Apollo 11 Moon Landing Revisited: Hoax ~vs~ Debunk

[JayUtah]

The highlighted score is @JayUtah's mistake.

Agreed and correction accepted. It didn't register to me at first that you can't score 162 on the Wechsler scale. I just assumed the leading 1 had been cut off and I was trying to find a scale whose percentile was approximately 99.9 for 162.

Could the 158 reported for the Cattell score be 138 instead?

 

[JayUtah]

The Cattell Culture Fair Intelligence Test (CFIQ) maxes out at 152, so it is not even possible to score 162 (or 158!) on the Cattell scale.

I believe the Cattell III B test has a maximum capped score of 162, but I also understand that this score can only be achieved by people under 18. It uses σ=24, so 162 is 2.583σ above the mean. I understand that a perfect score is assigned a 99.9 percentile regardless of actual statistics.

I also understand that those people know that the Earth stays in a fixed position in the lunar sky.

 

[MBDK]

What did we tell you about claiming precision you can't defend? The fact that this person believes he can compute a value to a precision of seconds of arc doesn't mean he can observe as much with a stick and screwdriver. The best precision you can hope for in an eyeball-only observation of shadow length is about one minute of time. Five minutes is more the rule. This is because as the sun's shadow gets shorter, the rate at which the shadow shortens also decreases, making it extremely difficult to eyeball its shortest length. That means the best he can hope for is a precision of 15 minutes of arc. That's a distance of more than 15 km at the latitude of your thought experiment.

Also try doing that on a rocking boat.

Am I missing something? I didn't see anywhere in the video where the person claimed to be able to observe such precision. In fact, at 3:20 of the video, the narrator shows on a map where their estimation is off by 1 degree and 9 minutes from their actual location. That's more than 4 times worse than being within 15 minutes of arc accuracy. and well over 60 km east of their actual position. So, it's obvious to me that you are correct, and the video narrator admits their own margin of error is larger than your noted best hoped for accuracy. Thus the video merely confirms your assessment.

 

[JayUtah]

Am I missing something? I didn't see anywhere in the video where the person claimed to be able to observe such precision.

It wasn't claimed, just insinuated. The presenter watches the shadow and pinpoints the instant of local noon. This is then converted to a longitudinal displacement specified down to seconds of arc.

In fact, at 3:20 of the video, the narrator shows on a map where their estimation is off by 1 degree and 9 minutes from their actual location. That's more than 4 times worse than being within 15 minutes of arc accuracy. and well over 60 km east of their actual position. So, it's obvious to me that you are correct, and the video narrator admits their own margin of error is larger than your noted best hoped for accuracy. Thus the video merely confirms your assessment.

Since you appear to have paid better attention to it than I, I'll withdraw the criticism of the video.

From the engineering perspective, the better way would be to apply an error analysis to the observation. It's convenient to be able to check one's results by comparing the measurement to a known value, and that's acceptable when teaching the method. But as I said, a reasonable margin of error in observing shadow length is ±5 minutes. If you apply that 5-minute MOE to your observation, the true location falls within it.

Still, you are correct in saying that the presenter has appropriately acknowledged the error.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Scientific proof that electromagnetic signals can be transmitted from the moon to earth without having to be relayed by a "geo-positioned" ( ) satellite:

(The top part of the moon is over-exposed because 1/8s at f/6.3 is too much exposure for a subject that's lit by direct sunlight. The rest of the moon is under-exposed because it's in shadow. This is of course today's lunar eclipse, near totality, less than an hour ago.)

 

[MBDK]

It wasn't claimed, just insinuated. The presenter watches the shadow and pinpoints the instant of local noon. This is then converted to a longitudinal displacement specified down to seconds of arc.


Since you appear to have paid better attention to it than I, I'll withdraw the criticism of the video.

From the engineering perspective, the better way would be to apply an error analysis to the observation. It's convenient to be able to check one's results by comparing the measurement to a known value, and that's acceptable when teaching the method. But as I said, a reasonable margin of error in observing shadow length is ±5 minutes. If you apply that 5-minute MOE to your observation, the true location falls within it.

Still, you are correct in saying that the presenter has appropriately acknowledged the error.

Thanks, Jay. As noted in my previous post, I just wanted a clarification to see if I had misunderstood something along the way. As that has been cleared up, I must now conclude Vixen's video submittal then, wasn't anything of significant support towards her argument(s).

 

[JayUtah]

Thanks, Jay. As noted in my previous post, I just wanted a clarification to see if I had misunderstood something along the way. As that has been cleared up, I must now conclude Vixen's video submittal then, wasn't anything of significant support towards her argument(s).

You were right. My judgment was hasty, harsh, and poorly informed, and I regret it. I asked @Vixen why she posted the video and she did not answer. I recall vaguely that someone said you couldn't find longitude with a stick, so I suspect she posted it to demonstrate otherwise.

 

[JayUtah]

(The top part of the moon is over-exposed because 1/8s at f/6.3 is too much exposure for a subject that's lit by direct sunlight.

Consequently I see a couple of stars. But you had to overexpose the sunlit portions to get them. That's how it works no matter what Marcus Allen says.

Sadly the cloud cover took over before I could get any decent photos through the Celestron.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Consequently I see a couple of stars. But you had to overexpose the sunlit portions to get them. That's how it works no matter what Marcus Allen says.

Sadly the cloud cover took over before I could get any decent photos through the Celestron.

My photo was taken using my handy-dandy Canon PowerShot ELPH 360 HS point-and-shoot camera, mounted on a tripod, auto-exposed (and knowing auto-exposure would deliver this sort of picture because the shutter speed won't go any longer than 1/8s unless you use one of the two or three special settings that permit a longer exposure).

Smoke from nearby wildfires has resulted in air quality alerts almost every day since mid-July. Luckily, those wildfires have been coming under control, and the eclipse's nearest approach to totality came in the early evening, the time of day when we've been getting the least smoke.

 

[steenkh]

Why would they? What would the advantage be? A geostationary satellite would orbit out of Apollo's LOS just like a point on the earth's surface would.

Maybe, and maybe not, as @JayUtah pointed out. However, don't forget that @Vixen doesn't think that is undecided whether the Moon landings took place, so she might believe that it was impossible to beam TV transmissions to Earth from the Moon, and she wants to show why it was so, in baby steps.

 

[catsmate]

Is there anyone who actually buys into the hoax thing?

Your fellow USAians elected Trump as Rapist-in-chief so probably.

 

[catsmate]

That's right. You could put up a stick to try to estimate the sun at its highest point (at the Equator, it will be 90° overhead).

No, just no. This is further idiocy.

 

[catsmate]

That's something you can look up.

Awwww, more evasion.

 

[Helen]

Or anyone who had read the last few pages of this thread and had even the most basic comprehension of English.

Don't rain on my parade, I was basking in the glory of being deemed of normal intelligence by JayUtah!

 

[steenkh]

Don't rain on my parade, I was basking in the glory of being deemed of normal intelligence by JayUtah!

I am happy to find that my intelligence is within 99.9% of the average intelligence

 

[Axxman300]

Never in a rowboat. Don't know how to use a sextant. But when I was a kid I had tree-fort. I could use a flashlight to signal my brother, who was in the house. As long as he was in view, we could use Morse Code. And that's pretty much how NASA communicated with the Apollo LM while it was on the lunar surface, and how video was sent back to earth. All line-of-sight. No satellites required.

Pro-Tip: If you want to be a conspiracy theorist it's easier to argue that something secret happened, than it is to argue that something that did happen did not happen.

Example: WE LANDED ON THE MOON MULTIPLE TIMES. The Apollo program, along with the entire US Space Program, is not only the best documented event and project in human history, it's almost over-documented. Arguing that it didn't happen requires a long list of physics factors to be wrong, simple science to be wrong, and it requires most people to be stupider than the idiot trying to foist this CT. That's why every moon-landing hoax CTist is either an alcoholic, mentally ill, a con artist, a religious fanatic, or a mix of these factors.

This is why every one of Vixen's examples has blown up on the launch pad.

You can't have one CTist claiming Apollo was fake while another is claiming we secretly communicated with extraterrestrials during those same missions. And then there's the other cottage CT industry that claims there has been a secret space program, and not only is there a secret CIA base on the moon, but Mars as well, and we're working hand in hand with ET. This is the cesspool Vixen is willingly swimming in.

 

[SuperMurrio]

On a boat without much hope, why not do an estimate? It's survival tactics. Knowing where you are just by a sextant for latitude and a stick and watch for longitude is always going to be approximate.

Aye maybe. But then why did Kimo Säpi tell you that your coordinates are Latitude N 51° 07.6' 23.2" Longitude W 009° 43' 36.7" - that's quite a precise estimate for a stick and a watch.

 

[Andy_Ross]

If you have a sextant and a watch, why use the stick?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I am asking the questions this time. But as JayUtah has answered for you, here's a couple more:

1. If the first satellite-tv broadcast (to the general public) was via Telstar in 1962 (well done, Reformed_Offlian!), then why didn't NASA use a satellite (for example, its Explorer range) for Apollo11?

Statement in support: filming was done by a handheld Westinghaus Short Scan TV (SSTV) camera. It relayed images of 10 frames per second, which were picked up - it is claimed - by two receivers in Australia and one in California, due to Canberra being most accessible to where Apollo11 was situated on the Moon, then decoded by an SSTV decoder (all not dissimilar to Logie Baird-s 1926 television system) into images then refined by NASA to send out to tv stations.

NASA claims this Apollo11 telemetry film was erased and the original no longer exists.

It would be nice to think all the stupidity displayed here is deliberately crafted to provoke reactions but I'm really not sure it is.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Pretty sure they would have used Ilford. That’s what the expert photographers use.

Obviously, because it was on a black and white TV.