Apollo 11 Moon Landing Revisited: Hoax ~vs~ Debunk

[JayUtah]

Parallel shadows you say?

Marcus Allen's shadow claims are borrowed from David Percy, who formulated a set of "photo rules" that he says the light in all photos should obey. As I explained many pages ago, these "rules" are nonsense. Percy tried to cobble up some photos in which a "rule" appeared to be true for that one case. But then I as explained further, he got very angry and withdrawn when I pointed out that his photos offered to prove one photo "rule" disproved his other "rules." One of those rules was the so-called parallel shadow rule, which is easily and observably false. Not only false in a few cases, but false in most cases.

Because Percy claimed to be a professional photographer, Allen co-opted the "photo rules" as having come from a professional photographer. But that is a classic fallacious appeal to authority. The behavior of light and shadow are objective, testable facts that do not differ according to the expertise of the one making the claim.

 

[Foster Zygote]

"Suspicious' is your word, not mine. As Trevor Weaver points out in the OP video, he believes it would have been far too dangerous to send them to the Moon. The fact they weren't at all bothered by radiation issues seems to back up his view they never went.

It backs up the view of the majority of people here that Trevor Weaver is a sensationalist idiot who doesn't know ◊◊◊◊ about ionizing radiation. His uninformed beliefs are irrelevant.

How many more pages of this thread before you tacitly admit that exposure to ionizing radiation doesn't make people or things radioactive, and pretend that you never said anything different?

 

[JayUtah]

You're admitting that the settings used to photograph objects and landscape couldn't image stars. It's taken quite a while, but you finally got there.

...and pivoted to, "You guys are so mean to pick on Marcus Allen like that." Allen deserves criticism. He is lying about an easily-known fact under color of expertise with the clear intent to deceive. However, in the program his claim was taken at face value, discussed, and empirically refuted with extreme dispassion. If Allen is a victim of anything, it is of his own hubris.

Already answered. The EVA schedules were tight, and setting up tripods and dedicated camera equipment to take long exposure images that had no scientific value would have been an expensive waste of time.

For that mission, yes. When the time came to take photographs of stars from the lunar surface, the solution was not to modify the handheld still cameras but to design a camera thoroughly appropriate to the task. It had a robust structure to hold it still. It was meant for long exposures. It took pains to eliminate unfavorable view factors to sunlit objects.

Provisionally allowing the Hasselblad cameras to be used also for star photography impairs their primary purpose by adding error and failure modes.

 

[Vixen]

But if they want to photograph those subjects standing on the moon, they need to be on the moon. Which they were.

And by the same token, we can't tell it's the Moon. Imagine you want to fake a trip to say, Australia for whatever reason (or anywhere). So you would want to:

1. Establish you were there, perhaps by getting someone to send a card signed by you from there. (= 'We brought Moon rock home'.)
2. Leave something belonging to you there; perhaps your flip-flops in a cupboard, as per photo [which could be from anywhere]. (=The US flag in the photo; and claim you left a load of junk there plus Hasselblads and even some cool footprints [despite no moisture on the Moon to make them].)
3. The proof you were there is that people now eat Marmite, which you took there [which they were already doing]. (= The feel-good factor of claiming you personally left some reflectors on the lunar surface which was a great advance to mankind in pinging the Moon).

See how it works? We are none the wiser as to whether you were there or not but by heck you can convince us that you were.

 

[Foster Zygote]

We weren't talking about crepuscular light, we were seeing the long dark shadows, which indicates dark shade elsewhere (which, on the Moon is literally pitch black).

You claimed that the lighting conditions on earth and the moon were the same during the early morning for both. That's false. I'm the one who had to point out to you that the fact that earth has an atmosphere, while the moon does not, makes a huge difference in the natural lighting conditions. Your arguments change constantly according to the last post you're responding to.

 

[Vixen]

Did you watch the part where I showed what happens to shadows when you have one light source?

It isn't 'proving' there is one light source with multiple shadows in different directions when you are using refracted light to 'disprove' it. That's just sleight of hand trickery.

 

[JayUtah]

Imagine you want to fake a trip...

Basing your expectations on the veracity of your conclusion is circular reasoning.

 

[threadworm]

That is just post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy reasoning. "Oh, there are no stars in the pics because it's not possible to photograph the stars, as you can see, the sky is black in the photos, which proves it'. Or, "They weren't there to photograph or look at the stars, so that explains it."

No-one is arguing that the sky being black proves anything. The sky being black is incidental.

No-one is arguing that the program of surface activities explains the lack of stars in photographs.

Camera settings and a bright sun are the explanation. That's it.

 

[Vixen]

You claimed that the lighting conditions on earth and the moon were the same during the early morning for both. That's false. I'm the one who had to point out to you that the fact that earth has an atmosphere, while the moon does not, makes a huge difference in the natural lighting conditions. Your arguments change constantly according to the last post you're responding to.

Err! I think you'll find I was first to point out that Earth was protected by an atmosphere and the Moon was not.

 

[Foster Zygote]

...and pivoted to, "You guys are so mean to pick on Marcus Allen like that." Allen deserves criticism. He is lying about an easily-known fact under color of expertise with the clear intent to deceive. However, in the program his claim was taken at face value, discussed, and empirically refuted with extreme dispassion. If Allen is a victim of anything, it is of his own hubris.


For that mission, yes. When the time came to take photographs of stars from the lunar surface, the solution was not to modify the handheld still cameras but to design a camera thoroughly appropriate to the task. It had a robust structure to hold it still. It was meant for long exposures. It took pains to eliminate unfavorable view factors to sunlit objects.

Provisionally allowing the Hasselblad cameras to be used also for star photography impairs their primary purpose by adding error and failure modes.

One of my favorite lunar instruments.


For those interested in it:

Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

ETA: It's also important to note that the earth's atmosphere is opaque to the far ultraviolet wavelengths this camera imaged, so its photos were of genuinely novel scientific value, unlike taking photos of stars in visible light with a small camera would have been.

 

[JayUtah]

It isn't 'proving there is one light source with multiple shadows in different directions when you are using refracted light to 'disprove' it. That's just sleight of hand trickery.

No.

Once you are a certain distance away from a studio light, its rays are effectively parallel. This is why our demonstrations took place a great distance from the light, and why the light had to be exceptionally powerful. We used the studio light so that we could plausibly argue that only one point light source was available in an otherwise completely dark environment.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Marcus Allen's shadow claims are borrowed from David Percy, who formulated a set of "photo rules" that he says the light in all photos should obey. As I explained many pages ago, these "rules" are nonsense. Percy tried to cobble up some photos in which a "rule" appeared to be true for that one case. But then I as explained further, he got very angry and withdrawn when I pointed out that his photos offered to prove one photo "rule" disproved his other "rules." One of those rules was the so-called parallel shadow rule, which is easily and observably false. Not only false in a few cases, but false in most cases.

Because Percy claimed to be a professional photographer, Allen co-opted the "photo rules" as having come from a professional photographer. But that is a classic fallacious appeal to authority. The behavior of light and shadow are objective, testable facts that do not differ according to the expertise of the one making the claim.

As we see in the video I linked, the direction of shadows depends on your point of view.

 

[JayUtah]

Err! I think you'll find I was first to point out that Earth was protected by an atmosphere and the Moon was not.

"Protection" is irrelevant. You attempted to argue that the sun being low in the sky would necessarily mean the objects lit by the sun would not be as brightly lit as noonday. On Earth this is somewhat true due to atmospheric attenuation, which is greater at lower sun elevations. On the Moon it is not true. Objects lit by the sun at 15º elevation are in full sun.

You also tried to conflate that with heat and temperature, which are irrelevant to the illumination question.

 

[Andy_Ross]

And by the same token, we can't tell it's the Moon. Imagine you want to fake a trip to say, Australia for whatever reason (or anywhere). So you would want to:

1. Establish you were there, perhaps by getting someone to send a card signed by you from there. (= 'We brought Moon rock home'.)
2. Leave something belonging to you there; perhaps your flip-flops in a cupboard, as per photo [which could be from anywhere]. (=The US flag in the photo; and claim you left a load of junk there plus Hasselblads and even some cool footprints [despite no moisture on the Moon to make them].)
3. The proof you were there is that people now eat Marmite, which you took there [which they were already doing]. (= The feel-good factor of claiming you personally left some reflectors on the lunar surface which was a great advance to mankind in pinging the Moon).

See how it works? We are none the wiser as to whether you were there or not but by heck you can convince us that you were.

This is pathetic even for you.

 

[JayUtah]

As we see in the video I linked, the direction of shadows depends on your point of view.

Correct. Sun-cast shadows will appear parallel only when viewed from the side and from a considerable distance that erases the projective differences. David Percy tried to make this seem true for all shadows. It is trivially untrue.

 

[Vixen]

"Protection" is irrelevant. You attempted to argue that the sun being low in the sky would necessarily mean the objects lit by the sun would not be as brightly lit as noonday. On Earth this is somewhat true due to atmospheric attenuation. On the Moon it is not true. Objects lit by the sun at 15º elevation are in full sun.

You also tried to conflate that with heat and temperature, which are irrelevant to the illumination question.

No! Not to do with brightness of light; I was pointing out the presence of real long dark shadows, indicating there was shelter from the sun's brightness to be had.

ETA I also pointed out heat and temperature were irrelevant. The CONTEXT of being on the Moon as of that lunar early daybreak was to do with how the human body could not survive any other time.

 

[JayUtah]

No! Not to do with brightness of light; I was pointing out the presence of real long dark shadows, indicating there was shelter from the sun's brightness to be had.

The existence of shadows on the lunar surface does not make the problem of photographing stars any different.

 

[Vixen]

Correct. Sun-cast shadows will appear parallel only when viewed from the side and from a considerable distance that erases the projective differences. David Percy tried to make this seem true for all shadows. It is trivially untrue.

I think he was indicating the presence of a source of light other than the sun; eg., a spotlight. That's how the row came about.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

And by the same token, we can't tell it's the Moon.

How much effort are you prepared to put into trying to prove there's any anomaly that indicates it isn't?

You see those hills in the background? Do they match what's meant to be there? Yes. Well that's a start. What next?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Err! I think you'll find I was first to point out that Earth was protected by an atmosphere and the Moon was not.

Err! I think you will find that is not the same point.