Merged Apollo "hoax" discussion / Lick observatory laser saga

[Kiwi9]

Patrick1000. Is it too much to ask that you stop this pointless sidetrack into Starry Night and get back to the unresolved subject of the thread? You claim you are doing things step by step, but you are not. You are doing things pointless diversion by pointless diversion and avoiding sticky questions that might derail your nutty claims that don't make any sense. In post 1282, Nomuse describes your whaffling as "posturing, gloating, random material, and pointless asides." I agree.

You don't seem to have looked into what I suggested in post No. 1255.

Please do it and report back. It will only take you a minute or two, and it might resolve some of your "coordinate confusion" or at least bring up some interesting points that are worthy of discussion.

Oh, and you still have not explained why you posted in No. 982 "The man who calculated the launch trajectory and rendezvous solution for the Columbia and Eagle, H. David Reed, determined the LM to be at .636 north and 25.50 east."

Do you even get it? 25.50 degrees, not 23.50. I questioned this and you never explained it. Have I caught you out in yet another of your deliberate lies? After all, when NASA makes a mistake you claim that it is lying.

I'd also appreciate you commenting on the content of Post 1269 and how this fits in with your claim about a Surveyor craft planting the Apollo 11 LRRR.

 

[dafydd]

Look, he still hasn't answered the question of, if as he proposes, only a few at the top faked it, then all the scientists and engineers must have built a working spacecraft. Why did they not just use it? He has no explanation.

The jet lag he gets from from constantly flying around the world and the mental strain of writing all those non-terse reports plus all the doctoring is taking it's toll on him. No wonder he can't concentrate. Will you answer the liar question please Patrick?

 

[dafydd]

Nor has he been willing to even wave-off the questions about radio transmissions from the moon. He appears afraid to even address the question.

Another question that he avoids like the plague. Those who know that the Moon landings happened just as history records will tackle any question,but Patrick runs away from them,dragging his highly portable goalposts. I wonder why?

 

[Kiwi9]

Those who know that the Moon landings happened just as history records will tackle any question,but Patrick runs away from them,dragging his highly portable goalposts. I wonder why?

Dunning-Kruger Effect?
http://people.psych.cornell.edu/~dunning/publications/pdf/unskilledandunaware.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to recognize their mistakes.[1] The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is...

 

[dafydd]

Dunning-Kruger Effect?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

Quite right. With age comes wisdom,there is hope for Patrick yet.

 

[grmcdorman]

Speaking as a software developer, Patrick's allegations about Starry Night are nonsense (surprise!). It basically requires all of the Starry Night employees to be in on it: developers ignoring the "conspiracy code" when reviewing code or seeing it when updating that module; QA ignoring test issues when they show incorrect results because of this code; and finally sales and support ignoring (or otherwise "fixing") reports and queries from the public about the issue.

As was pointed out in the other thread, of course, the Sun [eta: in the software/screen shot] is also much less bright than reality. It's simply that a) a computer screen doesn't have the full dynamic range of reality and b) the point of the software is to look at stars, so the glare - and possibly brightness - of objects will be dialed down.

 

[mercatormac]

Have you actually looked at any of the Apollo 12 photos such as AS12-47-6871 or AS12-50-7355. Do you notice anything about the Earth from these?

I can see the other image that you have uploaded, but not included in this thread: Is it based on the view from the Apollo 11 site because I can see that the phase of the Earth is noticeably larger than the Apollo 12 one? And it sure as hell isn't black.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

Another question that he avoids like the plague. Those who know that the Moon landings happened just as history records will tackle any question,but Patrick runs away from them,dragging his highly portable goalposts. I wonder why?

One thing I learned while reading/posting at ApolloHoax.net: somewhere out there someone knows the answer to the most obscure questions one might have about the Apollo missions. I bet someone can tell me how many rivets held the MESA to the descent stage.

Conversely, hoax theorists tend to know very little about the missions in general and even less about the fine details. But the fine details are what make things work.

The Apollo missions were so complex and complicated that nearly any academic, professional or technical interest or knowledge a person has can give them an edge to lead them through the materials. I'm just a carpenter but that gives me an "in" to understand things like the insulation and heat management requirements of space craft and suits.

Arguing the hoax with the amount of information Dr. Sox has is like fighting with both hands tied behind your back. All he can do is keep punching us in the fist with his forehead and try to wear us down.

 

[Erock]

Answer the questions

What bugs me the most about HBs including 'pattydash' is they persistently and deliberately avoid numerous questions.

He says he is a 'scientist', but follows the opposite path to how a scientist would analyse a problem. He finds an 'anomaly', then determines a conclusion without taking all the evidence in.

The evidence says they went, overwhelmingly. More facts and consistency, internally and externally than any other recorded event in history. All tie together, all point to the same conclusion - we went as recorded.

Instead, he ignores the entire vast record, focuses on one thing and rather than finding an explanation (or again ignoring responses!), uses that to say everything else must be hoaxed, because ......well errr because.....he can't be bothered to. Non scientific.

Starry night - The Earth is about 1/4 phase for Apollo 12, how does the magnitude change for that! Mindnumbing stuff this thread.

Question for him - How do you know what co-ordinates were given to Lick on the evening of the 20th?

The interview is actually broken up question wise and is quite ambiguous as to when any co-ordinates were given. Stone says the astronauts soon determined their location, then later that evening they used said coordinates.

How do you know he isn't talking about the 21st, and assuming it was the astronauts rather than Reed?

 

[excaza]

Speaking as a software developer, Patrick's allegations about Starry Night are nonsense (surprise!). It basically requires all of the Starry Night employees to be in on it: developers ignoring the "conspiracy code" when reviewing code or seeing it when updating that module; QA ignoring test issues when they show incorrect results because of this code; and finally sales and support ignoring (or otherwise "fixing") reports and queries from the public about the issue.

As was pointed out in the other thread, of course, the Sun [eta: in the software/screen shot] is also much less bright than reality. It's simply that a) a computer screen doesn't have the full dynamic range of reality and b) the point of the software is to look at stars, so the glare - and possibly brightness - of objects will be dialed down.

You mean I shouldn't buy the software just so I can plop down and see what the stars look like from the middle of Vegas?

 

[332nd]

Laughing is good for you,it is never a waste of time.

This, & I've learned a lot in this thread.

 

[dafydd]

This, & I've learned a lot in this thread.

I have too. This is what this site is for.

 

[grmcdorman]

You mean I shouldn't buy the software just so I can plop down and see what the stars look like from the middle of Vegas?

Here you go: From Celestia, more or less an open-source competitor to Starry Night:


(Which is another reason Patrick's claim is absurd: Starry Night is not at all the only planetarium software available.)

ETA: Hmm, that image is too blurry; scaled down too much. Let me try again:

 

[drewid]

Tech news, monitor manufacturers perfect real world luminence intensities, and after the break, a mysterious sudden increase in severe sunburn cases.

 

[nomuse]

Jack by the hedge,

The point about Apollo 12 Jack by the Hedge is that everyone knows exactly where it is. Apollo 12 is at the Surveyor 3 site.


Now, say for yuks, some French dude, I am told they had great lasers, wanted to see if they could "get their picture taken". So they fire a laser, say a beam much much much stronger than the Jet Propulsion Lab's 1 watt argon beam that Surveyor VII filmed.

Say the French guys are running their laser continuously, not pulsing it. It doesn't have to be the French, but we'll use them because of their laser expertise. Now they hope Bean, and his CMDR will take a shot or two of the planet Earth while those guys are up there. Armstrong got a couple shots, not so great, but got them. So these guys are hoping to see their laser beam in official NASA photos. Might even be a good idea to plan such photos as part of the mission's authentication.

Now, this would be innocent enough. BUT, assume Apollo to be fraudulent, then someone might really scheme to blindside you with a strong beam(s), continuously, might even try from different locations on Earth. If they do not see their lasers, and assuming the earth was photographed at the time, they would at least know for themselves that Apollo was bogus. Perhaps they could not prove it to the world, but they could tweak people pretty good by pointing this out and then really nail them on future missions by say challenging the astronauts/NASA to really make an effort to photograph lasers to prove that they are up there.

I say from where I sit, somewhere not on the moon, that Bean too was not on the moon. He was instructed, it was scripted , to have this camera malfunction thing, so that laser light at least with regard to this one camera, would not be a concern. Check out the Apollo 12 shots. I have not looked at many, but I imagine they avoid taking pictures of the Earth as well from the lunar surface, just like 11 avoided taking moonscape/earth pictures. I'll look into it, but am proceeding one step at a time.

And your question really is a great one, and I really will continue to make a strong effort to resound to you Jack by the Hedge.

Add physics of lasers to the list of subjects Patrick knows nothing about. At the power levels Lick was using, you can't maintain CW for minutes at a time without destroying the laser. Heck -- many lasers of the period were ONLY capable (because of their method of emission) of operating in pulsed mode.

At least the lasers used in the Surveyor experiment were CW, but they were also UV (Argon-ion). So neither astronauts nor unmodified cameras would have detected them. (Also given the obvious aperture problem -- they weren't "much brighter than Sirius" they were "as bright as Sirius." Meaning, any camera setting that would pick them up clearly would also show stars in the lunar sky.)

Several lasers were fired in the same experiment and only some were detected. I have not yet been able to find more technical details on the specific lasers in use for the Surveyor experiments -- not without paying for a paper or two.

 

[drewid]

The Apollo 11 preliminary science report mentions a 30 second cycle between laser pulses.

 

[nomuse]

...Check out the Apollo 12 shots. I have not looked at many, but I imagine they avoid taking pictures of the Earth as well from the lunar surface, just like 11 avoided taking moonscape/earth pictures. I'll look into it, but am proceeding one step at a time...

How carefully you place the goalposts! I'm sure you understand full well that with the Earth typically at 60 degrees in the lunar sky, it is impossible to put lunar horizon and Earth into the same picture.

Unlike, say, trick photography, in which the ultra-black sky makes a perfect matt, and you could put the Earth anywhere you wanted it. Such as Kubrick did; generally too low, in the wrong phase, and waaaay too large -- but it looked gorgeous!

This unobtainable specific allows you to reject AS11-40-5923 (no, they didn't have to put the LM on the Moon for that pic, since there is no lunar surface showing; all they had to do is put it at a lunar distance. Right, Patrick?) Or the famous "Earthrise" color sequence taken on Apollo 14. Or the even more famous Apollo 17 pic with Jack Schmidt.

 

[nomuse]

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_516144e5788b10d000.png[/qimg]

So if you do the same with Apollo 12, using starry night pro 6, go to the landing site on the night of the landing, one finds the earth should be very bright based on magnitude of -15. In the case of Apollo 12, unless you search for the earth with the function, there is no way to possibly find it. It is black there where the earth is supposed to be, but if you click on that black spot, one finds the earth at magnitude -15 which means thousands of times brighter than the stars. Try it yourself.

You have a computer monitor with a 15+ magnitude dynamic range? Where can I get one! I've always wanted to work with HDRI images in WYSIWYG.

 

[nomuse]

...and Fatty starts with the spam. I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later.

My response from the other thread still stands. Although there are some high-end monitors capable of greater dynamic range, neither you nor I have one capable of handling 21+ magnitudes (assuming down to +6 for displayed stars and -15 for the Moon).

 

[dafydd]

You have a computer monitor with a 15+ magnitude dynamic range? Where can I get one! I've always wanted to work with HDRI images in WYSIWYG.

Patrick gets caught out again. This gets better and better.