordic_News/status/1971983260264943974


We will see if this has any effect. The original allegations of 2-3 drones on the evening of Monday Sep 22 were about large drones, which is a bit vague but to me implies something large enough that if it was over the airport it would have shown up on ATC radar.
External Quote:
Denmark's National Police Commissioner Thorkild Fogde told CNN Tuesday that these were not amateur or hobby drones, but rather large drones that likely had a capable operator.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/22/europe/copenhagen-oslo-airport-closed-drones-int-latam

However I have seen nothing about any sensor confirmation for any of the sightings. Only visual reports (some including videos that do not demonstrate anomalous drone presence). Even if there was some allegation of a "hit" on radar, we should remember that in the Wright-Patterson AFB "drone incursions" last year part of the report referred to several aircraft being seen miles away on radar (nowhere near the AFB base or its airspace) and this was included as corroboratory evidence for drone incursions over the base, even though those hits on radar were likely unrelated to anything caught on video and were probably all airplanes (as well as the ones caught of video also being airplanes).
 
Copenhagen airport installed a mobile drone detection vehicle some time yesterday (Sep 27) prior to 17:00UTC (19:00 local) when DR news posted this picture of it:

Source: https://x.com/Nordic_News/status/1971983260264943974


We will see if this has any effect. The original allegations of 2-3 drones on the evening of Monday Sep 22 were about large drones, which is a bit vague but to me implies something large enough that if it was over the airport it would have shown up on ATC radar.
External Quote:
Denmark's National Police Commissioner Thorkild Fogde told CNN Tuesday that these were not amateur or hobby drones, but rather large drones that likely had a capable operator.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/22/europe/copenhagen-oslo-airport-closed-drones-int-latam

However I have seen nothing about any sensor confirmation for any of the sightings. Only visual reports (some including videos that do not demonstrate anomalous drone presence). Even if there was some allegation of a "hit" on radar, we should remember that in the Wright-Patterson AFB "drone incursions" last year part of the report referred to several aircraft being seen miles away on radar (nowhere near the AFB base or its airspace) and this was included as corroboratory evidence for drone incursions over the base, even though those hits on radar were likely unrelated to anything caught on video and were probably all airplanes (as well as the ones caught of video also being airplanes).

Any idea how small a drone normal Airport radar's can see ?
 
Any idea how small a drone normal Airport radar's can see ?
Size ain't an issue:
External Quote:
Different types of radar use different radio bands, and FODBASA's system uses the Ka-band(opens in new window). This extremely high frequency provides the capability to detect very small objects. FODBASA also continuously uses vertical and horizontal beams in combination. A blended information hub combines and processes all reflections, classifying objects in real time. Another key part of the system is high-gain (very sensitive) antennas, which can detect weak signals from small targets at considerable distances. Thus, the system should be able to detect objects smaller than 1 cm.
-- https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/435376-high-resolution-radar-protects-aircraft-in-airports-areas
 
This is, 100%, Betelgeuse, all the labeled stars here are visible in the version on Enigma's site.

2025-09-26_12-13-51.jpg


Levels + Echo (8 frames, Max)
I'm trying to understand where you got this.


You produced an enhanced frame from the video, by using a color correcting tool and then producing a "trailing echo" of images... using 8 frames? I assume the echo effect is useful in that the "trailing echo" it produces for each star image increases the number of pixels in each image; so that the image of each star is more recognizable (?)

And you then overlaid an image from Stellarium?


I did a Google search for "Levels + Echo (8 frames, Max)"

I got this "AI Overview." Is this accurate?
A video editing command in software like Adobe Premiere Pro
  • Context: The terms "Levels" and "Echo" are specific effects in video editing software. "Levels" is a color correction tool, and "Echo" is a time effect that creates a trail of images. The term "8 frames" would specify the duration of the echo effect. "Max" could refer to maximizing the effect's intensity or the editing timeline.
  • Action: To create this effect in a program like Adobe Premiere Pro:
    1. Apply the Levels effect to a video clip and adjust the color balance as desired.
    2. Apply the Echo effect to the same clip.
    3. In the Effect Controls panel, set the Number of Echoes to a high number.
    4. Set the Echo Operator to Maximum.
    5. Set the Echo Time to 0.267 seconds (8 frames at a standard 30 frames-per-second rate).
    6. The result would be a clip with a strong, colorful, and highly stylized trailing echo effect.
 
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I'm trying to understand where you got this.


You produced an enhanced frame from the video, by using a color correcting tool and then producing a "trailing echo" of images... using 8 frames? I assume the echo effect is useful in that the "trailing echo" it produces for each star image increases the number of pixels in each image; so that the image of each star is more recognizable (?)
The image is from Sitrec.

The video is what I applied the levels+echo to. Compare it to the image.
 
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