Moon Conspiracy, Sunlight Question, Confusion???

Ok guys, not sure if this is even in the right section but here it is. I am curious about something. There have been many debates about our trip to the moon and whether or not it was even real. All sorts of theories have been discussed and conclusions reached. My doubt lies in that it was during a time when we were in the "space race" with the USSR, and in a time where our technology is NOTHING compared to today...we lost something like 3 shuttles since the mid 80's yet we went to the moon, landed, and returned without a hitch! Hmmmm.....anyway

My question to all of you space guru's out there, because this makes no sence to me. Maybe you science and astronomy guys can help explain this. One of the pictures that always made me question if the moon landing was faked is this picture of Buzz on the Apollo 11 mission. According to the picture he is on the surface of the moon and the sun looks to be directly above him in like a 12 noon position. So why isn't the entire surface of the moon lit up like in any other daylight photo anywhere else in the universe?
allyoucanupload.webshots.com...

Then I have 2 other pics that have the sun directly above them just like the Buzz pic and the light is covering the way you think it would...1st is the Mars Rover mission
allyoucanupload.webshots.com...

2nd is in Arizona at 1pm...
allyoucanupload.webshots.com...

WHY ISN'T THE SURFACE OF THE MOON AS BRIGHT AS THE LIGHT AT BUZZ'S FEET?


[edit on 31/5/07 by shadow_soldier1975]

[edit on 31/5/07 by shadow_soldier1975]

[edit on 31/5/07 by shadow_soldier1975]

Firstly the photo of buzz aldrin clearly shows the light is from low on the horizon to right of the picture. Not from above.

In the Mars Lander picture the light probably is from directly behind the Lander and high in the sky. Because of divergent perspective there appears to be shadows either side of a boulder, but that is the effect of perspective.

Some people like natural born artists have a natural grasp of perspective whilst for others amongst us who lack that gift, understanding perspectives does not come so easy.

The third shot in Arizona reveals how atmosphere diffuses light. To experience this you need to go up to a snowfield on a bright sunny day when the snowfield itself is in cloud. then you will appreciate how diffused light can be brighter than direct light.

The Moon is in a perfect vacumn, therefore there is no light diffusion. On Mars there is an atmosphere so there is some diffusion there too.

Does that help ?

it helps in some aspects except the idea that the sun being low on the horizon in the buzz picture makes no sense to me. If it were low on the herizon WHY is the light so bright and intensity so high near his feet? I would think if it were low the light wouldn't be able to be so intense in THAT particular spot....more on his back/side then on the moons surface plus the surfuce itself would/should be brighter....or maybe not brighter but less of what seems to be a beam of light...

[edit on 31/5/07 by shadow_soldier1975]

Originally posted by shadow_soldier1975
My doubt lies in that it was during a time when we were in the "space race" with the USSR, and in a time where our technology is NOTHING compared to today...we lost something like 3 shuttles since the mid 80's yet we went to the moon, landed, and returned without a hitch!

Only two Shuttles were lost. And the Apollo missions didn't all go smoothly without a hitch. They all had little problems. And Apollo 13 having the more serious problem. But the other Apollo missions didn't go perfectly without a hitch.

During Apollo 11's decent on to the Moon. An alarm went off, the navigation and guidance computer was becoming overtasked with data. When they were getting ready to leave the Moon, they accidentally broke a circuit breaker that arms the main engine, but they used a pen to reconnect the circuit.

During liftoff of Apollo 12. The Saturn V that was launching it was struck by upper-atmosphere lightning, this caused the CM's instruments to go off as well as the telemetry data for a few seconds. When Mission Control regained the telemetry feed, it was all garbled. They managed to sort it out, but if they didn't, that mission probably would have been aborted. Also when they were on the Moon, the tv camera was accidentally pointed at the Sun, which destroyed the vidicon tube.

At the beginning of Apollo 14's mission, the CSM had problems docking to the LM and they spent almost 2 hours trying to do it. The Apollo 14 LM also had a couple problems during its decent. One was an alarm from the abort switch. They figured a piece of soldering material came loose and kept closing the circuit. They had to reprogram the computer to prevent the auto-abort from triggering. The second problem was the radar failing to lock-on to the lunar surface at first, but they managed to fix that as well.

Anyway, you get the idea.

According to the picture he is on the surface of the moon and the sun looks to be directly above him in like a 12 noon position. So why isn't the entire surface of the moon lit up like in any other daylight photo anywhere else in the universe?
allyoucanupload.webshots.com...

How does that look like the Sun is directly above him? Most of his helmet is in shadow and he's also casting a long shadow as well. All the Apollo missions happened during the lunar morning when the Sun was still low and the surface temperature wasn't as hot.

If it were low on the herizon WHY is the light so bright and intensity so high near his feet? I would think if it were low the light wouldn't be able to be so intense in THAT particular spot....more on his back/side then on the moons surface plus the surfuce itself would/should be brighter

Well there are a number of reasons. We're looking at a photo that I'd consider to be close to an "up sun" photo, meaning that the Sun is in front of the photographer. Generally you'll use a rather fast shutter speed (less light exposing onto the film), also the surface is uneven and we're seeing the shaded sides of everything. Compare that to a "down sun" photo when you see the sunlit sides of everything. The surface will tend to look a bit brighter from that angle.

[edit on 31-5-2007 by jra]

Aldrin's shadow indicates he is slightly backlit from behind the astronaut's left shoulder. Also don't forget the effect of washed out contrast if you are looking towards the sun. Judging by Aldrin's shadow the camera is almost looking into the sun.

The Background is uniformly dull grey but the astronaut is clothed in very bright, reflective clothes perpendicular to the light source unlike the ground at a very oblique angle.

Originally posted by sy.gunson
The Moon is in a perfect vacumn, therefore there is no light diffusion. On Mars there is an atmosphere so there is some diffusion there too.

Does that help ?

www.space.com...

I think its not entirely correct to say that moon is in a perfect vacuum. I dont claim to know much about the composition of it but it would seem that there is infact gas there. Maybe not in the amounts and types we have down here or anything but still. Not a vacuum.

In terms of elements, the crust is composed primarily of oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron, calcium, and aluminium. Based on geophysical techniques, its thickness is estimated to be on average about 50 km.

en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 4-6-2007 by Gonjo]

Originally posted by sy.gunson

The third shot in Arizona reveals how atmosphere diffuses light. To experience this you need to go up to a snowfield on a bright sunny day when the snowfield itself is in cloud. then you will appreciate how diffused light can be brighter than direct light.

My cousin and I discovered another example of how true this can be.
He wears glasses, and had a pair of those that autotint, with exposure to light. It was an overcast day..But the clouds weren't overly thick. His specs transitioned until they were as dark as sunglasses. We were pretty surprised.

By the way, for accuracy's sake -- the photo of Mars in the OP was not taken from a Mars rover...It was taken by the Viking 1 lander in 1976.

I must agree with the above posts that say the sun was very low, thuis the rolling terrain of the Moon caused much af the landscape to be in shadows.