NASA Deletes Suspicious Photos From Archive

Originally posted by Patriotgal
reply to post by muzzleflash

 

I have worked (1984-7), as a professional astronomer, in N. America, and Austrailia. I have been an amateur, since I was about 8.
I've taken, THOUSANDS, of photos, mostly, of the moon.
I have NO EXPLAINATION, for the earth's "jagged" terminator line. It looks VERY odd, to me. I wold have expected SOME deviation from a smoth arc, but NOT much.

Taken thousands of photos… from Earth. I'm sure the techniques are just a little different if you have to take archive quality photos from the moon.

It's no surprise NASA will be touching up photos a little, especially with colour correction. I mean even a cheap stock photo is touched up a lot, imagine if they spent millions on flying there only to bring back some terrible looking photos, it's just bad PR.

Certainly wouldn't be shocked if this was a composite of several photographs, it's just common sense that they might require several exposure settings to get the light of the earth at its best and the lunar surface at its best.

Implying they have doctored the shadow for sinister purposes is a little silly, it would actually be easier to do a perfectly smooth shadow using retouching than the awkward shadow. Definitely looks like the result of a bad scan job or colour corrections/exposure adjustments.


reply to post by Animusmors

Comparing tiffs to jpegs… You do realise jpeg is a lossy format right? Changes in earth orientation etc should be flagged but upping the gamma and pointing out the noise in the jpeg is a waste of time because the jpeg file format is going to add noise even if an image was pure black… jpeg is notoriously poor at doing solid colour.

Even though TIFF is considered to be one of the least compressed formats, all digital media has some sort of compression to it.

TIFF is lossless, the data might be compressed (optional in TIFF format) but no data is lost so the image will be a perfect representation of the source.

JPEG the file is compressed by using an algorithm to use less information to describe the same thing, this will introduce compression marks and noise. The resulting imagine will be quite different from the source.


[edit on 7-8-2010 by modern]

[edit on 7-8-2010 by modern]

reply to post by modern


Yup I do realize it is a lossy format. And that's why the jpeg (maybe) wasn't replaced because it had so much loss.

But some information is still retained like the stars in each picture. They don't match up even with all the noise the jpeg produces. And saying something is losses like the TIFF format is not true. When you convert anything from anther source you are going to lose information. I've transferred film negatives to other film negatives and you will still have new anomalies, different grain, and some loss of quality. These images were taken with Hasselblad Cameras with Zeiss lenses also using a different Kodak film made specifically for the missions. They were taken in the 70mm format of which is higher resolution than what we are seeing in these copies. When you transcode the original picture into another digital format, you are going to lose color and other information ON TOP of the chemical process to provide the positive. Because the digital technology is not at par with the film technology regarding color bandwidth, you are automatically not seeing everything. Even the displays we look at cannot match an actual print from a film source. Not knowing exactly what/how NASA used to process the positives/prints for the public, we can't be sure what was actually lost in the process. These pictures that are posed up on NASA's site or any site does not state what was used to post it onto the site. Was it from the original negative then reversed the color through the digital technology, or was it a scan of a positive that had to have gone through a chemical process, or was it a scan of some obscure, blown-up, high resolution print? So stating that TIFF is a lossless format is not true. It is less lossy.

The reason why I used gamma alone on the pictures i provided back is because I didn't want to manipulate too much and provide even more noise to what is being shown by destroying data. And many people don't have photohsop or any program like it and didn't post right away, i took the initiative.

What can be done to provide more information is actually taking both the formats proveded to us and give them to a lab to make large film prints. By doing that, film has this funny way of "filling the gaps" in the lack of color that is provided. Another thing that could be done is using the technology developed by IMAX to up convert to a higher resolution. But even then it wont answer anything because we don't have the original negative.



[edit on 8-8-2010 by Animusmors]

Originally posted by Patriotgal
I CANNOT believe THIS is "Breaking News"!!! NASA (Never A Straight Answer), has been doctoring photos, FOREVER!
WHY do you think, their radio transmission, were on such a hard to detect, frequency? WHY, was it A FELONY, to even LISTEN, or COPY, radio communications, between astronauts and earth??
Sorry, this is OLD NEWS.
Call me, though, when you get some fresh ANSWERS!!

Maybe NASA is so big, the right hand is not knowing what the left hand is doing?

Like they claimed for a long time the Moon could not be photographed by Hubble

science.nasa.gov...

Studying the moon can be tricky, because the moon is too bright to be photographed with large, highly sensitive telescopes on the ground or with the Hubble Space Telescope. The moon's brightness can potentially damage such sensitive optical instruments. Less sensitive telescopes on the ground and on satellites, however, have given us some stunning images of the full moon.

But Hubble photographed the Moon in 1999...
hubblesite.org...

reply to post by Thamelas


No, what I was talking about was a complete list of all the files in that FTP site, not just the ones you are interested in.

You did exactly the same thing I did in March 21, 2007, as you can see here, something you should already know, if you read this page (as you apparently did, seeing that your research says exactly the same things and even uses the same images).

PS: yesterday I said that I thought I was once fooled by the way that site works, and my 2007 post linked above shows that I was. If I wasn't fooled then I am being fooled now.

Edit: I don't understand why you link the JSC Image Archive with this FTP site, could you point where that link comes from? Thanks in advance.

[edit on 8/8/2010 by ArMaP]

Originally posted by Animusmors
From what I know about image compression, I use TIFFs all the time for visual effects in image sequences; TIFFs are just another form of compression. Even though TIFF is considered to be one of the least compressed formats, all digital media has some sort of compression to it.

Not quite. TIFF is a encapsulating system, it can have images (including several images in one file), text and many other things. The images can have many types of compression, from no compression to LZW or JPEG compression.

From what I see on the images, and mind you, I only manipulated the gamma on the images that I posted, I think the jpeg is actually a better representation of the real picture since there is more information within the surrounding sky AND it still retains some color on the moon.

Did you looked at the other JPEG file, this one?

That's the one I think it's the closest to the original.

Originally posted by ArMaP
Did you looked at the other JPEG file, this one?

That's the one I think it's the closest to the original.

Yes it seems really odd that the jpg is so much smaller than the enormous TIF file yet the quality seems to be better.

It seems like something is wrong with the 50.3 mb TIF file. Probably only NASA could explain exactly what, if they even know, which they may not if it was done by somebody years ago who isn't even there anymore. But I think the TIF file has a bigger problem than just a bad scan. I had a really old scanner and it never did anything that bad.

reply to post by ArMaP


The obnoxiously large border on that photo annoys me. xD

I rather enjoy the ones without the borders cause it just seems better as if you were actually there looking out over the moon towards the earth.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
Yes it seems really odd that the jpg is so much smaller than the enormous TIF file yet the quality seems to be better.

It's not odd, they chose not to use compression on the TIFF file, so the JPEG, that always uses compression, is a smaller file, even if the image is bigger.

The quality is not really as good as it looks at first, it has a relatively low colour count, "only" 25,828, while the TIFF has 100,187 and the smaller JPEG has 88,476.

That's one of the reasons I think NASA alters the photos, to make them more appealing, although less truthful.

But I think the TIF file has a bigger problem than just a bad scan. I had a really old scanner and it never did anything that bad.

Sure it has a bigger problem, just look at the right bottom corner and you will see.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/36940eedf0d2a268.jpg[/atsimg]

That's a greyscale Moon over the original photo, as found out in 2003 by ATS member papajake.

reply to post by Phage


How difficult would it be to "reset" a time and date and then perform function which would make it so a date that was bogus was tanken to be legit by another?

Originally posted by Overtime
reply to post by Thamelas

 

Great catch there. Just the fact they took it down and re-posted it says "caught".

That is something, it shows that NASA will and has been hiding stuff. I've always believed that the moon has ruins and other objects on the moon. Also there has been alot of comment about the Apollo missions never happening and that we did go to the moon but not in the televised missions but in other secret ones with other technology. It's one of three things, ruins from an ancient human civilization, alien civilizations base or a recent human base on the moon.

I've been looking for this pdf file online that was on a blog. It was a govt. documented that showed bases on the moon in the 70's. It showed us personnel living underground on the moon and digging out living areas. There was alot more on it and pretty detailed. I can't find this document anymore. Many people always say that these are just presentation papers of a future possibility and nothing more, but this one was a little to detailed.

reply to post by Willbert

Not too difficult but the "new" image is the same as the "original" image. It has the same "anomalies". If someone was really interested in backdating an image, why wouldn't they also change the date on the server?

reply to post by Willbert


Another thing I just confirmed, some FTP programs have an option to keep the original time stamp of the transferred files, so it's even possible that when they transfer files from a server to another some get their dates updated and some not, but this is just speculation from my part.

Originally posted by ArMaP

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
But I think the TIF file has a bigger problem than just a bad scan. I had a really old scanner and it never did anything that bad.

Sure it has a bigger problem, just look at the right bottom corner and you will see.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/36940eedf0d2a268.jpg[/atsimg]

That's a greyscale Moon over the original photo, as found out in 2003 by ATS member papajake.

Well that's interesting, I wouldn't have noticed it if you hadn't pointed it out!

Any image processing experts in here who can confirm that's what that shows? For example is that a telltale sign of a photoshop edit where they just missed selecting the entire area to be color altered by 2-4 pixels?

Are we sure it's not a registration issue or something like that?

Thanks for posting that ArMaP!

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
For example is that a telltale sign of a photoshop edit where they just missed selecting the entire area to be color altered by 2-4 pixels?

To me it means exactly that.

Are we sure it's not a registration issue or something like that?

There's no need for registration in digital images, unless you are creating one from the separate channels (RGB or HSB, for example), but in that case you would not have a strip of image with all the channels used below the greyscale area.

I will try to explain what I think happened in this case.

I will start with what I think is the image closest to the original. As the image is too big I will use just a small part, resized to make it even easier, this one:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/f01b021d41f1c1f7.png[/atsimg]

As you can see it looks "washed out", so I will adjust the gamma to try to make it look better. As I want to show a nice looking Earth (the "star" of this photo), I will ignore the colours on the Moon. This is the result I got:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/9e98381db0a0f791.png[/atsimg]

It's a nice looking Earth, but the sky is too blueish, so I will get to that.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/850c85e1af70eaf2.png[/atsimg]

That's a nice black sky, as it should be. The bottom edge of the Earth looks ragged, but it doesn't matter.

Now, lets get that Moon looking good. The fastest way is to making it greyscale, after all we all know that the Moon is grey.

I am doing these image manipulations in a recent program (The GIMP), but on an older program (Paint Shop Pro 6) I cannot change part of the image to greyscale. But that's not a problem, I just copy the Moon to a new image and change that new image to greyscale. Then I copy the result back to my working image.

If I am not careful it's easy to misalign the greyscale image over the other (and that is very easy to happen if you are looking at the image at 100% zoom), resulting in this:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/beea5866aedc190b.png[/atsimg]

If you now compare my version with the TIFF file you will see why I think this was what happened.

reply to post by ArMaP
That sounds logical to me, that the strong color of the moon could be a result of enhancing the color of the Earth just as you demonstrated. You probably made the unmodified edge intentionally a little more noticeable at standard size in your version, because I can see it before I enlarge it.

In the NASA image, they probably thought nobody would notice, and frankly I wouldn't have if you hadn't pointed it out. I had to really start zooming in before I noticed it.

And I think they made some other tweaks as you demonstrated also. But isn't there a way to make those tweaks without the terminator line ending up so ragged?

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
You probably made the unmodified edge intentionally a little more noticeable at standard size in your version, because I can see it before I enlarge it.

Yes, the horizontal line is two pixels high instead of just one pixel in the TIFF image.

And I think they made some other tweaks as you demonstrated also. But isn't there a way to make those tweaks without the terminator line ending up so ragged?

Yes, it's possible to do that, if we select the area manually. Automated selections will always pick the darker areas from the Earth and join them with the sky, so we will end up with too much or too little selected.

Originally posted by Phage
Here's another scan. This one from Keith Laney.
www.keithlaney.net...

Open this "scan" file in the Paint, chose pink color for the Flood Fill [bucket] tool and click somewhere on the NASA space starry sky ©.

Originally posted by Phage

The fact is self evident that no matter how much care is taken via whatever cold room and/or other analog storing techniques, as long as the Apollo photos stay on film and are taken out for reproduction every so often they are subject to degradation. After 30+ years of storage the Apollo missions and their photographic richness are fading away towards obscurity. Given the state of modern imaging technology, it is now imperatively time these were digitally preserved in best remaining original quality. It is the goal of Project Free the Apollo Images to help make this a reality This effort would serve three main purposes,

www.keithlaney.net...

Keith Laney works for the NASA outpatients who can't afford psychiatrist help,
and cover up the Apollo blatant and hopeless cracks by feeding the ufology kooks.


P.S. Phage,

did they call ALSJ props to edit the script of the Apollo 15 water leak epizode ?: www.abovetopsecret.com...
though US astronots' fans have already enjoyed Dolby sound of explosions in deep space [Star Wars], so the Apollo 15 script of some water in vacuum is ok for NASA reality shows.

[edit on 10.8.2010 by bokonon2010]

There is nothing wrong with the NASA image. It shows no sign of being "photoshopped", and I rather suspect that NASA has better image processing software than anything Adobe ever dreamed of.
The orange boarder offset is an artifact of cropping, a fairly benign editorial action common in sizing images for display.
The irregular pixelation along the shadow line is a bit complicated to explain. First of all if you simply take the Photoshop tool (lasso not magic wand-they use the same edging algorythm) you will see that the new edge you create is very neatly terminated along your chosen path. That pretty well proves that a Photoshop tool was not used. The reasons for the highly irregular pixelation are that: 1. The shadow edge does not fade smoothly to black because it is naturally interupted by the irregularity of the clouds and earth surface features, and, more important; 2. This is a digital image. There are a finite number of RGB color combinations possible and the program used to create this image did the best it could to account for the very subtle changes in shade and intensity encountered in the penumbra of the shadow.
And last, the discussion of using the the eraser tool: I looked at this thing many ways, and with an real image analysis tool (Image J) and could not find and irregularity that suggests that the atmosphere was shaped by the eraser tool. There are no detectable circular indications.
For all that - what difference would it make if NASA did spice up the image a bit before releasing it for printing in a million different magazines? I would have. There is no evidence of a conspiracy here. I have to admit, I was hoping there would be.

Originally posted by Machobunny
There is nothing wrong with the NASA image. It shows no sign of being "photoshopped", and I rather suspect that NASA has better image processing software than anything Adobe ever dreamed of.
The orange boarder offset is an artifact of cropping, a fairly benign editorial action common in sizing images for display.
The irregular pixelation along the shadow line is a bit complicated to explain. First of all if you simply take the Photoshop tool (lasso not magic wand-they use the same edging algorythm) you will see that the new edge you create is very neatly terminated along your chosen path. That pretty well proves that a Photoshop tool was not used.

I don't follow you at all, I think what ArMaP did with Photoshop did a pretty good job of duplicating the effects we see in the NASA TIFF image, at every stage.

There are a finite number of RGB color combinations possible and the program used to create this image did the best it could to account for the very subtle changes in shade and intensity encountered in the penumbra of the shadow.

I don't find that argument persuasive because the jpg compression is even more restrictive than the TIFF image, and the jpg compresssion doesn't show the same terminator line effect. This is the unnatural TIFF terminator line, the jpg terminator line looks natural.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/061d60938963f069.jpg[/atsimg]

For all that - what difference would it make if NASA did spice up the image a bit before releasing it for printing in a million different magazines? I would have. There is no evidence of a conspiracy here. I have to admit, I was hoping there would be.

It's obvious to me that they did spice it up and I am persuaded by ArMaP's demonstration as a likely possibility for the way they may have done it.

I would find it more palatable if NASA did a better job of distinguishing between edited and non-edited images somehow, that is really my only gripe, that in this case I wasn't able to find any clear admission from NASA they had edited the image. Some small tweaks I might understand but that terminator line is really distorted and I would like to see them somehow identify photos they edit/distort to that extent.

[edit on 20-8-2010 by Arbitrageur]

Originally posted by Machobunny
The orange boarder offset is an artifact of cropping, a fairly benign editorial action common in sizing images for display.

Could you please explain how that happens? I have cropped hundreds of images during my life and they never changed colour because of that action.

Thanks in advance.

The irregular pixelation along the shadow line is a bit complicated to explain. First of all if you simply take the Photoshop tool (lasso not magic wand-they use the same edging algorythm) you will see that the new edge you create is very neatly terminated along your chosen path.

They use the same edging algorithm, but while the lasso follows the movement of the cursor, the magic wand (or the bucket fill, that uses the same selection algorithm) decides which pixels should be selected, based on the parameters we give it (tolerance being the most important).

That pretty well proves that a Photoshop tool was not used.

No, it proves that the Lasso tool was not used, but everybody that knows how to work with an image processing program already knew that.

The reasons for the highly irregular pixelation are that: 1. The shadow edge does not fade smoothly to black because it is naturally interupted by the irregularity of the clouds and earth surface features, and, more important; 2. This is a digital image. There are a finite number of RGB color combinations possible and the program used to create this image did the best it could to account for the very subtle changes in shade and intensity encountered in the penumbra of the shadow.

Now you are saying the same thing other people have said before; the way the program decided what was black and what was not is the source of the jagged edge, but exactly that is what happens if you use the bucket fill or the magic wand.

Also, there are exactly 256 shades of grey (from pure black to pure white), there aren't as few as that.

And last, the discussion of using the the eraser tool: I looked at this thing many ways, and with an real image analysis tool (Image J) and could not find and irregularity that suggests that the atmosphere was shaped by the eraser tool. There are no detectable circular indications.

The eraser tool can have many shapes, even in old versions.

For all that - what difference would it make if NASA did spice up the image a bit before releasing it for printing in a million different magazines? I would have. There is no evidence of a conspiracy here. I have to admit, I was hoping there would be.

I don't think there's a conspiracy here either, just lack of transparency, but I think you are wrong in all your points.

PS: welcome to ATS.