Apollo 11 Moon Landing Revisited: Hoax ~vs~ Debunk

[Darat]

We used to have a forum member who couldn't understand that if the northern hemisphere turns anticlockwise then the southern hemisphere turns clockwise.

Many years ago for some reason I couldn't understand why the moon would look the other way up. We did have a globe on a stand (very small cheap one) and I remember holding something like a tennis ball away from it and I used one of my toy soldiers and I walked it around the globe looking at what it could see of the ball.. I was about 8 or 9.....

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I'm inclined to cut people a lot of slack for that stuff as some perfectly smart people find it extraordinarily difficult to imagine objects in 3D.

Not infinite slack though. They get the benefit of the doubt at first.

 

[Darat]

I'm inclined to cut people a lot of slack for that stuff as some perfectly smart people find it extraordinarily difficult to imagine objects in 3D.

Not infinite slack though. They get the benefit of the doubt at first.

Yeah but when it is something so easy to check out for yourself how do you remain ignorant?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Deleted because I didn't read ahead and I was comprehensively Ninjad by Jay.

 

[jimbob]

We used to have a forum member who couldn't understand that if the northern hemisphere turns anticlockwise then the southern hemisphere turns clockwise.

 

[dudalb]

I just read a book called "The Wrong Stuff" about the Soviet Manned Space Flight Program in the 50;s and 60's.
I am taking some of it with a lot of salt, but even if one half is true, then the Soviet never had a real chance of Overtaking the USA in the Moon Race.
The Soviets could build huge booster rockets, but had lots of problem with the modules in which the Cosmonauts had to ride. Where they were really behind the US was in the 'And bring them back safely" part. Yuri Gagarin was nearly killed in the reentry from his first mission because of problems with his capsual. A Later Cosmonaut was out and killed in during renetry.
THen thre was the launch of one of the their boosters that blew up and killed around a Hundred people on the ground, including one general very high in the Russian Missile program.
You can understand why the Soviet program was not nearly in public view the way the US program was. all of their launch centers were in the middle of nowhere in Kazakastan, in highly restricted zones. THe US launch center was in Florida, where anybody woulc stand outside the base fence and watch the rockets going off..or not go off in the early stages of NASA.

 

[Norman Alexander]

Who was it said that the moon landings were indeed filmed by Stanley Kubrik, who, to make it all look real, shot it all on location?

 

[Vixen]

Who was it said that the moon landings were indeed filmed by Stanley Kubrik, who, to make it all look real, shot it all on location?

People who didn't think the background looked real.

There is also the claim of 'fall off' by a professional photographer, Perry. For example, this pic here of Buzz Aldrin:



As you know, NASA claims the only light source was the sun but this 'fall off' indicates extra lighting by the way the background falls off, when one would expect the ground to show uniform brightness. Credit NASA AS11-40-5903

 

[Jack by the hedge]

People who didn't think the background looked real.

There is also the claim of 'fall off' by a professional photographer, Perry. For example, this pic here of Buzz Aldrin:

View attachment 71174

As you know, NASA claims the only light source was the sun but this 'fall off' indicates extra lighting by the way the background falls off, when one would expect the ground to show uniform brightness. Credit NASA AS11-40-5903 HC-684

Why does the 'fall off' in your version of the photograph look so exaggerated compared to the copy previously posted by JesseCuster in reply #162?

By which I mean to say: It looks as if you have found a copy of the photograph which has deliberately been dodged to brighten the area behind Aldrin to produce a false effect of falloff. Any thoughts?

PS If you wish to claim the use of "extra lighting" you might have to address Aldrin casting only 1 shadow.

 

[Vixen]

Why does the 'fall off' in your version of the photograph look so exaggerated compared to the copy previously posted in reply #162?

Because NASA has since brightened it and increased the dpi. (Ref. A11-69-HC-684). As you can see, it has had the effect of making Buzz now look washed out. The one above was the original used by the GUARDIAN (17.7.2019, Jonathan Jones), who likely got it from the Smithsonian or one of NASA's own webpages.

 

[catsmate]

People who didn't think the background looked real.

There is also the claim of 'fall off' by a professional photographer, Perry. For example, this pic here of Buzz Aldrin:

View attachment 71174

As you know, NASA claims the only light source was the sun but this 'fall off' indicates extra lighting by the way the background falls off, when one would expect the ground to show uniform brightness. Credit NASA AS11-40-5903

Oh look @Vixen has posted an edited picture to support her lies....

Active Silicon News | Image processing techniques discount the doubters

Could the Apollo 11 moon landing have been a hoax? Here's why we don't think so...

www.activesilicon.com

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Because NASA has since brightened it and increased the dpi. (Ref. A11-69-HC-684). As you can see, it has had the effect of making Buzz now look washed out. The one above was the original used by the GUARDIAN (17.7.2019, Jonathan Jones), who likely got it from the Smithsonian or one of NASA's own webpages.

So the provenance of your version has a number of guesses. Despite your insinuation that NASA has doctored it later I don't think you have any good reason to think so.

My first observation is that your version has higher contrast, and increasing contrast is like the entropy of photographs: The more times they get copied, the more contrast increases. So the version JesseCuster posted is very, very unlikely to be derived from the version you posted. It looks to me much more likely to be closer to the original.

 

[JesseCuster]

Because NASA has since brightened it and increased the dpi. (Ref. A11-69-HC-684). As you can see, it has had the effect of making Buzz now look washed out. The one above was the original used by the GUARDIAN (17.7.2019, Jonathan Jones), who likely got it from the Smithsonian or one of NASA's own webpages.

The image i posted is clearly not the result of brightening the image you posted. The contrast is clearly much different for example.

Also, how would "increasing the dpi" change the apparent "fall off". What do you think dpi means? Please explain what "increasing the dpi" actually involves and how it would affect the "fall off". You're just throwing around random photography jargon.

Also, please explain how an exposure time of 1/250 sec, an aperture of f/5.6 or f/11 combined with a film speed of ISO 160 would expose stars. You say you know how to take images of the night sky, so please explain.

 

[lionking]

People who didn't think the background looked real.

There is also the claim of 'fall off' by a professional photographer, Perry. For example, this pic here of Buzz Aldrin:

View attachment 71174

As you know, NASA claims the only light source was the sun but this 'fall off' indicates extra lighting by the way the background falls off, when one would expect the ground to show uniform brightness. Credit NASA AS11-40-5903

Oh for goodness sake, how many times does this have to be debunked?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I wonder if we now have to go through the whole "primary source" thing again, with a photo credited to NASA (who hold the original of course) but which has passed through an unknown number of hands and reproductions before being offered to us here.

 

[JayUtah]

There is also the claim of 'fall off' by a professional photographer, Perry.

Surely you mean Percy, the "professional photographer" who was too scared to come on the show to defend his claim.

As you know, NASA claims the only light source was the sun...

The only direct light source is the sun. However, David Percy proved himself to be utterly incompetent when it came to indirect light sources, texture hiding, and all the other important concepts that come into play when you actually practice photography.

but this 'fall off' indicates extra lighting by the way the background falls off...

You must be new to this.

The claim is that falloff is the product of using only one light, which wouldn't be able to illuminate the entire ground surface. You would add extra lighting to get rid of the falloff, what lighting designers call a "wash." But then you have multiple shadows.

If you had watched the video you posted, you would have seen the actual effect of using only one light to try to illuminate a large area.

when one would expect the ground to show uniform brightness.

Why would one expect that?

Credit NASA AS11-40-5903

Originally, yes. But the Apollo photographs have been widely duplicated by both photographic and digital means. NASA made a set of dupe masters from the original transparencies and then keep the camera originals in a vault. NASA turned the dupe masters over to a commercial photo service, which handled photo requests for decades until some of the dupe masters (and in other cases, prints made from them) were scanned by whoever had them and put on the web. All the pictures you will ever see are scans of at least a second-generation dupe.

Because NASA has since brightened it and increased the dpi. (Ref. A11-69-HC-684). As you can see, it has had the effect of making Buzz now look washed out. The one above was the original used by the GUARDIAN (17.7.2019, Jonathan Jones), who likely got it from the Smithsonian or one of NASA's own webpages.

Or stated more obviously, the photo has been through a number of hands that have nothing to with NASA, has been altered for reasons that have nothing to do with scientific or historical accuracy (i.e., to make it look good for publication), and from which absolutely nothing can be inferred in a photometry sense. Just because you know its NASA Apollo photo reference number doesn't mean you have an original.

 

[JayUtah]

I wonder if we now have to go through the whole "primary source" thing again, with a photo credited to NASA (who hold the original of course) but which has passed through an unknown number of hands and reproductions before being offered to us here.

I once had 4,000 dpi scans of the camera originals for Roll 40, but I have misplaced the hard disk they were on. There is an ongoing project to scan all the camera originals, since the dyes are shifting. But yes, the camera originals are kept in a refrigerated vault at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory.

There is a vast difference in contrast between scans of the dupe masters and scans of the originals. There is not nearly so much contrast in the originals.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The need to be special in some fashion, any fashion, is what powers things like "the Moon landing hoax."

The first person to "see" a triangular UFO selectively stopped the event before the airplane that flew over him came close enough to identify it as an air plane. Given that there is a USAF base at Belleville, IL., such "sightings" would have been common for years in his neighborhood, but the inspiration to make it something more than that, more than mundane and therefore special with him being special by association, that's what makes UFO nuts so eager to accept the slightest "proof" of their existence.

I recently saw a UFO near the road one dark night. Bunch of "wild lights" apparently floating very still in the air. OBVIOUSLY NOT an airplane! We'll ignore the fact that men were working on the ground under that extenable work light, rushing to get a job done on time.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

Why does the 'fall off' in your version of the photograph look so exaggerated compared to the copy previously posted by JesseCuster in reply #162?

By which I mean to say: It looks as if you have found a copy of the photograph which has deliberately been dodged to brighten the area behind Aldrin to produce a false effect of falloff. Any thoughts?

PS If you wish to claim the use of "extra lighting" you might have to address Aldrin casting only 1 shadow.

Also, the apparent "fall off" tends in the wrong direction. The light source lighting Buzz is behind him and a bit over his left shoulder, about the 8 o'clock position. ETA If there were genuine fall-off, the surface in the left-hand (as we see it) background should be a *lot* dimmer than the right-hand background.

 

[JayUtah]

By which I mean to say: It looks as if you have found a copy of the photograph which has deliberately been dodged to brighten the area behind Aldrin to produce a false effect of falloff. Any thoughts?

This happens naturally when you make the dupe masters. You lose gradients. The darks become darker and the lights become lighter.

PS If you wish to claim the use of "extra lighting" you might have to address Aldrin casting only 1 shadow.

Indeed, to make a "wash" work, the pools of light have to overlap. This results in multiple shadows.

For claiming to be a professional photographer, David Percy never demonstrated how he thought the artificial lighting was done. Just diagrams and hand wavy verbal descriptions. If he's a professional, it's reasonable to expect that he has access to a studio and a competent array of studio lighting. But for some reason he never put his money where his mouth was.

The grips on our show actually worked on From the Earth to the Moon, the HBO series produced by Tom Hanks. They explained how that show handled light and shadow. Also, enviably, they had an actual lunar module (LM-13) to use as a prop.