If the MOON reflects sunlight, why are the moon landing photos so DARK?

Originally posted by GaryN
reply to post by exponent

 

Nevertheless, studying the UV emission of astronomical objects is important because such emissions come from objects that are much hotter than our Sun.

Ultraviolet Earth from the Moon
www.astronet.ru...

I didn't think you'd "get it", you are a mile off. Next clue, x-ray fluorescence.

Would you quit with this and just come out and say it? It's already getting tedious.

reply to post by exponent

It's not hard to guess what he thinks the conspiracy is, but even the guy he linked to, Thomas Bohn, doesn't seem to think it's a conspiracy, when he says this:

www3.telus.net...

According to the all-knowing Google, the images were available from the National Space Science Data Center as either print images or electronic scans. Since prints cost money, I asked for the scans. The NSSDC very kindly FTP'd the files to me soon after the New Year's holidays, but when I saw the list of files I began to realize why no one had posted them before.

You couldn't just click and open these files into Windows Viewer, since their extensions (.FILE001;1, .FILE002;1, etc.) gave no clue to their format. Dropping them into Photoshop produced only read errors. No one at the NSSDC could tell me how to view these images. Dr. Carruthers told me he did not produce these scans; they were encoded by his co-investigator Dr. Thornton Page who was, alas, no longer with us.

So the alleged conspiracy probably centers around the fact that Dr. Thornton Page scanned some images and then had the nerve to die without telling anyone the file format.

One might be able to stretch that into a conspiracy theory except it has some problems:
1. The print images were readily available to the public, though they aren't free. But this hardly seems like a conspiracy, as prints cost money.
2. It's not the only case where we have old file formats that are no longer compatible with current technology. Finding magnetic tape readers that could view Apollo imagery from original magnetic tapes was a huge task, since those magnetic tape readers are obsolete today and have been for decades.
3. Even though the file format was (and apparently still is) unknown, Thomas Bohn was able to take some guesses at data encoding methods and extract some imagery from the unknown file format. It sounds like he had fun trying...however if I was trying the same thing I'd have bought at least one of the prints so I could compare my results against the print and verify the match.
4. Whatever file format was used, new scanning technology is better than the old tech, and Bohn says NASA plans to re-scan the images with modern tech and post the images online. If it was really a conspiracy, I'd expect them to say they were lost, damaged, or something that will not make the images readily available.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

Hi Arbitrageur, thanks for taking the time to look at that site.
What I am thinking here is that the fact that in telescope mode, and with a super-fast film, they needed such long exposures to image the heavens. That they could do such long exposures before any image blur occurred shows, to me, what a good place the Moon would be for astronomy, but yes, the new space based 'telescopes' probably negated the need for a Lunar astronomy base.
Anyway, when they switch to spectrographic mode, the heavens light up. They are looking at a Balmer line of hydrogen, and that is what the partial shell around Earth is, but it is not, as Exponent seems to think, because the gas is at over 6000 degrees. All gases though will emit at different wavelengths at certain voltages, as can be seen with spectrum tubes.
Nearly all present day astronomy is now performed by spectrogaphic means, and they use filter wheels to try and pin down what the 'light' is from, but Hydrogen being the most common element, it is the most important. The 'light' in this case is actually a continuum, billions of little lights if you like, which means they are looking at what is a point source array, in which case the 'light' will be emitted as a planewave, or quasi-planewave, which is capable of travelling almost infinite distances with no loss of intensity, while the transverse EM wave, the type of light our eyes can see, falls off with the inverse square rule.
This explanation on this page is probably very, very close to a proper explanation:

Abolishing the wave-particle duality nonsense
www.blazelabs.com...

Most 'light' I believe is travelling in the vacuum as planewaves, which our eyes can not see, at any wavelength. It requires gratings to convert the wave fronts to the transverse EM our eyes, or a regular camera that mimics our eyes can see, but in the case of being able to see stars from Earth, it is the ionosphere which provides the method of creating the transverse waves. So, as to why the moon is so dark, it is because the Sun does not shine on, or reflect off of the Moons surface. The light they there is produced by solar EUV/UV interaction with mainly electrons in the Lunar ionosphere. They say it is Earthshine, and it is in a way, but it is really from the UV planewaves produced in our ionosphere interacting in the Moons ionosphere to create a similar effect to Earth glow. So, no direct sunlight hits the Moon, or any other planets surface, that's why the light levels are so low.
They can not see the Moon from the ISS if they could look at it in a direction perpendicular to Earths surface, as the ionosphere is too thin up there for the conversion process to work, they have to catch it when it is passing through the Earths ionosphere, just above a crescent Earth. NASA can not prove me wrong, and won't even try.

Sorry I'm late to the thread. The OP has been answered adequately, but I just wanted to weigh-in with the following illustration that I captured last week:



Here you can compare the sunlit surface of the Moon, the sunlit surface of a terrestrial object (the lamp housing) and the brightness of a streetlight relative to both. Note that the sunlight on the lamp housing is heavily attenuated by the atmosphere (the sun was ~ 10 degrees off the horizon, and thus was being filtered by ~5 times the vertical thickness of the Earth's atmosphere). If it were lit by unfiltered sunlight, it would be ~2-4 times brighter. The Moon was more than 45 degrees off the horizon, so the atmospheric attenuation was less than 20%.

Hope this helps.

Originally posted by GaryN
Abolishing the wave-particle duality nonsense
www.blazelabs.com...

Interesting paper. I've given a lot of thought to these things myself. The author understands a lot of basic theory but seems to have a weak grasp of quantum mechanics, in for example the design of his experiment in figure 8. In fact it seems part of the intent of the paper is to discard some quantum mechanical basics and explain things classically.

As a consequence, I would say most of the paper which deals with classical explanations is somewhat accurate, however when it gets to the part that counts, which is supporting the non-mainstream claims, it is sorely lacking. Again referring to figure 8, it's only a thought experiment, so there's no evidence to support it. So what evidence does he offer?

He refers to some experiments by Eric Reiter that allegedly show that photons are not quantized, as other research has demonstrated. If true this would be an amazing scientific breakthrough, but two key elements would be needed to assign any validity to his claims:

1. His methods would need to undergo peer review, looking for things like unaccounted for experimental error, etc.
2. His measurements would then need to be replicated by others.

He also refers to discussions about theoretical questions being pondered, rightly so, in 1909, but in doing so fails to acknowledge the over 100 years of experimental evidence since then.

Also, there's only one way to get a true plane wave. The source must be an infinitely large plane, which of course is impossible:

Plane waves

It is not possible in practice to have a true plane wave; only a plane wave of infinite extent will propagate as a plane wave. However, many waves are approximately plane waves in a localized region of space. For example, a localized source such as an antenna produces a field that is approximately a plane wave far from the antenna in its far-field region. Similarly, if the length scales are much longer than the wave’s wavelength, as is often the case for light in the field of optics, one can treat the waves as light rays which correspond locally to plane waves.

So I have no problems using plane waves as models for limited analysis in localized regions of space as the wiki suggests.

But the author's geometry in some of his figures doesn't even make common sense. See figure 5 for example. I see it as a figure arguing against plane waves, but he's trying to use it as an argument FOR plane waves. His argument makes no geometric sense, even in his own illustration in figure 5, though figure 5 does show the effect of distance mentioned in the wiki of "a field that is approximately a plane wave far from the antenna in its far-field region", except this would even be true if if the source is emitting homogeneous and isotropic or "spherical" waves.

They can not see the Moon from the ISS if they could look at it in a direction perpendicular to Earths surface, as the ionosphere is too thin up there for the conversion process to work, they have to catch it when it is passing through the Earths ionosphere, just above a crescent Earth. NASA can not prove me wrong, and won't even try.

That's a pretty outrageous claim. Frankly if I worked at NASA, and got a request to investigate this, I'd probably write it off as just another wild idea and go back to my real job too.

Edit: You might have better luck with an astronaut who has returned from a mission aboard the ISS, some even have twitter accounts. You might be able to tweet or e-mail an astronaut or two, and try asking them if they ever noticed the moon disappearing from view when they thought it should have been visible. They should know if they were there.

Originally posted by BrokenAngelWings33
When you are standing in a dark room and there is light coming from another room you see the source of that light...do you not? When something gets in the way of that light source it changes? So tell me how in the world you think the Sun is what causes the Moon to shine and reflect light? Like I said hook line and sinker....hey believe what you want to believe...that's your problem.

When you are standing in a room with no light (and it's dark outside) but there is a light on another room (such as a lamp), and you don't actually see the lamp you see the light reflecting from the objects in the room (door, wall, floor, whatever). The SOURCE is the bulb, which you may or may not see. For THIS example the lamp/bulb/source is NOT seen but the light FROM it is seen through reflections and ambient light.

Same with the sun and the moon at night.

In addition, when on earth you seen the WHOLE (if it's full) face of the moon reflected toward you. While ON the moon you don't, because of its curvature and the limited distance the eye is able to see of the surface in any direction.


ETA: By being on the earth you are in the direct line of reflection. By being on the moon you are not. Example: Suppose you have a very large light source (12k halogen). If you stand directly in front of it, or if you stand in front of a 12x12 white reflector that the light is pointed toward, that light will be MUCH brighter than if you stood with your back to the light, or stood with your back to the reflector, or even stood *on* the reflector with the light shining down (without looking up at the light source).

While on the surface of the moon the only reflection is from the surface of the moon. The rest of space is black, and does not reflect light, and there is no atmosphere to reflect light, like on earth.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Thanks for the response Arbitrageur, good to see an intelligent reply on ATS, for a change ;-)
I'm by no means claiming to have all, or even any of the answers, just trying to make what evidence is available fit the accepted models, and something does not add up.

That's a pretty outrageous claim. Frankly if I worked at NASA, and got a request to investigate this, I'd probably write it off as just another wild idea and go back to my real job too.

I have been back as far as Gemini 5 looking for an image of the Moon, which was supposedly part of the Basic Object Photography experiment, but can find nothing even though the mission report says the experiment was successful. It was a Department of Defence experiment, so maybe still classified?
Oh! Er, well, I lied, just found an image of the Moon taken from the Gemini 9 mission! A rather large tif file. It was taken from about 100 miles up, very long exposure (or a very fast film?) as evidenced by the background noise. At 100 miles there would still be, in my model, enough atmosphere for some of the conversion process to occur, but require a long exposure. Looking up the image number I get no results, so don't know the exposure settings or film used. Not sure if there are a couple of stars in there too?
tothemoon.ser.asu.edu...
Every picture tells a story?

reply to post by GaryN

The raw .tif version of the image you linked doesn't have any such noise (very large file!): S66-37930_G09-H.tif

It's more likely post-processing artifact; film doesn't get noise like that. Here's their image of the Moon without the noise: S66-37929_G09-H

Here's another clear shot of the Moon from Gemini 9: S66-38289_G09-H

In these images the Moon looks normal to me, similar to what you'd get when photographing it from Earth.

Here's a photo of the Moon taken from the Shuttle mission STS-133. Earth is nowhere in sight. spaceflight.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by GaryN
Oh! Er, well, I lied, just found an image of the Moon taken from the Gemini 9 mission! A rather large tif file. It was taken from about 100 miles up, very long exposure (or a very fast film?) as evidenced by the background noise.

Originally posted by wildespace
reply to post by GaryN

 

The raw .tif version of the image you linked doesn't have any such noise (very large file!): S66-37930_G09-H.tif

Good find.

@Gary, I think you've stumbled on a mystery, but not the one you said. The moon looks normal in the raw images.

But there is a mystery.

If we compare the raw tiff images of S66-37929_G09-H and S66-37930_G09-H, they look very similar.
But if we compare the thumbnails and some other versions, we do see differences between them, with noise in S66-37930_G09-H that isn't present in S66-37929_G09-H. I agree with wildespace it's some kind of processing effect, but why do we see it in one but not the other?

I do have a hypothesis regarding the cause. If the processing includes some kind of exposure level adjustment to try to lighten very dark pictures to bring out detail in dark pictures, therein lies the explanation. One significant difference between the two pictures is that S66-37929_G09-H has a bright strip at the top from the adjacent photo, so including this bright strip in the processing algorithm was enough to prevent the algorithm from trying to lighten the picture. With no such bright strip at the top of S66-37930_G09-H, the algorithm kicked in and voila, noise was amplified. So, I suspect that is the solution to that mystery.

If 100 miles isn't high enough, how high would they need to be in your model for the the moon to become invisible?

Here's a link for ya !

the-moon-base-project.webs.com...

reply to post by wildespace

The raw .tif version of the image you linked doesn't have any such noise (very large file!): S66-37930_G09-H.tif

The blue background is the noise, it should be black. To me this still indicates a long exposure, and in that case surely there should be some stars present too? NASA stopped giving exposure details some while ago, IMO they would have raised some serious questions from keen photographers.

In this image you can see the Moon from the ISS, and I could cut that out and it would look like it was no where near the Earths crescent.
upload.wikimedia.org...
In this image though you can see how the first shot was composed to get rid of the Earth.
upload.wikimedia.org...
In both of those images I have difficulty determining the light source direction, and this seems to me to indicate the light source is very diffuse, from skyglow I'd think, certainly not a point source Sun.

@Arbitrageur

If 100 miles isn't high enough, how high would they need to be in your model for the the moon to become invisible?

Good question, though I don't believe it is visible from the ISS, but unless NASA will do what should be a 1/30 second test, during an EVA (the time with my old digital on full auto to get a good clear image from down here), I'll never know. I can use Celestia to tell them exactly what time I'd like the picture taken, and in what direction, but they tell me EVA time is about $50 million a minute, so even if I only had to pay for 1/30 sec, I still couldn't afford it!

Originally posted by GaryN
reply to post by wildespace

 

The raw .tif version of the image you linked doesn't have any such noise (very large file!): S66-37930_G09-H.tif

The blue background is the noise, it should be black. To me this still indicates a long exposure, and in that case surely there should be some stars present too? NASA stopped giving exposure details some while ago, IMO they would have raised some serious questions from keen photographers.

I suggest YOU look at the camera used and find out longest shutter setting also find out the film speed used then YOU will see it wasn't a long exposure and the tint is probably due to the picture being taken through a window!

Some of the others are taken out side the craft but same applies longest shutter speed and film speed will determine what was photographed.

Originally posted by GaryN
Good question, though I don't believe it is visible from the ISS, but unless NASA will do what should be a 1/30 second test, during an EVA (the time with my old digital on full auto to get a good clear image from down here), I'll never know. I can use Celestia to tell them exactly what time I'd like the picture taken, and in what direction, but they tell me EVA time is about $50 million a minute, so even if I only had to pay for 1/30 sec, I still couldn't afford it!

Why can't they just hold the camera up to the window instead of doing an EVA? They've probably already done this.

reply to post by GaryN


If your wacky theory was right ( which I very much doubt) would the sun be visible on a picture taken from the ISS or on the Moon or what about the Earth when Apollo missions went to the Moon ,you are claiming or eye or a camera only sees light because it passes through the atmosphere is that correct then after all this is what you claim.

Originally posted by GaryN

Most 'light' I believe is travelling in the vacuum as planewaves, which our eyes can not see, at any wavelength. It requires gratings to convert the wave fronts to the transverse EM our eyes, or a regular camera that mimics our eyes can see, but in the case of being able to see stars from Earth, it is the ionosphere which provides the method of creating the transverse waves.

THIS image would be impossible according to your theory SO your theory is wrong.

www.flickr.com...

This photo was taken on September 5, 2012 using a Nikon D2Xs.

1/500 ƒ/11 ISO 200 10.5 mm

Or this

www.flickr.com...

This photo was taken on October 11, 2008 using a Nikon D2Xs.

1/160 ƒ/6.3 ISO 200 800 mm

What was that comment about exposure details not being given by NASA.

Originally posted by wmd_2008
www.flickr.com...

This photo was taken on October 11, 2008 using a Nikon D2Xs.

1/160 ƒ/6.3 ISO 200 800 mm

What was that comment about exposure details not being given by NASA.

I suspect Gary's complaint about this photo would be you can see the atmosphere, which you can. He's looking for a picture taken from the ISS of the moon, without intervening atmosphere, though again I don't know why it needs to be on an EVA.

I suspect the reason they take the pictures through the atmosphere like this is because it makes the pictures look more dramatic. But I think I could probably talk an astronaut into snapping a photo though the window from another angle if I had doubts like Gary does, though they may have already done so. I haven't looked, but Gary says he has.

because all the pictures were taken at night

sorry! that was the first thought that popped in to my head, even my inside voice is sarcastic

on a serious note i would think that the reason for this is our perspective from earth makes the moon appear bright in the night sky but actually standing on the surface of the moon surrounded by the darkness of space is a completely different perspective from which the earth would seem to emanate it's own bluish glow.

now i have never been to the moon so obviously can't say for sure but i do think when dealing with visual things like this the perspective from which we view it is very important

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Not much atmosphere there I would suggest still according to his theory the Sun or Earth or any object like the Shuttle etc would not have been visible we have pictures of the Sun , Earth and the Shuttle etc from ISS & Apollo so his logic is BS!!



1/250 ƒ/8 ISO 100



/160 ƒ/6.3 ISO 200 28 mm



1/320 ƒ/8 ISO 200 180 mm



1/200 ƒ/4.5 ISO 200 70 mm



1/1250 ƒ/16 ISO 400 1200 mm


Anyone of these images show he is talking rubbish!

reply to post by wmd_2008

We do see effects of viewing through atmosphere, like the sun and sunlight getting more orange at sunset and even reddish after sunset, so the idea of atmospheric effects isn't crazy on that basis.

However, what is sufficient to answer any question I have about the effects of viewing through the atmosphere is answered for me by pictures like this one:

www.nasa.gov...
Whatever effect the atmosphere is having, if any, I'd expect to see as a gradient from where the atmosphere is thin, to a more pronounced effect where the atmosphere is thicker. There is a slight reduction in contrast further in the atmosphere simply because the atmosphere is also reflecting/refracting light. So I see nothing unexpected here. I did a quick search and the images I found of the moon from the ISS did have the atmosphere visible in them, as do the images of the moon you posted.

I'm not supporting Gary's theory about what will happen to the a photo of the moon if you can't see the atmosphere in the photo and it sounds like a wild idea to me too, but in a quick search it was hard to find any photos like that.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


The last three images I posted 3 and 4 of the Moon with very little atmosphere if any, last one of the Sun has NO atmosphere.

Also if his claim were true we would not be able to take pictures of other objects/craft for example docking on Apollo missions etc.

Remember this is what he claimed

Originally posted by GaryN

Most 'light' I believe is travelling in the vacuum as planewaves, which our eyes can not see, at any wavelength. It requires gratings to convert the wave fronts to the transverse EM our eyes, or a regular camera that mimics our eyes can see, but in the case of being able to see stars from Earth, it is the ionosphere which provides the method of creating the transverse waves.

Originally posted by GaryN
In this image you can see the Moon from the ISS, and I could cut that out and it would look like it was no where near the Earths crescent.
upload.wikimedia.org...

Exposure details: 1/180 sec, f/6.7, ISO 100. Taken 5/23/2010 at 8:53:35 PM with a Nikon D2Xs with 17-35mm f/2.8 lens @ 35mm.