The Sky Was Black On The Moon?

I enjoyed the documentary cause it solved one of the questions I had over the years of why some of the photos had the upper right corner in black ... then I noticed it was due to the position of the camera being run by Collins in orbit over the moon. I'll bet you NASA ribbed him about that.

For "The Matrix Traveller":

Get a film camera. Point it at the Moon at night. Set it to expose there long enough to capture stars. Now try that again, but set to expose short enough to capture the surface details. What will you get? Whited out Moon in the first shot, no stars in the second. Guess which shot is better for capturing Moon details. Guess which one NASA would have used.

As for eyes, try looking for "STARS" from a brightly lit building interior. You won't see them.

Originally posted by mike3
For "The Matrix Traveller":

Get a film camera. Point it at the Moon at night. Set it to expose there long enough to capture stars. Now try that again, but set to expose short enough to capture the surface details. What will you get? Whited out Moon in the first shot, no stars in the second. Guess which shot is better for capturing Moon details. Guess which one NASA would have used.

As for eyes, try looking for "STARS" from a brightly lit building interior. You won't see them.

Exactly. You're much more succinct than me, Mike!

Just to add, you can also do this with a digital, provided it allows for MANUAL exposure. A reasonably long zoom lens will help, otherwise the Moon may be a bit small...

If you have no idea what settings, may I suggest the following (ISO 100):

To image the Moon's surface - try 1/125, f5.6
Yes, that is similar to a daylight exposure, even from way back here on Earth.. (who woulda thort..)

To image stars - try 15 seconds, f5.6
Yes, the shutter will have to be open for a full fifteen seconds to get a decent star field to show. Needless to say, you will need to use a solid tripod, or camera shake will destroy the image.

[edit on 25-4-2010 by CHRLZ]

reply to post by mike3


Thanks mike3 for your explanation... As I said I am not an expert in the field of photography in fact I know little about this area.

What you have said sounds quite logical to me...

Re your comment.... quote;

"As for eyes, try looking for "STARS" from a brightly lit building interior. You won't see them"

This I do know is certainly the case...

Would this also be the case, if you were on a vast plane and the Ground was illuminated, rather than being in a lit cavity such as a Room, looking out through a window at the stars?

Once again thanks for the information...

We may not resolve this issue until we, individually, get to stand on the moon personally and see for ourselves what's visible and what isn't by day there. I think atmosphere or actually the lack of atmosphere is responsible for the apparent anomaly of no obvious stars in photographs although the points raised about shutter speed and aperture openings for pictures of brightly illuminated objects on the moon's surface in full sunlight are also relevant. A time exposure of 10-30 seconds with a tripod mounted camera aimed at the black sky would have revealed much more in the way of stars than the handheld camera 'happy snaps' that were actually taken.

Consider the actual size of the brightest stars visible from our neighbourhood and without any atmospheric distortions they are mere pinpoints of light which are far smaller than the stars as we know them from an earthly viewpoint. I recall astronauts remarking on that fact when asked about the view of the stars from the capsule on the trip to the moon and back.

Here's an interesting bit I found from the Apollo 14 mission transcripts.
This is on the Descent orbit insertion.

>>03 15 19 30 LMP And, Houston, looking to the north, we see the
same view. It's a very sharply defined horizon. I can see the stars. I got a - a very soft gray, well-lit surface below without too many features.
You can't see sharply, just - not distinctly; but nothing's probably lost.>>

source www.jsc.nasa.gov... (page 286)

Whilst this is not taken on the moon, iit's interesting that he can see the 'well-lit surface' and still see the stars.

Re exposure time for Moon and Star pics this post of mine a few pages back just in case you all missed it LOOK at the links re pictures and exposures.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Posted this 4 days ago.

reply to post by ppk55


Did you mange to figure out what way the shadow should be in the reflection of the helmet and more to the point did you realise YOU were WRONG.

Posted here as you seemto avoid it on the other thread

[edit on 25-4-2010 by wmd_2008]

WOW the astronauts looked pretty freaked and confused when asked
the question about seeing stars by sir Patric Moore,that was really
freaky,very awkward.looked like they had a gun pointed at there head
in the interview!

Put all the physics aside and it really does sound a little suspect that
you can see no stars when on the moon,maybe in certain situations
but i would have to see it for myself to really believe it!

and that is never gonna happen!

reply to post by Korg Trinity

...the computer aboard Apollo had less processing power than your mobile phone... FACT.

Oh, Jeebus!!

Not that nonsense (yet again...)

You kids really need to do more research AWAY from the YouTube.


The Apollo Saturn V had a computer onboard, built by IBM. It weighed ~4,500 pounds! It WAS state-of-the-art, for its day.

No, THAT didn't land on the Moon, wasn't built into the LM.


As pointed out, now for about the thousandth time, there were ALSO huge computers back on Earth. AND, there is this thing you may have heard of--- it's called "radio". SO, the people, on Earth, could transmit information to the people, on the spacecraft. By this wondrous device that uses EM radiation to convert sounds into waves, and back in to sounds again (with the right sort of equipment). Invented back in the early 20th century.

Also, the math of orbital mechanics, thrust, velocities, all fairly simple calculations, easily done even by the (relatively) basic computers of that era. Ones and Zeroes, being 'crunched'. BINARY. Maybe you've heard of that?

You're using that SAME technology, as you read this, and type and surf the Web, and watch those stupid YouTube videos made by idiots who don't understand REAL technology.....

All that is different, with today's computers, is speed. Ability to process ('crunch") all of those numbers faster.

Ya know, there was even a time, back in what must seem like the "Dark Ages" to some of you, when machines -- cars, airplanes, and even spacecraft, were designed on PAPER, by engineers who used SLIDE RULES to do math! No such thing as CAD.

I say those older folks were a HECK of a lot smarter, and better, in some ways, than the majority of current 'engineers' out there today.

(No offense to any engineers in the audience. I just think that, without the crutches of modern technology, those earlier pioneers were FORCED to be better, and to use their brains better....)

reply to post by weedwhacker


Ah yes, the slide rule. I still have mine in its sexy brown leather holster. *sigh*
Edited to add: Sans & Streiffe.

[edit on 25-4-2010 by DJW001]

Originally posted by DJW001
reply to post by weedwhacker

 

Ah yes, the slide rule. I still have mine in its sexy brown leather holster. *sigh*

Yes and I still have an old scale rule for doing scale drawings, if fact it will be 31 years old this year happy birthday scale rule

Originally posted by weedwhacker
Oh, Jeebus!!
Not that nonsense (yet again...)

You kids really need to do more research AWAY from the YouTube.

The Apollo Saturn V had a computer onboard, built by IBM. It weighed ~4,500 pounds! It WAS state-of-the-art, for its day.

Nonsense you say? kids do more research you say??

I've been a technologist / futurist and worked for the last 17 years in IT...

The IBM you just pointed out was on the launch vehicle was Sloooowwww.... it operated at just over 2mhz.... the processor in your average phone is now at around 800mhz and as high as 1ghz.

It actually weighed including the memory modules at 72.5 lbs...

Where were you getting your info from???

Saturn Launch Vehicle Digital Computer

SATURN V LAUNCH VEHICLE DIGITAL COMPUTER

Are you embarrassed yet??

The computer in the LM had.....

barely 5,000 primitive integrated circuits, weighs 30 kg and costs over $150,000. In order to store your software, the computer doesn't have a disk drive, only 74 kilobytes of memory that has been literally hard-wired, and all of 4 Kb of something that is sort of like RAM.

The Lunar Module Computer

If I were you I would have a red face right about now....

not everyone just posts youtube vids as evidence.... there are some of us that actually do know some of that they say...

Korg.

reply to post by Korg Trinity


Problem is, you are limiting your research to ONLY what you can Google.

Of course, to show links and sources, I also am limited to the Internet, in tyhis genre.

YOU are referring to the digital computer that was, by necessity, designed as small and lightweight as possible, since it flew on the CSM.

I WAS TALKING about the BIG computer, the one on the Saturn V!

(embarrassed, yet?)

The Saturn V's own guidance system would guide the Apollo flights not only to an interim parking orbit but all the way to translunar injection. It fed position data to the onboard digital computer, which in turn prepared and sent control signals to the hydraulic actuators that swiveled the big engines for flight-path control. As propellant consumption lightened the rocket, and as it traversed the atmosphere at subsonic and supersonic speeds, the gain settings of these control signals had to vary continuously, for proper control damping. Serving as the core of the Saturn V's central nervous system, the computer did many other things too. It served in the computerized prelaunch 4 checkout procedure of the great rocket, helped calibrate the telemetry transmissions, activated staging procedures, turned equipment on and off as the flight proceeded through various speed regimes, and even watched over the cooling system that stabilized the temperatures of the array of sensitive blackboxes within the IU. So although the working flight lifetime of the Saturn computer was measured in minutes, it performed many exacting duties during its short and busy life.

history.msfc.nasa.gov...


A mention of the WEIGHT (and by inference, the size, though I can only guess, unless I can find more references ONLINE) is described in Astronaut Gene Cernan's biography "The Last Man On The Moon" (co-written with Don Davis).

I actually READ books, rather than relying on the trickle of information (sometimes unreliable) found on the Internet machine.


Oh, and your protestations of the computing power? As I said...too much reliance on technology, is the way of the World, nowadays.

17 years in IT? Dates back to early 1990s.

That is my point.

Originally posted by weedwhacker
I WAS TALKING about the BIG computer, the one on the Saturn V!

(embarrassed, yet?)

Not at all. i know I'm right.

The computer I detailed above was the Main computer. There was a guidance computer and this has multiple redundancies but this was no where near the weight or power you seem to think.

17 years in IT? Dates back to early 1990s.

That is my point.

professional life 17 years experience. i'm 36 now and my first puter was a Sinclair zx81 with 1 k ram.... saved up to get the 16k ram pack...

since then I have owned nearly every commercially available computers and some that most would never have heard of.

I have accurately predicted the technological rise of the www and made a small fortune in London in the dot com boom.

I now work for TSG one of the largest Technology companies in Britain.

But lets look at what was the world like in the early 1990's.... we had the ibm 286 with a staggering 16mhz power... The internet was at 1000 nodes all within government and universities...

My point is...

We live in exponential times.... we supposedly went to the moon in 69 but haven't been back since.... With our grade of technology today it would be a achievable very easily with minimum risk.

So tell me why exactly why have we not gone back??? and please don't state political will.... There is more than USA involved in space....

Korg.

reply to post by Korg Trinity

.... we supposedly went to the moon in 69 but haven't been back since....

So tell me why exactly why have we not gone back??? and please don't state political will.... There is more than USA involved in space....

IF you have to ask that question, then you obviously haven't done enough research.

Read some books. on the era.

The public support for the expense faltered, in the USA, just after Apollo 11. Vietnam was cranking up. Politicians, sniffing the 'wind', knew that space wasn't where the voters were looking, anymore (Apollo 13 changed that, briefly).

The USSR was only interested in the propaganda boost, in the "space race" to be first to land a Human on the Moon.

They also suffered devastating failures (most of their 'successes' were heavily hyped, for the propaganda. Post-Cold War a lot of details have been learned).

They NEVER had a successful heavy-lift rocket, needed to hoist the payload for all the hardware to get to the Moon. They had a terrible accident that killed over 60 of their best scientists, when a test rocket blew up on the launchpad.

Their tests of their version of heavy lift failed after launch, never achieved orbit.

USA, and yes, because of 'politics', in the decades since NEVER had any sort of daring commitment to the extreme cost needed to re-design another Moon program. It is still a COST issue!

Vietnam. USSR (and the "Cold War"). The budget at NASA, stripped radically. Emphasis, since it is 'cheaper', switched to more and more unmanned missions, probes for information. Much had been accomplished, from Apollo, and there was a lot to study, in preparation for the (some day) a future return, and perhaps a base.

"Near" space -- (LEO), and the Shuttle became a priority. There is STILL a lot of research needed in long-term microgravity effects on Humans. Needed before we can even begin to plan a Mars mission.

ALL of that LEO experience, also, adds up.

OTHER nations, now, are just about to mount Lunar missions. China, India.

With our grade of technology today it would be a achievable very easily with minimum risk.

"very easily"??? Kidding, right?

Tell that to the Shuttle Astronauts that we've lost, so far.

Space travel is NOT "very easy". It is still a dangerous place, to Humans. We have a lot to learn.

We were very lucky, in many ways, during Apollo. Thanks to incredible skills of the Engineers, Astronauts, and others back then.

READ some books, learn about the history. NOT just from YouTube! Please.

reply to post by weedwhacker


I'm bored now...

Not many people do that to me so well done.

Korg.

Originally posted by MR BOB
Light wont become visable unless it has something to bounce off/pass through right?

There is no atmosphere on the moon, the starlight comes to the moon but does not pass through anything making the stars appear as though they are not there.

We can see stars from earth because of our atmosphere.

But they could see the sun and the earth though. If the lack of atmosphere is what makes the stars invisible on the moon, the sun and earth would be invisible as well.

The photons from the stars striking your eye would make them visible to you.
So the original question remains... why could they not see them?
This is actually giving me a headache because I can't understand it, lol.

Originally posted by Angus123

Originally posted by MR BOB
Light wont become visable unless it has something to bounce off/pass through right?

There is no atmosphere on the moon, the starlight comes to the moon but does not pass through anything making the stars appear as though they are not there.

We can see stars from earth because of our atmosphere.

But they could see the sun and the earth though. If the lack of atmosphere is what makes the stars invisible on the moon, the sun and earth would be invisible as well.

The photons from the stars striking your eye would make them visible to you.
So the original question remains... why could they not see them?
This is actually giving me a headache because I can't understand it, lol.

They are on the surface walking about doing what ever they have to do the surface is bathed in sunlight so there eyes adjust to that level the iris/pupil closes becuase the light is like a summers day on earth if they glance up they will not see stars because it will take many seconds even minutes for the eyes to adjust and adapt to the new light level.
Have you never turned a light off in a room at night and it takes a few second or longer for your eyes to adjust thats the same idea.

[edit on 25-4-2010 by wmd_2008]

Originally posted by wmd_2008
Have you never turned a light off in a room at night and it takes a few second or longer for your eyes to adjust thats the same idea.

Hmmm so you now concur that it would only take a few seconds for the astronauts eyes to adjust if they decided to look up and shield thier visor then??

Seems like you are back peddling here....

Korg.