Example of a Boeing 737 "Tic Tac" (video)

fizzBuzz

Active Member


I took this video out of my backyard in Zachary, Louisiana on 8/14/2021 with my phone camera (Google Pixel 5). I was facing directly south at about 7:05-7:07pm CST.

Looks like a TicTac, yeah? it's just flight UA609 from Houston to Atlanta. I identified this using Flightradar24.

It could have also been flight UA6353 from Houston to Norfolk, but I believe it to be UA609 because of timing. There was a plane in the same general area/path as this video just a couple minutes before this, which I identified as UA6353. The two planes have essentially the same appearance.
 
Last edited:
The dark border around that interests me -- without the edge-finding widget in the ATFLIR vids (I assume your phone does not have that ) nevertheless, there it is. Unless airplanes have weird energy forcefields around rhem, the effect is not caused by a weird energy forcefield, so is presumably an optical effect.
 
The dark border around that interests me -- without the edge-finding widget in the ATFLIR vids (I assume your phone does not have that ) nevertheless, there it is. Unless airplanes have weird energy forcefields around rhem, the effect is not caused by a weird energy forcefield, so is presumably an optical effect.
Maybe caused by image sharpening? But yes, it's definitely there.

I was more amazed at how much it looked like a tic tac. That's what it looked like to the naked eye as well. Very strange in appearance, but obviously just a plane.
 
The dark border around that interests me -- without the edge-finding widget in the ATFLIR vids (I assume your phone does not have that ) nevertheless, there it is. Unless airplanes have weird energy forcefields around rhem, the effect is not caused by a weird energy forcefield, so is presumably an optical effect.
It's a sharpening algorithm in the ATFLIR as well, glows/auras around high contrast objects are common with a few post processing techniques.
 
It's a sharpening algorithm in the ATFLIR as well, glows/auras around high contrast objects are common with a few post processing techniques.

Yeah, it's sharpening. Most phone cameras apply some image sharpening, noise reduction, contrast and saturation boost. It's not an optical effect - the raw image would not have it. It create a light border around dark objects and a dark border around bright objects.
 
Thanks all, I now know something useful about cell phone cams I did not know before. Appreciate the info!
 
Yeah, it's sharpening. Most phone cameras apply some image sharpening, noise reduction, contrast and saturation boost. It's not an optical effect - the raw image would not have it. It create a light border around dark objects and a dark border around bright objects.

Mick, what would be the reason why you can't make out the wings of the plane? Because that looks like a tic tac with no additional features. This was a 4K video, but my camera was digitally zoomed in.
 
Mick, what would be the reason why you can't make out the wings of the plane? Because that looks like a tic tac with no additional features. This was a 4K video, but my camera was digitally zoomed in.
The sky is blue, the underside of the wings is dark, they simply don't show up, especially when you're seeing them mostly from the side anyway.
There's always moisture in the air; think about how you can see lights in the fog (or sun through the clouds), but not dark things. That way, you see the bright bits of the aircraft clearly, and the darker bits blend in with the rest of the sky.

And the phone then kills them dead with the image enhancement.
 
And the phone then kills them dead with the image enhancement.
Looking at the thumbnail of my video above, notice how smooth the sky is. When you have a raw image, it looks more like this, a bit fuzzy around the edges

2021-08-19_22-47-17.jpg

Sharpening it makes it look more in focus, but also brings out the noise

2021-08-19_22-47-59.jpg


So noise reduction is applied.
2021-08-19_22-50-01.jpg

The plane in the iPhone video is so few pixels that the dimmer wings are probably eliminated during noise reduction.
 
Back
Top