Relativitätstheorie relativ anschaulich
Brightness and color of rapidly
moving objects: The visual appearance of a large sphere
revisited
Flight past the sun, MPEG4 320×240 (160 kB), MPEG4 640×480 (316 kB)

Brightness and color of rapidly moving objects: The visual appearance of a large sphere revisited

Ute Kraus, 1. Januar 2000

An object at relativistic speed is seen as both rotated and distorted when it is large or close by so that it subtends a large solid angle. This is a consequence of the aberration effect and is obtained by purely geometric considerations. In this paper it is pointed out and illustrated that a photorealistic image of such an object would actually be dominated by the Doppler and searchlight effects, which would be so prominent as to render the geometric apparent shape effectively invisible.

 

Content:
Introduction
Brightness perceived by the human eye
Concluding remarks
Appendix: Lorentz transformation of the specific intensity
References

Supplement (movies and color image)

Published in The American Journal of Physics, vol. 68 (1), January 2000, pp 56-60.

This article can be downloaded in PDF-format here:
Brightness and color of rapidly moving objects: The visual appearance of a large sphere revisited (152 kB).

 
Mehr: Weitere Beispiele für das Aussehen fast lichtschneller Objekte, auch mit Filmen, finden Sie in Bewegung am kosmischen Tempolimit. Einen Flug durchs Brandenburger Tor im Film gibt es in Beobachtungen bei Hochgeschwindigkeitsflügen.

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AutorInnen: Ute Kraus, Datum: 1. Januar 2000
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