A striking image of Saturn set behind a mountain has captivated viewers on Reddit, sparking both admiration and discussion.
The image, shared by Daniel Borja (u/danborja) on the r/space subreddit, has accumulated over 69,000 upvotes since it was shared on February 16.
The post, shared with a title simply saying "I took a picture of Saturn as it set behind a mountain," shows a view of Saturn floating in the distance against a dark night sky.
"This is an image I took last Saturday showing Saturn and two of its moons -- Titan and Rhea -- setting behind the tree line of a mountain called Cerro de la Mitras located in Monterrey, Mexico," Borja explained in a later comment in the post. "The distance to the trees was about 3.5 kilometers [2.18 miles], which is why I was able to focus them at the same time as Saturn. This was taken with a Celestron Nexstar 6SE, a .63 focal reducer, and a ZWO ASI533MC camera."
Borja also shared a video of the scene and an uncropped version of the image on Imgur, emphasizing that he used an HDR (high dynamic range) technique to capture the details.
"I just wanted to show the moons too, so I overexposed on one telescope and then did HDR," the poster said. Addressing skepticism about the image's appearance, he added: "This is how it looks through the eyepiece, and it doesn't even come close to how beautiful it actually looks."
Despite its awe-inspiring beauty, the image sparked discussion among experts about its scale and authenticity.
Alex Gianninas, an assistant teaching professor of astronomy at Connecticut College, told Newsweek: "The angular size displayed for Saturn in this image is impossibly big. It should basically look like a very bright star to scale with the mountain in the foreground."
He explained that Saturn appearing at such a large size in relation to the trees would require it to be viewed through a telescope, making it impossible to capture the scene using a traditional camera. "The scale at which Saturn would appear this way would require seeing it through a modest-sized telescope and nothing else would appear in the field of view," Gianninas said.
Ryan Mayiras, the owner of Candid Studios Photography and Videography, which specializes in astrophotography and other fields, also weighed in.
"It is impossible to obtain this shot with a normal camera lens. Saturn would not be viewable like that with a traditional camera lens," Mayiras told Newsweek. After analyzing the details of the photo, he concluded that the image is likely authentic.
"This makes me believe that the image is legitimate and not edited. It would be difficult to create the uniform noise levels that are displayed in this photograph. I am also not able to see any artifacts along the treeline, which is where the two images would be blended together," Mayiras explained.
Noise and grain are common artifacts in low-light astrophotography, and Mayiras noted that the level of noise in Borja's image aligns with what would be expected from a legitimate photograph. "Noise refers to the random variations in color or brightness that appear as speckles. This visual distortion is actually artificially generated by the camera sensor trying to read the color data in low-light situations," he said.
Sebastien Coell, a landscape and astrophotographer, also supported the feasibility of Borja's capture. "Technically, this is possible," Coell told Newsweek, emphasizing that the telescope and camera setup used by Borja could create this effect.
Coell said: "The large pixel size of this camera on the telescope he has mentioned should give an angle of view of around 0.43 degrees on a 1500mm telescope, which is very narrow. If you compare this to the human eye's field of view of approximately 135 degrees horizontally, it would mean you are zooming into less than one degree of our vision."
Coell further explained how compression in photography could make Saturn appear so large in the frame. "By zooming in far, you will compress the foreground to midground space, enlarging items in the background," he noted.
"The poster said he was 3,500 meters [2.18 miles] away from the trees, and at 3,500 meters away from his telescope, an angle of view of 0.43 degrees would give you a field of view of 26 degrees horizontally. The trees look to me to be around the correct amount of your vision in the uncropped version -- about 20 percent of what one eye could see," Coell noted.
Reddit users were amazed by the image captured in the viral post.
User sun_rises_down commented "Hahaha, definitely like a sticker or cartoon!" to which Borja replied "It looks so weird to me as well, almost like a sticker or cartoon. It's unreal."
Other Redditors shared their admiration, with KaiserYami writing: "Beautiful! Words can't justify my amazement."
User f***thesysten added: "I honestly gasped HARD! It's so unbelievable, can't wait to see something like that myself!"
For Borja, the experience of seeing Saturn through his telescope surpasses any photograph. "The full image shows the scene very similar to what it actually looks through the eyepiece. But honestly, the eyepiece view is just unreal. A picture will never do it justice," he said.
Newsweek has contacted the original poster for comment via the Reddit messaging system.