Why do so many doubt the moon landing?

I've been thinking the same thing.

The biggest prize would be to convince everybody that you were God. The playbook has already been written, without a major re-write it could never be faked.

The space race could just have been the 'scare tactic' that allowed $100's of billions of taxpayer money to develop what would become military only equipment. The tax-payer might have gone for spending it on public works projects that had a value to future generations.

[link to www.hq.nasa.gov]

[link to www.hq.nasa.gov]

[link to www.hq.nasa.gov]

[link to www.hq.nasa.gov]

[link to www.hq.nasa.gov]

Apparently it's "impossible" to film background stars from a lit lunar surface? So what are these in the background... fireflies?

[link to www.lpi.usra.edu]

This iconic pic of Aldrin descending a ladder onto the moon's surface is perfectly exposed even though it's shot towards the sun and features very dark and very light surfaces complete with a moving astronaut all in perfect focus.

All this from a primitive 1969 camera that had no viewfinder or light meter. Imagine that.

BINGO! Great post You're exactly right. The NASA shills can't answer so many questions. It's clear we didn't go to the moon with Apollo.

Great links! Yeah, those are some big, bright fireflies ;-) Again, the NASA shills are silent.

Primitive? What are you, some young ignorant fuck?

And you obviously aren't experienced at photography, are you? You don't need a light meter. If you know what light conditions that you are shooting in, you can use settings for those conditions without a light meter. Even with a light meter, before all the automated cameras, didn't check the light meter before every shot. And with a shorter focal length lens, the field of view was wide enough that they didn't need a view finder.

Now it would depend on the brightness of the stars, wouldn't it?

Again, the hoax believers are ignorant. You can't present any scientific or technical facts, can you? All you can do is point at pictures or videos and say, "Looky!"

Who said it was impossible? No one did except you. Stars can and have been photographed from the surface as has been demonstrated on this thread many times. But you have to know what you are doing. Your statement is a red herring.

So before 1969 no one was ever able to take a good photograph? Really? You do realize they spent hours and hours practicing with those cameras so why would a good photograph be a surprise?

Oh look. Apollo 11 had a spotmeter.

"Stowed with the Hasselblads are such associated items as a spotmeter, ringsight, polarizing filter, and film magazines. Both versions of the Hasselblad accept the same type film magazine."



[link to www.msss.com]

Last Edited by Commutator on 11/07/2010 08:29 AM

The argument is a red herring. No one ever said it was impossible to photograph stars from the lunar surface and many of us have shown that it IS possible. They usually do not show up in short exposures meant to photograph bright objects.

"Truth's protective layers" are simply undiscovered facts of the universe, clearly referencing the preceding phrase. You quote part of the sentence, totally out of out of context from the rest.

"There are places to go beyond belief..." ie: things yet envisioned or top secret missions by NASA and DOD, like the possible moon bases. Maybe the coverup goes the other way.

Maybe Armstrong was emotionally in awe of the human potential and the vastness of the undiscovered. Something I doubt you would understand.

You really don't want to ponder the overall possibilities, just your narrow minded shallow jaundiced view.

Cherry picking "evidence" and myopic logic does not a good argument make.

Interesting, but hardly proof of anything.

Lack of atmospheric scatter of light (on the moon BTW) might permit a couple of really bright stars tickle the emulsion a bit. Also it would probably require burn and dodge printing to make those objects visible on the print.

Obviously there's no atmosphere, which is a major key to the photographic conditions. Without the light scatter, stars are more visible, especially when shooting at a 90 degree + angle away from the sun as pictured in thye links.

If they were going to intentionally fake a star field, it would have certainly been more impressive than just a couple of spots.

But then again, maybe they're just your flying frogs off in the distance. They get in the studio all the time.

Nature has protective layers that we unpeel in the process of learning. We peel back our lack of knowlege through scientific study.

Scan back a few posts and see the AC apolloshill statement that YOU endorsed:

"Film latitude (light to dark ratio) is way too narrow to encompass the wide range needed to record a bright sunlit moonscape and include any stars whatsoever. It's simply impossible."

Only in shill-land does the meaning of "impossible" get confused with "already demonstrated".

*edit* The apollo 11 crew said they saw no stars. Uh huh.

Last Edited by sign11 on 11/07/2010 03:43 PM

Totally different statement. It is true on the Moon and on Earth that you cannot photograph very bright and very dark area simultaneously AND have them both be properly exposed. You are moving the goalposts because your statement was it was impossible to photograph stars from the Moon. A very different statement. Duh, read your own posts.

It was daylight not at night. How many stars, outside of the Sun, can you see during the day?

Last Edited by Commutator on 11/07/2010 03:55 PM

"The cameras did not have any light metering or automatic exposure. Based on experimentation on earlier Apollo missions, exposure settings for the different kinds of expected lighting conditions were worked out in advance. The guidelines were printed for the astronauts on the top of the Hasselblad film magazines (shown below). The shutter speed was set to 1/250, and the f-stop recommendations were ƒ/5.6 for objects in shadow and ƒ/11 for objects in the sun."

[link to sterileeye.com]

So, they had a pre-set shutter speed of 1/250, and a couple of f-stops to choose from, then it was point/guess/ and shoot! The NASA recipe for a perfectly exposed lunar pic.

No one said the cameras had light metering but they did have a spotmeter, another case of moving the goal posts. Do you know what a spotmeter is?

It wasn't a guess, they practiced and they had guidelines.

That pic of Aldrin climbing down the ladder contains both very dark shadows and very brightly lit areas, with every shaded tone in between, and it's all PERFECTLY EXPOSED and IN perfect FOCUS. Yet this is impossible according to your statement, "you cannot photograph very bright and very dark area simultaneously AND have them both be properly exposed". Congratulations. You just proved the pic to be a fake.
____

Remove the influence of earth's atmosphere and you'll see as many stars with the naked eye as the astronauts should have reported seeing from the moon: several thousand.

So how many stars do you see in the sky during a solar eclipse?
*edit* the fake pic:
[link to www.lpi.usra.edu]

Last Edited by sign11 on 11/07/2010 04:45 PM

You clearly have never done any photography. Sorry if the statements confuse you. I did not say that dark and bright could not be photgraphed at the same time; I said very dark and very bright. It is a question of dynamic range. If you expose so VERY DARK areas are clear then VERY BRIGHT areas will be over exposed. Moderate range of brightness WILL expose properly in photographic film. It is a nonlinear collector that allows such variations. The astronaut coming down the ladder is not in complete darkness. he is illuminated from a reflection from the lunar surface.

It is not a question of atmosphere it is a question of contrast. Your eyes cannot see in bright sunlight AND dark areas at the same time. That does not mean you cannot see stars from the Moon but you have to shield your eyes from stray light.

What kind of solar eclipse? Partial, none. during a total lots but then during a total eclipse you are not experiencing daylight conditions so your point is meaningless.

And why do you continue to think they did not practice? Did you ever look at a camera? It has graduations on the focus ring that indicates distance. Find the distance and you can be in focus. You also do not understand what a spotmeter is. It is a handheld light meter. That had one on Apollo 11 so again your argument has no meaning.

Claims of fake because of ignorance of photographic techniques does not work.

Last Edited by Commutator on 11/07/2010 06:05 PM

Or, you go with a slower shutter speed and smaller aperture so you get a greater depth of field so that you don't have to worry so much about the distance.

Moron. The difference in lumens between background stars and a white spacesuit exposed to reflected light off the lunar surface is several orders of magnitude.

Think on this -- you can read a newspaper by moonlight here on EARTH. We're talking literally millions of times more light coming off that space suit in shadow, than are reaching the camera from those distant stars.

The only objects that come even close to the range of the exposure are the brighter planets.

There are no stars in the background of any Apollo surface photograph. The only white spots you will see are cosmic ray hits, emulsion damage, or dust on the scanner used for the transfer to what you are looking at online.

And just because some people are stupidly literal, by "Apollo surface photograph" I mean the visual record taken of astronaut activities by Lunar Hasselblad. There were photographs taken of stars, all right...but these were not stars appearing in frame with astronauts and lunar surface. (They weren't even taken with the same equipment).

Then it must be cosmic ray hits and emulsion damage I'm seeing on my first gen Apollo photos.
ones that were handed out by NASA right after the missions...thanks for clearing that up Nomuse.
I'll also try remembering that as I look at the photos that were given to Hasselblad right after the missions that are entirely different from what NASA published.
Thanks old buddy!

You have the actual film? Then you don't know what happened between film and print. I also have prints from the missions, collected by my grandfather and given to me. I wouldn't swear to each of them being a pristine print.

Do the math. Stars fall so far outside of the possible exposure latitude to expect any in the background of otherwise ordinary surface activity photographs would be like taking a voice memo on an iPhone in Detroit and hoping that in the background you might hear the hour being struck by "Big Ben" in London.

Who said that any background stars could/should/would be seen or photographed near an astronaut's reflective space suit? Only you and your straw moran.

The actual point made was in reference to the seemingly impossible range of black/white/gray/colour detail revealed in the photo of Aldrin descending from the LM. All with a camera that was apparently pointed in the direction of the sun with afixed shutter speed of 1/250 sec, and a limited aperture range of f/5.6 to f/11.
I'm no expert in photography, but I've taken enough pics to sense that something isn't quite right here.

Your attempt to discredit the images of background stars seen on some of the lunar photographs as being nothing more than examples of light anomalies is more of an example of shill-tardism at it's finest. Cue the applause.


At least this lunar pic looks real, with the overexposed light areas contrasting (as expected) with the dark:
[link to upload.wikimedia.org]

However the pic does raise the question: why is this astronaut obscured in shadow if the lunar surface is so reflective? He should be lit up like a Christmas tree with the sunlight reflecting from both the moon and the LM in front.