(meteorobs) Back to reality

[Jay Salsburg]

After examining video from a site that records and posts video of
Mesospheric Gravity Waves, I noticed the stars were backward, and the Video
showed motion of the stars from right to left with North at the top. I
emailed the contributor with my observation saying, "This image and the
Movie appear to be mirror image. Orion and Sirius appear to be backward." He
replied with, "The image is formatted so that you, the observer, are looking
down from above the dome of the sky onto the Earth's surface. This format is
useful to map the wave structures onto the Earth's surface so that their
sizes can be measured. Its not an astronomical view but in the movie the
stars do move from East to West as they are supposed to."

My difficulty with this is that, unless the owner of the recordings are
actually placing the image on a map, this is backward. Somewhere, somehow,
the image and video have been mirror imaged. No camera I know does this
without some intentional electronic accommodation that requires the operator
of the camera to switch the camera to this option, which is not the norm.
There is no situation in reality where the sky is reversed. The reversal is
only used when the image is placed on a map for plotting, not for viewing.
These images and videos are for viewing, not for mapping, otherwise they
would be displayed overlaid on a map of the Earth as though the viewer were
above the map of the Earth which the image or video is not.

Since the public is the target of these images and videos, it seems only
normal to not take the extra processing step to mirror image the recording
and post to the Internet as though it was being viewed this way in reality,
like you were standing there with the camera. Reality is what I want, not
something else. I was told this East/Right to West/Left is a standard. I
have not heard of any standard like this.

Your thoughts...