Author Topic: "Star" in an Apollo photo?  (Read 4483 times)

Offline Peter B

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"Star" in an Apollo photo?
« on: May 18, 2024, 10:20:56 AM »
No, I don't think it is, but I'd be curious to hear what people think it is.

The photo in question is AS17-146-22293. Just to the right of the rock is a dot of light. In the hi-res version at ALSJ it appears to be two dots. (The dot is also visible in the LPI low-res image, so I assume it's not an ALSJ thing.)

However AS17-146-22294, which must have been taken only a few seconds later, doesn't show the dot.

Any thoughts?
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Offline bknight

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Re: "Star" in an Apollo photo?
« Reply #1 on: May 18, 2024, 12:10:31 PM »
Well if you look at AS17-146-22294 there is no object, so I'm going out on a limb here: it is a film artifact.

ETA:  The second image appears taken from a slightly different perspective and this ay attribute to the object going behind the bolder possibly
« Last Edit: May 18, 2024, 12:48:15 PM by bknight »
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Offline raven

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Re: "Star" in an Apollo photo?
« Reply #2 on: May 19, 2024, 12:13:01 AM »
Though not a star, Venus is captured in a couple photos, such as AS14-64-9191. Quite hard to see though.

Offline Mag40

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Re: "Star" in an Apollo photo?
« Reply #3 on: May 19, 2024, 05:09:14 AM »
Search on "venus" on Gonetoplaid's images page:
https://www.mem-tek.com/apollo/ISD.html

Offline jfb

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Re: "Star" in an Apollo photo?
« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2024, 02:47:57 PM »
Couldn't be the CSM passing overhead, could it?

Otherwise I'd go with an artifact in development or scanning (or damage to the film itself).  On the full-size scan I see a few more spots that look like that, just much smaller/fainter. 

Offline Zakalwe

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Re: "Star" in an Apollo photo?
« Reply #5 on: May 21, 2024, 03:57:36 AM »
No expert here, but the two images are taken from different vantage points, the second of which would seem to occlude the "object".

I'm more inclined to think that it is an artefact (cosmic ray strike?).
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Offline Kiwi

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Re: "Star" in an Apollo photo?
« Reply #6 on: June 07, 2024, 02:07:17 PM »
Here's a quick and easy way to start researching anything interesting in such photos (it might sound long and hard, but is actually the opposite once you get the hang of it):--

AS17-146-22293 is a lunar surface photo, and the "AS17" says it was taken during Apollo 17. (The second number is the film number, and the third is the frame number on that film. So...

1. Pick up the frame number and save it, or memorise it (in this case, 22293).

2. Go to the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal:-- https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/

3. Click on the top graphic which brings up another graphic with links to all the moonlanding missions -- Apollo 11 to Apollo 17,

4. Click on Apollo 17.

5. Page down past the wealth of information that's available about EVAs until you come to "Background Material".

6. Look down until you see "Image Library".

7, Click on it.

8. Start a search (Ctrl-F if you're an old-time computer-user like me) and paste in the number, 22293.

9. With almost indecent speed, artificial intelligence will rush you to whatever is initially available about that frame. See if it tells you anything useful. If not, study lines above and below, just in case. (However many lines is your choice.)

10, If still no luck, see if there's a time link to the appropriate spot in the Lunar Surface Journal. In this case, there is. 165:49:31. Click on it.

11. You are instantly told that: [{Ed} Fendell {the guy back in Houston controlling the TV camera on the Rover} finds Gene {Cernan} downslope of the Rover. He has the core {sampler, probably, or if not, an actual in-ground core} in hand and is leaning forward into the slope. He has taken a couple of pictures of Jack {Schmitt, the only professional geologist to ever step on the moon}], still taking 500{mm lens telephoto shots} from against the rock {to minimise camera-shake}. These are 22293 and 22294. {The ones Gene took, not Jack's telephoto shots}]

By paging up a little you'll find some links to that video, in this case immediately above 165:46:46 is:--
Video Clip ( 3 min 36 sec 0.9 Mb RealVideo or 35 Mb MPEG ) -- with hot links.

And there you are. (Most hoax-believers know none of this stuff.)

There's no mention of the anomaly in 22293, but sometimes there IS a mention in a few of the thousands of other photos taken on the lunar surface.

There's not even a mention of the interesting blue anomaly to the right of Jack Schmitt in frame 22294. It looks a little like a head-on comet with a spherical head and broad trailing tail.

One or two of the Apollo 11 colour photos have tiny, circular, very bright blue anomalies on the right hand edge.  Like Zakalwe in reply #5 above, I have also heard that some of those things might be cosmic ray strikes, but I don't know whether that's just a cool-sounding wild guess or a professional and scientifically-valid comment.

Nasa was so finicky about documenting everything that I'm surprised that I've never heard of a 400-to-1000-page report that fully documents every anomaly found in all the Apollo photos.

But I never heard either from anyone else about the one thing I commented on as a result of being an amateur photographer in the 60s and professional (and black-and-white printer) in the 70s and 80s:-- That many of the severely-fogged early black-and-white Apollo prints (which can be seen in Michael Light's book "Full Moon", Jonathan Cape, London, 1999) were possibly fogged by a darkroom worker who smoked in his darkroom and eventually coated his enlarger lens with cigarette smoke and tar. I say it's a "he" because in my experience, female printers were usually far better at their job than male printers and far too smart to stuff up their brilliant work with cigarette smoke. But I could be wrong. :-)
« Last Edit: June 07, 2024, 02:25:06 PM by Kiwi »
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Offline Allan F

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Re: "Star" in an Apollo photo?
« Reply #7 on: June 07, 2024, 08:35:56 PM »
The human eye is amazing in its light-sensitivity, when it is dark-adapted. There was an experiment, where the astronauts during trans-lunar-coast shut off all interior light, and put blindfolds on, and after about half an hour of dark-adaption, they reported some faint light flashes, assumed to be from cosmic rays penetrating the capsulre and interacting with the light-sensitive parts of the eye.

Compared to photographic film, the eye is orders of magnitude more sensitive, and having a cosmic ray penetrate the camera and affect the film in any visible way, seems a little unlikely. What one could do, would be to compare to other parts of the same film roll, and see if any marks are on the same position relative to the edge of the film. If there is, then it's probably an external event while the film was rolled up. If not, then we don't know.
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