mountain facility?
mi...@sushi.com
http://www.lazygranch.com/images/bonanza/bnz_mountain_facility_2.jpg
37.159145° -115.927415° on Google Earth
Match?
Lumpy
If the facility matches up, which dry lake
is in the background in your pic? I can't see
what it could be.
Looks like Papoose, which wouldn't put that
facility in the coord's above. But I don't
know if it can be Papoose. Dilusional suggests
that lake is tucked out of site from your viewpoint.
I guess compare to the old Mayhood or Glenn's photos of Papoose.
Weren't those from Sterling?
Any chance your facility could be near Frenchman?
Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke
mi...@sushi.com
I think it is the semi-dray lake at
37.215443° -115.887393°
Lumpy
> > > http://www.lazygranch.com/images/bonanza/bnz_mountain_facility_1.jpg
> > > http://www.lazygranch.com/images/bonanza/bnz_mountain_facility_2.jpg
> > > 37.159145� -115.927415� on Google Earth
> >
> > > Match?
Lump:
> > If the facility matches up, which dry lake
> > is in the background in your pic? I can't see
> > what it could be.
> >
> > Looks like Papoose, which wouldn't put that
> > facility in the coord's above. But I don't
> > know if it can be Papoose. Dilusional suggests
> > that lake is tucked out of site from your viewpoint.
> >
> > I guess compare to the old Mayhood or Glenn's photos of Papoose.
> > Weren't those from Sterling?
> >
> > Any chance your facility could be near Frenchman?
Miso:
> I think it is the semi-dray lake at
> 37.215443� -115.887393�
Not possible, I think, if the viewpoint was Bonanza.
From Bonanza, that point in question would be WEST of the
dry lake. In the photo, it's EAST of the dry lake.
Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke
mi...@sushi.com
I rechecked and agree with you. Let me see what I can figure out here.
It would really help if we knew the lake in question was that sort of
semi dry lake seen on google earth.
mi...@sushi.com
OK, here we go. Refer to the wide shot. The ridge to the left of the
facility is at
N36.906317° W115.819190
There are two targets are as follows.
left target:
N36.688828 W115.794584
right target:
N36.687371 W115.780572
A GPX file with a vector from the Bonanza Peak spot to this ridge:
http://www.lazygranch.com/images/bonanza/bnz_ridge.gpx
The trouble is I haven't found the mountain top facility, but this
information should help.
Lumpy
> OK, here we go. Refer to the wide shot.
> The ridge to the left of the
> facility is at
> N36.906317� W115.819190
That's where I was scouting around last night.
The Bonanza vector goes right through that
saddle.
> There are two targets are as follows.
> left target:
> N36.688828 W115.794584
> right target:
> N36.687371 W115.780572
Not sure how the R and L targets above apply
to the pics?
> The trouble is I haven't found the mountain top facility, but this
> information should help.
Perhaps it isn't a facility but a group of rocks.
There seems to be plenty of appropriate sized
boulders on the same ridge as the saddle, 1.25 mi
Northeast of there. I tried to look around really
close on that ridge and the others in the sightline
north of there for roads or helo access areas. Couldn't
see anything that looked plausible.
Maybe they use those roads that have to have the
sprinklers turned on to show them, like the
secret airport.
Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke
obviouslydelusional
After some serious work with Google Earth, I conclude that the dry
lake in the background here HAS to be Papoose. Makes sense, as it's
to the left of Groom Lake, and as you said, there are older images
from Mt. Stirling showing Papoose. The tongue area is blocked by the
butte in the foreground, but there are some "teeth" visible on the
westerly shoreline that match. So disregard what I said. I now know
what I'm talking about. Maybe. Flip. Flop.
As for the "mountain facility" it all looks like random rocks to me.
Unless....that's what they want you to think.
Hiram
> Unless....that's what they want you to think.
Ha ha ha - don't you start!
mi...@sushi.com
<http://www.lazygranch.com/images/bonanza/bnz_facility_wide_bw.jpg>
I thought I provided this view already, but I guess not. The targets
are at the bottom left and right. The shapes correspond well with
google earth, so I'm pretty sure I have the right vector.
I guess the only solution is a climb with the telescope and a compass.
Not too likely to happen this year unless I make a trip for MAFEX.
Lumpy
> http://www.lazygranch.com/images/bonanza/bnz_facility_wide_bw.jpg
Man, the quality of that monochrome is fabulous.
Whatever ASA, push, exposure whatever you're using there.
Gorgeous grayscale.
Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke
mi...@sushi.com
Ditto on Papoose Lake. Still looks to me like more than rocks though.
I see there is an unfortunate glitch in the GE coverage at
N36.911664 W115.816126
Closer to Bonanza, there is a road to nowhere:
N36.845759 W115.809128
mi...@sushi.com
A grayscale zoom:
<http://www.lazygranch.com/images/bonanza/bnz_facility_zoom_bw.jpg>
Lumpy
http://www.lazygranch.com/images/bonanza/bnz_mountain_facility_1.jpg
http://www.lazygranch.com/images/bonanza/bnz_mountain_facility_2.jpg
37.159145� -115.927415� on Google Earth
> A grayscale zoom:
http://www.lazygranch.com/images/bonanza/bnz_facility_zoom_bw.jpg
The round, white object at -
36.9044n 115.814w
is in the shadow on my GE. It is in the sunlight
on your pics and reflecting like crazy.
Rock? Downed sport model?
Looks like one of those hovering robot defense
drones that roamed Tehachapi.
Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke
mi...@sushi.com
> http://www.lazygranch.com/images/bonanza/bnz_mountain_facility_1.jpghttp://www.lazygranch.com/images/bonanza/bnz_mountain_facility_2.jpg
> 37.159145° -115.927415° on Google Earth
>
> > A grayscale zoom:
>
> http://www.lazygranch.com/images/bonanza/bnz_facility_zoom_bw.jpg
>
> The round, white object at -
> 36.9044n 115.814w
> is in the shadow on my GE. It is in the sunlight
> on your pics and reflecting like crazy.
>
> Rock? Downed sport model?
> Looks like one of those hovering robot defense
> drones that roamed Tehachapi.
>
> Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke
>
> www.n0eq.com
I don't see anything there. Sometimes GE waypoints don't get "snapped"
back to the same location. That is, you plop down a marker, copy the
coordinates, but when you reenter it, the spot is off a bit. Or
perhaps it is a function of having the terrain enabled or not.
Lumpy
> > The round, white object at -
> > 36.9044n 115.814w
> > is in the shadow on my GE. It is in the sunlight
> > on your pics and reflecting like crazy.
> >
> > Rock? Downed sport model?
> > Looks like one of those hovering robot defense
> > drones that roamed Tehachapi.
miso:
> I don't see anything there.
Here it is on your pic -
http://digitalcartography.com/a51/bnz_facility_zoom_bw-WeirdObject.jpg
Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke
mi...@sushi.com
> Lump:
>
> > > The round, white object at -
> > > 36.9044n 115.814w
> > > is in the shadow on my GE. It is in the sunlight
> > > on your pics and reflecting like crazy.
>
> > > Rock? Downed sport model?
> > > Looks like one of those hovering robot defense
> > > drones that roamed Tehachapi.
>
> miso:
>
> > I don't see anything there.
>
>
> Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke
>
> www.n0eq.com
Ah yes, I saw that in the photo. Just when you think a bright spot on
Google Earth is a fluke, there is a similar bright spot in the photo.
Whatever it is, it has to be pretty big and solid to show up on Google
Earth. I've looked at crash sites with pretty big chucks of the plane
still there and they barely show up on Google Earth.
I was sent a like to Desert Shadows's photo of Bald Mountain. It
appears to have snow on it, though you never know if the snow stuck
around. Anyway, that makes it less likely to shoot from Bonanza with a
telescope.
You poke around the net for Nevada hiking and it often says 4 seasons.
Then you see photographs of hiking in the snow. Clearly somebody has
been breathing air that is a little bit too thin. IIRC, the snow hike
I saw was for Hayford Peak.
It occurred to me since I have some correspondence points between GE
and the photo, I can interpolate a vector to the mystery facility, or
pile of big ass rocks as the case may be. That will be my next post in
this thread.
Lumpy
> It occurred to me since I have some correspondence points between GE
> and the photo, I can interpolate a vector to the mystery facility, or
> pile of big ass rocks as the case may be. That will be my next post in
> this thread.
I'm stoopid to the concept of photo editing.
But can you somehow kill/enhance the light wavelengths
that would be reflected by rock vs metal (plastic, glass whatever)?
Are there some kinds of assumptions we might make about
a mystery facility? Probably -
- Antenna (radome etc, including perhaps, weather sensing)
- Occupyable structure (nearly always rectangular)
- Target (probably not at that location but any target
would have some kind of recognizable pattern, that's
why it's a target)
- Vestage? Some old foundation, structure, covered
wagon, nuclear sensor, whatever, from days past.
What about access? Very few points on the range have
non ground access. Seems it would have to be pretty
important to warrant an air only access (Badger?).
Even Bald has ground access, even if they choose to
use air some times. If a facility DOES have air
access (exclusively or redundant to ground) it would
have to have some requisite structures for landing
a helo.
We could perhaps also think-tank the "What purpose"
concept. The area in question in this case is within
what might be bombing practice range, but it doesn't seem
to be in an area which is typically bomb range (east of there).
Perhaps the only logical guess about it's use as bomb related
might be some kind of sensor/radar/waypoint.
Perhaps this is the elusive VOR waypoint for landing at TKM.
Or, it could be rocks.
Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke
mi...@sushi.com
I updated the GPX file to include vectors to the target, and added a
few waypoints of things that looked interesting.
Rectangular is generally accepted for construction. Why make work? Now
Google Earth can make things look boxy that are not boxy, but I don't
think a camera does that.
Filtering the camera itself is generally more effective than after the
fact filtering in photoshop. I almost always use a warming filter on a
400mm lens if I know the objects are going to be far away. This keeps
the cast under control and prevents generally the blue content of the
image from setting the exposure. In the telescope, I use s 420nm and
KR1.5 to bring the color into balance and filter off haze. I'm not
really sure what you can do after the fact other than my typical
scheme of killing the blue channel, then converting to grayscale. The
blue channel tends to have the most gunk in it.
Back to the GPX, I put in a waypont for where the Stirling photographs
are done. To my knowledge, Tom Mahood and the Desert Secrets guy (name
escapes me) did not photograph from the peak, but just used the spot
I provided. I know Trevor Paglen went to the top of Mt. Stirling, but
I don't recall asking him if he took any shots there. In any event,
with a combination of Bonanza and Striling, you could get enough
vectors to locate stuff.
I wonder if the ridge I photographed is the elusive Pyramid visual
waypoint. There is no hidden VOR as far as I know. A pilot I know that
wants to remain anonymous located the PYD beacon.
http://www.lazygranch.com/nellis_range_beacons.htm
obviouslydelusional
> Back to the GPX, I put in a waypont for where the Stirling photographs
> are done. To my knowledge, Tom Mahood and the Desert Secrets guy (name
> escapes me) did not photograph from the peak, but just used the spot
> I provided. I know Trevor Paglen went to the top of Mt. Stirling, but
> I don't recall asking him if he took any shots there. In any event,
> with a combination of Bonanza and Striling, you could get enough
> vectors to locate stuff.
It looks like a lot of Mahood's old stuff can still be viewed via the
Internet Archive. There's a picture shown, taken from the top of Mt.
Stirling, of Papoose. Looks pretty poor, but the lake is clearly
visible.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030620100829/www.serve.com/mahood/papoose/papsmall.jpg
The Desertsecrets guy was Steve Hauser. He had a shot of Papoose from
Reveille Peak, but I don't think he ever had anything on his site
taken from the south..
mi...@sushi.com
<obviouslydelusio...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Oct 24, 5:58 pm, "m...@sushi.com" <m...@sushi.com> wrote:
>
> > Back to the GPX, I put in a waypont for where the Stirling photographs
> > are done. To my knowledge, Tom Mahood and the Desert Secrets guy (name
> > escapes me) did not photograph from the peak, but just used the spot
> > I provided. I know Trevor Paglen went to the top of Mt. Stirling, but
> > I don't recall asking him if he took any shots there. In any event,
> > with a combination of Bonanza and Striling, you could get enough
> > vectors to locate stuff.
>
> It looks like a lot of Mahood's old stuff can still be viewed via the
> Internet Archive. There's a picture shown, taken from the top of Mt.
> Stirling, of Papoose. Looks pretty poor, but the lake is clearly
> visible.
>
>
> The Desertsecrets guy was Steve Hauser. He had a shot of Papoose from
> Reveille Peak, but I don't think he ever had anything on his site
> taken from the south..
I'm not sure it would be from the top of Stirling. I went through some
minor pains to retrace Tom's route. He didn't use a GPS, so the
instructions were distance and turns, and it took a bit of deciphering
since there were many turns off along the way. In any event, the
waypoint I put in the GPX file is his observation point. Not much of a
hike. I can provide a GPS trail if needed. It is very low altitude so
you could probably do it in the winter.
I slopped together two panos from the spot:
http://www.lazygranch.com/images/mtstirling/400mmpano.jpg
I think that is Yucca Lake behind the mountain, with Mercury in front.
As you can guess, I had no interest in Papoose.
http://www.lazygranch.com/images/mtstirling/50mmpano.jpg
Somewhere in this wide shot is Papoose Lake.
obviouslydelusional
That photo was from the top of Stirling. It was taken by the "Swiss
Mountain Bat" (??), per the linked page on Mahood's old site. Here's
the Internet Archive link to the page that describes the pic:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040719011811/www.serve.com/mahood/papoose/bat-phot.htm
Your first panorama is definitely Yucca Lake (I speak with such
certainty have been wrong a couple times, eh?)
As for the second panorama, it doesn't look like you were quite high
enough to gain the line of sight to Papoose. Bald Mountain is just to
the right of one of your panorama join lines, so Papoose would be just
to the left. I seem to recall you need to be at an elevation of at
least around 7,000' to see Papoose. By the time you kill yourself and
make it all the way to the top at 8,200', there a great view of
papoose (and damn near everywhere else). Your pic could be high
enough to maybe see a sliver, that is just lost in the haze, but it's
hard to say. But by the time you get to the top, it's unambiguous.
No interest in Papoose? ..... Some people have such screwed up
priorities!
Lumpy
> No interest in Papoose? ..... Some people have such screwed up
> priorities!
If you just wait long enough, surely one of the
sport models will come bobbing up and take
a couple of laps. Snap it's pic while it's
downshifting.
Lumpy
In Your Ears for 40 Something Years
www.LumpyMusic.com
obviouslydelusional
Downshifting??! That's soooo 1990s. All the new models have hydrogen
powered CVTs. Probably due to the Great Bob's contributions. He
wasn't there long, but his legacy is staggering.
mi...@sushi.com
>
> Your first panorama is definitely Yucca Lake (I speak with such
> certainty have been wrong a couple times, eh?)
>
> As for the second panorama, it doesn't look like you were quite high
> enough to gain the line of sight to Papoose. Bald Mountain is just to
> the right of one of your panorama join lines, so Papoose would be just
> to the left. I seem to recall you need to be at an elevation of at
> least around 7,000' to see Papoose. By the time you kill yourself and
> make it all the way to the top at 8,200', there a great view of
> papoose (and damn near everywhere else). Your pic could be high
> enough to maybe see a sliver, that is just lost in the haze, but it's
> hard to say. But by the time you get to the top, it's unambiguous.
>
> No interest in Papoose? ..... Some people have such screwed up
> priorities!
Toms lists the required altitude as 6888. My spot is at 6890,
essentially where
<http://web.archive.org/web/20040708044625/www.serve.com/mahood/
papoose/papviews.htm>
takes you. I haven't tried Wheeler Pass, which sounds like fun.
Of course, I have the advantage of 1/3 arcsecond DEMa from the shuttle
and a copy of SPLAT-HD, so I could go and predict the viewsheds. I'll
put it on the list.
There is no trail to the top as far as I know. You walk the dirt road
and wing it to get to the top. However, I think doing the last 300ft
of Bonanza is more useful.