NASA not responding to FOIA about atypical size and luminisioty of Apollo moon "sun" photos

I wonder how this shot was faked,

upload.wikimedia.org...

upload.wikimedia.org...

Apollo 16 picture in UV of Earth, taken from the Moon. I am presuming that the orientation of the picture in relation to the Earth along with its' background stars, could only have been taken on or near the Moon. This next link is to the equipment Apollo 16 used,

www.lpi.usra.edu...

You will see the same picture included here as in my first link, and to make it interesting, although it's the same picture from NASA it has been rotated, or one or the other has.



[edit on 16-3-2010 by smurfy]

reply to post by bochen181

The term "conspiracy nut" is never used. You made that up.

You also either failed to understand the involved and coherent explanation given or you have intentionally selected out of context portions of it. There are no contradictions and other examples of what is being described are provided.

reply to post by Phage


Phage, seriously your wasting your time, and I think this thread more than demonstrates the willfull ignorance of what your dealing with here.

There is no conspiracy here, only ignorance. But then again, all the real conspiracies have a HUGE place to hide thanks to idiotic things like this.

Originally posted by beebs

Originally posted by bochen181

Is that for real?! I mean someone please comfort me because that is not right...I am not an expert in moon footage so it would be nice if Phage or someone could debunk it. Are those real photographs? If they are that is definitely an anomaly if I've ever seen one, nevermind the sun size anomaly.

Good thread either way, but holy # that is crazy I hope someone can explain that to me...

beebs that is "for real"..

Use Photoshop or autostitch or any number of panorama software and do it for yourself to see..

I always knew there was something fishy about those Apollo (15) LEM photos with the suspicious looking mountains in the background. I could never put a finger on it, other than an alarm going off in the back of my mind telling me "something just ain't right" about those photos.

For example:
history.nasa.gov... and
history.nasa.gov...



If you use the American Flag as reference, (and since the LEM cannot move or twist or rotate about - it is also a static object), how is it that in AS15-88-11863 the corresponding background mountain "markers" (in blue) match up almost EXACTLY with the red markers in AS15-82-11057, when judging by the size of the LEM and using the cross-hairs on both photos (taken with the same camera types on the same kind of film (except for b&w and color difference) with the same type of lens) the astronaut in the later photo had to walk quite a distance towards the LEM *AND* he made a major angle /perspective change when shooting the former photo. Just doesn't make any sense to me.. Maybe my eye isn't the perfect judgment though?

That's precisely why I've decided to start digging some more and doing a little bit of further investigating. The recent Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) was able to bring back the highest known publicly available moon resolution data and hosted it graciously at the USGS website. It is a topology model of the large area around the Apollo 15 landing site - about 450 km on a side, and there is a 10 meter/post version from Apollo Panoramic Camera images, and a 50 meter/post version from Apollo Metric Camera images. You can download them yourself at : webgis.wr.usgs.gov... I used the 1.9 GB files labeled ‘Hadley Rille Panoramic Stereo Model.'

For this particular file the topology data for the moon is of the Hadley Rille area. (encompassing the Apollo 15 landing site) Next I used OpenEV (uses GDAL, built into FWtools) with the following console command to convert the hadley_met_dem_equi.asc ascii (GIS-compatible formats) in the 'Apollo_15_Hadley_Jan_2007\Apollo_15_Hadley_Jan_2007\GIS_images\DEM\MET\hadley_met_dem_equi.asc' folder to a GeoTiff (tif) DEM (Digital Elevation Model) file :

'gdal_translate -of Gtiff hadley_met_dem_equi.asc hadley_met_dem_equi.asc.tif'

Then I had to import the resultant hadley_met_dem_equi.asc.tif into 3DEM using the "GeoTiff DEM" file type and re-export it as a binary (.bin) Terrain Matrix file.

With that done it is simply a matter of opening up 3d application that can import the now readily accessible model. I prefer to use 3ds max with GroundWiz plug-in with can import binary and DEM files.

..continued from above, forum limit per post reached..


Here is a crude (rough) rendering of the results so far. I haven't textured or lighted anything yet but will do so in the future to make the lunar landscape look more realistic. Also it is worth to note in the 3d renderings below I purposefully (just for this demonstration only) exaggerated (increased terrain height multiplier) the depth to make the features more pronounced..


Once I use reference photos to put the LEM exactly into place, location and orientation it will be a piece of cake to move the camera around in 3d and see if all the other photos taken during Apollo 15 EVA checks out (at least with regards to major background 'mountains' and other large props..) After this I think I should be able to put to rest the "LEM moving around" and "NASA technicians reusing backdrop/background props" claims that I made earlier. I really cared about the whole Apollo era and for the longest time I believed in it more than anyone else I ever came into contact with.. So maybe I will eventually go back and forth a couple of times but the real truth is forever out there (even if we never truly find it) and that doesn't ever change..

Rendered in 3ds max, will look much better if I do a higher resolution mapping and rendering..


Screenshot of 3ds max





[size=10pt]Compare to real life: (photo and map below)


real photo


and NASA map

Originally posted by Phage
I guess you must have been in space to know what a "realistic" Sun would look like.

How about these?

too bad all the lens and flash glare, though. The window acts like a HORRIBLE media to take images through.

I once took pictures of some baby pictures of GW Bush from his childhood home (since burned down). I could have gotten much clearer photographs if i could have removed the photo's from their frames. Even with perfectly clean glass, the lens flare made it nearly impossible to take a decent picture.

Just like I suspected, there is indeed some very inexplicable inconsistencies within the Apollo photos.


The actual Apollo 15 landing site is given by this map, see the black triangular flag below:





We see again confirmation of the actual Apollo 15 landing site from the more recent LRO photos..





and here is it one more time with a scale to reference distance and size :



-----

Now this NASA picture would like for us to believe that this photo below was taken literally a few seconds of a walking distance away from the LEM (for all practical purposes basically right next to the LEM) with the Apenninus Front (mountains) directly behind the Lunar Module and the Lunar Module direct in front of the closest major mountain to the landing site. The cross-hairs are the smoking guns, they indicate and prove that with the cameras the astronauts used that the camera must have been directly facing the LEM and the mountains, with the LEM directly in front of the mountains directly behind.

There is only one small problem with this fact. As explained yesterday, I used LRO terrain data to recreate a high resolution and very accurate DEM (Digital Elevation Model) of the Apollo 15 landing site area and its surroundings. Next I converted that data to 3ds model. I then imported a 3d Lunar Module and 3d US flag, and scaled the units accordingly to make the LEM the right size/scale in comparison to the rest of the lunar landscape. I used multiple official sources indicating and pointing to the precise landing location of the Apollo 15 LEM, and nearly perfectly fixed the 3d LEM to its correct and official "landing spot".. There is no mistake.


history.nasa.gov...

It is impossible to have taken that shot above if the LEM was to be where we are told it actually landed. I tried to position the LEM to its faithful landing spot and could not for the life of me get that shot above no matter how I tried to position/rotate/pan/dolly/orbit/etc the camera or what "zoom" level I used.. Simply impossible. It can't be done!

In fact, curiously, the only way I could get a 3d shot that very closely matches up to the AS15-88-11864 above is only when I physically picked up the 3d LEM from its allegedly landing site and moved it nearly "5km" units (5 kilometers in real life!) and then it was a piece of cake to position the camera (like so in AS15-88-11864) to get the almost identical shot in AS15-88-11864. In fact, once in its new location, I could use the default settings (including the 70 mm film/lens settings for camera01) and everything matched up virtually perfectly..



img690.imageshack.us...

reply to post by IgnoreTheFacts


I disagree, I believe bochen181 is giving us all alot of food for thought and its members like him that give us something to work with. Not everything can be explained away so easily.

Wheres ArMaP he should be doing some scaling/modelling and counter arguing the OP. I for one am enjoying this thread and learning alot.

Sorry to the poster above me, I don't mean to sandwich you, just the post limitations means I have to post it in piecewise ..

continued from above...




img690.imageshack.us...

Click on the link above to see the details if the forum re-sizes my screenshot.. In the viewports the background doesn't render black (it is gray) so you may have to magnify and zoom in to see the contours and details of the mountain behind the LEM. You will agree it matches up just right with the actual mountain contours behind the actual LEM in AS15-88-11864. If you look at the top-left viewport you will see it is in TOP perspective and instead of wireframe the highlights are shown in the viewport. The 3d LEM is very small in comparison so you cannot see it, it is obstructed by the icon of the camera01, the camera01 is almost exactly where the 3d LEM is positioned. I hope you can see for yourself by now that the 3d LEM (in order to match the shot) had to be relocated about 5 kilometers South East of the original allegedly supposedly landing site. It also doesn't take a rocket-scientists to figure out that the original shot couldn't have been taken from the alleged landing site location, not from that angle and that perspective and still come out looking like it does in AS15-88-11864 or in my screenshot above.

This is just one of many, many, inexplicable and un-explain-away-able 'mistakes' in photography that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that at the very least (at a minimum, no matter what else) the photos that were alleged to be genuine Apollo moon photos turns out to be that they were not in fact and could not have been the actual real moon photos. This doesn't prove man never landed on the moon, but it does prove NASA had something to hide. With a 3d rendering of everything there is no more excuse of "perspective", "optical illusion", "parallax", "something wrong with your eye".. I hope eventually the public gets access to even more higher resolution digital terrain imagery and not only of the landing site of Apollo 15, but of all the rest of the successful Apollo moon landing missions and perhaps of the entire lunar surface or wherever else available/possible.

Though I may have reason to suspect based on past flamings on here that just like that all the disinfo campaigns that targeted the findings (or lack thereof) of Underwriters Labs with regards to circumstances causing the collapse of the twin towers (commissioned by none other than our lovely and oh-so-trustworthy NIST), whatever evidence I deliver here today will also be quickly discredited using whatever means necessary. But the truth remains.

In any case, I have proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that these supposedly and allegedly original, untouched, genuine moon landing photos were faked, doctored and edited/manipulated.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

Using a flash when shooting through glass really doesn't work very well. It's a quick lesson easily learned.

But I don't see any evidence of a flash being used in any of those images. In any case Hasselblads don't have a built in flash unit.

reply to post by bochen181
I don't understand why you persist with this perspective thing. Besides, it looks to me like the top and bottom pictures are the same one, with the bottom one blown up, and in fact the blow up only shows more detail of distance towards the mountain, and distances is the one thing that is hardest to determine when there are no reference points except the horizon. The horizon on the Moon is around 3km. Maybe you can get something from the orbital pictures although they look more recent.

reply to post by aik4on


Was I talking to you?

Originally posted by aik4on

Show me any credible, scientific evidence that supports your claim and I mean scientific, not some rambling conspiracy crapola website or YouTube homebrew video compilation.

If that's what you think then why are you on ATS? This place is hardly short of "conspiracy crapola" after all.

I have no problem with people having a different opinion from me, but I can't abide the smug arrogance that some posters seem to have. There is no need for it.

Originally posted by harrytuttle
reply to post by bochen181

 

Until you provide a link that explains EXPLICITLY what focal length was used in those ISS photos and Moon photos, you got nothing.

I was immediately going to say the same thing.

Have we not heard of a "Zoom" or a "Wide Angle" lens?

Atmosphere on Mars as well, is going to have a distortion effect. A great example of how light bends through a medium is looking at a fish tank -- objects are bigger than they appear in air.

>> I think people need to do a bit more homework before they go on an "image hunt" and see a shadow of a face, a hole in the ground, what looks like something from one angle might not from another. There are naturally occurring formations that can look constructed, for instance.

I think it's a good policy to be aware that someone might have noticed what you have "discovered" and talked about it. Check out Snopes or BadScience or some other website that does debunking before you consider there is a conspiracy.

It's going to take a LOT of very good math, optics and details to know if the photo has a fake sun or was not taken from Mars -- and you would have to nail down EVERY detail of the Camera, the position it was taken and the distortion of the atmosphere before being taken seriously.

The "sunlight" / "spotlight" has swapped sides in these 3 apollo 12 photos..

These three photos were taken mere hours apart on three consecutive rolls of film (Apollo 11&12 EVA's were not anywhere as long or extended as the later Apollo 14+ missions)

history.nasa.gov...
history.nasa.gov...
history.nasa.gov...









Apollo 12 LEM sits on edge of crater.

In top 2 photos the sunlight is coming from the left. In the bottom photo,
taken from down in the crater, the LEM, the dish and the flag are in the same positions, but the sunlight is now from the right and the LEM has turned 90 degrees from the top position. This is impossible!

I believe the same "LEM and Dish" were actually either scale models or 2d sprites that were convinently reused in other photos that needed the backdrop.. Hence the discrepancies... It is not like I haven't proven NASA didn't edit/crop/doctor OTHER photos before!

Originally posted by Titen-Sxull
reply to post by bochen181

 

So because NASA likes to tweak photos, recolor portions, or touch them up there's a conspiracy?

What exactly is the purpose of the editing? Can you think of anything sinister they could be editing out or altering? I sure can't.

Edit to Add: If you find something where they are editing out aliens, ruins, unicorns or elves it would be substantial, but pasting in the LEM or an astronaut doesn't really denote any malicious or sinister intent. It is weird though...

[edit on 16-3-2010 by Titen-Sxull]

Wow.

Wow. Just...wow.

Why are you here? If NASA being proven to "touch up" photos isn't enough to convince you of anything, what are you here for?

If someone can show you that NASA has edited a photo, and you shrug it off as if it is irrelevant, i am not sure you should even be here. Seriously. As well, the complete lack of imagination displayed by the bolded part above is staggering.

So you have moved the target now? Originally, the OP was trying to show that, because of edited/altered photo's, it seemed that NASA was hiding something (i.e. covering up a faked Apollo mission). Now you are saying that unless they are covering up aliens, etc, there is nothing to worry about and we should just ignore it?

I thought I had heard every last straw attempt at denial of a conspiracy theory. Thank you for exposing me to something new. Unfortunately, it doesn't go very far towards denying ignorance.

On a related note: why do we always have the "either/or" discussion about a moon hoax? Is it not possible that NASA did land on the moon, and faked it at the same time? With all the intel coming from the Nazi's about Germany already being there, why would NASA want to televise the greeting from the Fourth Reich?

[edit on 16-3-2010 by bigfatfurrytexan]

Originally posted by cushycrux
Explain this then please

Small

Bigger

Biggest

These are not valid comparisons to what have shown. The wiki link in reference talks about our moon, but the same principle concept applies to any moon/planet..

en.wikipedia.org...

"The angle that the full Moon subtends at an observer's eye can be measured directly with a theodolite to show that it remains constant as the Moon rises or sinks in the sky (discounting the very small variations due to the physical effects mentioned). Photographs of the Moon at different elevations also show that its size remains the same."




history.nasa.gov...
history.nasa.gov...

These above two photos were taken on the same roll (magazine 134/B) by a Hasselblad Lunar Surface Camera, fitted with a 60mm Carl Zeiss Biogon lens, photographed onto 70mm color film.

The sun should appear virtually the same size when viewed from Earth or Moon. (it is 93 million miles away from both Earth and Moon, and the Moon is very "close" to the Earth in comparison) Therefore, as the Sun appears to match the size of the Moon to produce a total eclipse (when viewed from Earth), and as the Earth is 3.66 times LARGER than the Moon(in terms of diameter) – when viewed from the Moon, the Sun must appear 3.66 times smaller than the Earth.

After enhancing the image from the panorama by adjusting the levels, more detail of the ‘sun’ structure is revealed.



It is obvious that the brightness varies considerably across the disc. Even looking at the original photography you can see there is a 'hot-spot' in the central area similar to those found in other Apollo photos of the 'sun'. It is difficult to regard the ‘sun’ in this image as a photograph of the Sun as we know it.

The Earth should appear several times LARGER than the Sun if these images really were taken on the Moon.

But, incredibly, in this imagery the situation is reversed. The ‘earth’ is not just smaller than the ‘sun’ – it is SIX TIMES smaller than the ‘sun’. The ‘earth’ may be the correct relative size for the scene depicted in 134-20384, but the ‘sun’ is most certainly far too large in 134-20410 and is therefore a very strange-looking Sun.

Some people may wish to argue that the hot-spot in the center is actually the Sun. But even if this zone is considered to be such, it nevertheless extends well over the diameter of the 'earth' and is still at least four times too large.

A convex (an outwardly curved surface) always considerably reduces the size of whatever is being reflected. If this large bright reflection was the Sun, given its distance from the Moon, it would be barely visible in a visor – nothing more than a tiny pinprick of light.

Yet in these examples the convex visors are reflecting a very LARGE ‘sun’ – which indicates the use of a huge artificial light source in close proximity.




Compare with something like this, also taken in space, also reflection of Sun:



Most likely they used something like this:



Because on a large set the lighting cannot be anything like as bright as the real Sun, a very large light source would have been necessary in order to obtain adequate coverage over the expansive ‘moonscape’. (The real Sun has an overall intensity that is so bright there are no such discernable variations in luminosity across the surface of the Sun’s disc)


Below photo shows a hot-spot and 'fall off' in brightness towards the edge of the picture. Note also that all shadows converge to a point on the central axis of the image. Remember, the astronauts did not have any lighting equipment on the moon, nor did they have any flash on their chest mounted camera, also note that the sun is so much brighter on the moon compared to any lighting/flash equipment that it wouldn't have made much of a difference in shots like these above...



and yet once again, visible hot spot and fall-off: (there are a lot of other things wrong with this photo too)

reply to post by bochen181

You say that the DEM you used is high resolution data from the LRO but the file name is Apollo_15_Hadley_Jan_2007. LRO got to the Moon last year.

You are using a low resolution dataset. Probably the data derived from the Clementine mission.
www.christian-woehler.de...

It is not surprising it does not match the images taken at the site.

Originally posted by aik4on

Originally posted by highlyoriginal
I didn't read through the whole thread, so I apologize if this has been posted, but here is a great website someone shared here on ATS awhile back that talk about the cameras (in full detail) and show the pictures from the moon landing, and basically prove that they are fake.

You can check the website out here:
Fake Moon Landing Photos

This site is a poorly cobbled together, semi-literate heap of BS which proves absolutely nothing, everything on there has already been comprehensively debunked on a number of occasions. Only the incredibly gullible would regard anything on here as credible.

I don't mean to seem contrary and it is NOT my intent to mis-direct thread but could you kindly show me where this photo was debunked?
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/d9275c811ea1.jpg[/atsimg]

Chest mounted camera, Focus @ infinity, cumbersome suit.

I am NOT defending that site but this picture has always puzzled me and since as you state EVERYTHING has been debunked, I'd like to follow trail.

Thanks...kk



[edit on 16-3-2010 by kinda kurious]

Here are some videos:

Apollo 15 waving flag at 2:37 (unexplicable!)
www.youtube.com...


Faked Shots of Earth Orbit by Apollo 11 (astronaughts caught on video faking in action!)
www.youtube.com...


Astronauts on wires - stage wires shown!!!
www.youtube.com...



Moon Landing Hoax Apollo 15 : Wire Supports Are Clearly Seen Above The Astronauts
www.youtube.com...