ApolloHoax.net
Apollo Discussions => The Hoax Theory => Topic started by: allancw on May 07, 2014, 10:38:39 PM
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This post is based on my video at
Clearly, four recent NASA astronauts -- plus a bevy of Apollo boys -- claim outright that you cannot SEE stars from the vacuum of low earth orbit (or cislunar space re Apollo, same thing), which is clearly a LIE. Let's start with that and leave the faked imagery for later.
The question has nothing to do with the usual BS that stars do not register on film. We are only talking about what these NASA people say they can SEE in space. By the laws of physics and simple common sense, these people are lying. I ask, Why?
Allancw is baaaack.
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This post is based on my video at
Clearly, four recent NASA astronauts -- plus a bevy of Apollo boys -- claim outright that you cannot SEE stars from the vacuum of low earth orbit (or cislunar space re Apollo, same thing), which is clearly a LIE. Let's start with that and leave the faked imagery for later.
The question has nothing to do with the usual BS that stars do not register on film. We are only talking about what these NASA people say they can SEE in space. By the laws of physics and simple common sense, these people are lying. I ask, Why?
Allancw is baaaack.
To deal with the last first, if ONLY he had brought new found knowledge and wisdom....
First up, posting youtube videos as your spam argument is rude (to those of us with limited connection quality) and just plain lazy. Why do you think they call these DISCUSSION forums?
So, QUOTE the astronauts here, in full and in context, and then we'll talk about the visibility of stars under various conditions, including daytime viewing. I'll be happy to elaborate in detail.
And before we proceed, please state up front, is this aspect your best evidence?
If it's NOT, you need to tell us why did you bring it up first?
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BTW, the name allancw rang a bell, so i took the liberty :) of checking back to look at your initial posts here..
In your very first post, you stated this:
Bean has stated that a LEM on the moon with no power (as it was on the powerless LEM returning from the moon, a three day trip under the same conditions) would heat up to 250 degrees f. Yet the Apollo story is that the cabin cooled down to '34 degrees,' according to Lovell.
Sorry, Allan, but asking a question like that shows you didn't even know the difference between heat and temperature, let alone have the faintest knowledge of thermodynamics and all of the issues that would need to be taken into account. I won't embarrass you further by quoting your later comment about lighting angles...
Now of course since then you could well have brushed up and learnt stuff - if so I will be the first to congratulate you.. but I noted that during your last visit as your posts progressed at NO point did you ever acknowledge your errors and accept the correcting information. The nearest we got was this:
You guys are over my head with some of your data/explanations.
but it was immediately followed by you refusing to accept the explanations you were given... peppered with some interesting language..
So, to anyone about to respond to allancw (aka Allan Weisbecker), I'd strongly suggest you examine his posting history (http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=210;area=showposts;start=0), and that he is not permitted to try the same avoidance tactics again...
BTW, I have a conspiracy theory of my own - allancw is pushing a movie and book (watch out for the spam..), and he has apparently caught something from Jim Fetzer..... yes, it's that sort of rabbit.. er weasel-hole.
So let's stick to the stars FIRST, shall we?
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Allancw is baaaack.
::)
Before you go off rambling on another gish-gallop, how about acknowledging the errors in your other posts? Namely that no documents or evidence existed that could possibly refute your ludicrous claims. Yet, within minutes of making that claim you were presented with copious documents doing just that.
Or will you just decide to ignore everything and respond with a video of drunken ramblings from round the camp fire? To use a phrase from your own website, you have previously displayed that you suffer from HUYA (http://www.banditobooks.com/ezine/2007/jun/mission-statement). I wonder if anything has changed since your last little foray on here?
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As always, the main factor in whether you can see stars is how dark-adapted your eyes are. Astronauts are thus unlikely to see stars if the sun or a sunlit object is in their fields of view, or if they are inside a brightly-lit spacecraft, but they should be able to see stars if they are on the night side of the earth with the spacecraft lights turned down.
It all depends on the circumstances, which is why we want full quotes, not edited ones.
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I have my bingo card at the ready. Given the amount of real action around here lately, methinks it shall be rather messy rather quickly.
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I just had one of those omg moments. This individual is basing his claims on this NASA composite image -
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0706/solsticesun_lodriguss720.jpg
He says that since we can see the sun and the stars in the picture, that is what we should see with our eyes. If the full Moon is dazzling enough on a clear night to stop the eyes seeing anything close to it in the way of stars, surely this person has the brain power to understand that the Sun itself is going to stop anyone from even looking in that direction, let alone seeing stars.
Yet again one of these ludicrous hoax star threads - a conveyor belt of ignorance that never ends it seems.
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I just had one of those omg moments. This individual is basing his claims on this NASA composite image -
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0706/solsticesun_lodriguss720.jpg
He says that since we can see the sun and the stars in the picture, that is what we should see with our eyes. If the full Moon is dazzling enough on a clear night to stop the eyes seeing anything close to it in the way of stars, surely this person has the brain power to understand that the Sun itself is going to stop anyone from even looking in that direction, let alone seeing stars.
Hilarious, isn't it?
Hey Allan, would you care to explain why you can't see the Sun as it appears in that image?
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Allan, can you please evidence your experience in astrophotography please? An online album with details of how you took the images would be a good start. Total integration time, equipment used and processing techniques.
If you are going to talk about an area such as astrophotography then some background of your knowledge and experience would at least show that you know a modicum about the subject.
Otherwise you might just appear as yet another blowhard that doesn't really know the difference between the hole in your backside and a hole in the ground when it comes to the subject.
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Oh. My. God.
This is the very first time I regret not looking at a tinfoilhatter's video, to be the first to see that unbelievably daft gaffe.
Allancw, that is the most moronic thing I've seen/heard claimed by an Apollo denier. If you are not trolling, then for heaven's sake pick a new hobby - one that you have at least a glimmer of a clue about. That's just way beyond embarrassing..
(http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0706/solsticesun_lodriguss720.jpg)
Yeah - comes from NASA, seems legit, and fully applicable!! ::)
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Yeah - comes from NASA, seems legit, and fully applicable!! ::)
The image isn't even a NASA image. It's a composite image by well-known amateur astrophotographer Jerry Lodriguss (http://www.astropix.com/). The image is a composite, with the components coming from different astrophotographers. It was an Astronomy Picture of the Day on 21st June 2007 http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070621.html
The APOD site is hosted on a NASA server, so Allan's unparalleled, investigative-journalism prowess probably means that he thinks that is an image taken during a NASA mission. ::)
Man, we need the equivalent of a Stundie award on this site, because this thread would be a worthy nomination.
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Yeah - comes from NASA, seems legit, and fully applicable!! ::)
The image isn't even a NASA image...
I shoulda been clearer with my sarcasm, that was my point..
"comes from NASA" - no, as you said it was a picture from elsewhere, as are most of the images at that site
"seems legit" - no, it's not a legitimate image at all - it's a composite, showing different things that have had extremely different exposures and cover a dynamic range that would be impossible for any camera, let alone eye..
"fully applicable" - by its nature it's fully INapplicable to whether astronauts could view stars in different conditions and with different eye adaptations..
Man, we need the equivalent of a Stundie award on this site, because this thread would be a worthy nomination.
Agreed. I find it hard to envisage how someone who seems vaguely literate could be this devoid of the ability to understand basic logic.. I'd say troll, except for what is on his website - no conspiracy is too ridiculous for his 'world-view', no facts will get in the way of the delusion, and to paraphrase Jonathan Swift - there will likely be no way to reason him out of it, given he has used no reason whatsoever to get into it...
Or, perhaps, as Upton Sinclair put it:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
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Agreed. I find it hard to envisage how someone who seems vaguely literate could be this devoid of the ability to understand basic logic.. I'd say troll, except for what is on his website - no conspiracy is too ridiculous for his 'world-view', no facts will get in the way of the delusion, and to paraphrase Jonathan Swift - there will likely be no way to reason him out of it, given he has used no reason whatsoever to get into it...
"“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity.” But what is much more widespread than the actual stupidity is the playing stupid, turning off your ear, not listening, not seeing" (http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/04/universe-einstein/). There's not much point in arguing or debating with the wilfully ignorant. Mr. Weisbecker is most certainly wilfully ignorant, and his previous attempts at explaining his ideas fully confirm this. Even when presented with the very material that he said did not exist, he refused to even acknowledge it.
Or, perhaps, as Upton Sinclair put it:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
I like that one!
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Allancw is baaaack.
Good. Perhaps you can answer some of the outstanding questions from your previous time here. No? Oh, shame....
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By the laws of physics and simple common sense, these people are lying. I ask, Why?
Have you ever heard this expression?
Never attribute to malice that which can readily be explained by stupidity or even mere ignorance
There are many causes of disagreements and misunderstandings, and in my experience a deliberate intent to deceive (i.e., to lie) is not one of the more common ones. Why don't you at least consider them before you jump to the conclusion that everyone is lying to you? That kinda poisons the air and makes it difficult to actually learn anything, assuming that's what you're after.
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OK, lets do a line-by-line on this one.
Clearly, four recent NASA astronauts -- plus a bevy of Apollo boys -- claim outright that you cannot SEE stars from the vacuum of low earth orbit (or cislunar space re Apollo, same thing), which is clearly a LIE. Let's start with that and leave the faked imagery for later.
Your video states (regarding the Jerry Lodriguss APOD image) "This is a NASA composite". As previously said, it's not a NASA composite. Can you please acknowledge your error?
The sentence continues "..depicting what the heavens would look like from Earth if we had no atmosphere". Please re-read the narrative in the image footer. It states "If you could turn off the atmosphere's ability to scatter overwhelming sunlight, today's daytime sky might look something like this" (emphasis mine). In reality, the Sun's corona is only visible to the human eye during a total eclipse. In addition, the disc is taken through a hydrogen-alpha filter and the features shown are invisible to the human eye. Please acknowledge your misinterpretation of the image notes. From this alone it's clear that you are labouring under a massive misapprehension. What are your views on this please?
You then go on to say "The same view that an astronaut would have on a spacewalk". Do you still think this, in light of your errors above?
You then go on to accuse Leroy Chiao of lying because the Sun washes out the starlight when on the Sunside of the orbit. Can you please explain this? I'm also interested in hearing your explanation of how you think that the human eye can see stars (typically at something like magnitude 3-6) when the Sun (magnitude -26) is in the same field of view. Your "evidence" that he is lying is the "NASA image". Do you accept that a far more likely explanation is that you have based your supposition on erroneous thinking and that you haven't the foggiest idea of what you are talking about?
You then go on to make another accusation of lying based on "the darkest black you could imagine". You assume that "the darkest black" means "no stars". Clearly you have never heard of Olber's Paradox, have you? You repeat the same error when quote-mining the next astronaut.
You then to mention something called the "black sky lie". What colour do you think it would be?
That'll do for the moment. I couldn't watch much more of your rubbish video without my intestine jumping up and throttling my brain to escape the stupidity.
The question has nothing to do with the usual BS that stars do not register on film.
Who ever said that? how exactly do you think that pictures of stars are taken if they don't register on film??
We are only talking about what these NASA people say they can SEE in space.
No you are not. You are talking about your erroneous interpretation of those words and your, frankly laughable, attempts to twist them to fit your warped world-view.
By the laws of physics and simple common sense, these people are lying. I ask, Why?
I'd love to hear you going through your understanding of the laws of physics....
Allancw is baaaack.
Clearly.
(http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/Senator_thinks_Earth_is_6000_years_old%281%29.jpg)
So, any chance of an acknowledgement of any of this, or will you do what you did the last time and refuse to accept that your interpretation was incorrect?
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I really hope allan explains what the LEM propellers could rotate against in order to provide lift. It has always raised an eyebrow or two whenever I watch the televised launch.
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I doubt he will come back, he will just Gish Gallop and then resort to personal insults like last time.
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Bummer. I guess I'll never solve the propeller riddle...
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OK, lets do a line-by-line on this one.
Nice reply. Your patience is commendable.
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plus a bevy of Apollo boys -- claim outright that you cannot SEE stars from the vacuum of low earth orbit (or cislunar space re Apollo, same thing),
I meant to add this piece earlier.
Whats your source for this claim Allan?
How do you balance that claim against the fact that both the CSM had a system that optically took readings from the stars to update the navigation system? So rather than your ridiculous claim that they have said that they could not see the stars, they regularly observed them during the flight and used that information to update the navigation systems.
The LM also had an optical alignment system, which allowed the astronauts to confirm it's orientation. So again, not only could they see the stars in space they could also see them from on the Lunar surface.
What they couldn't do was see the stars if the Sun was in the same field of view. No different to being on earth...after all, do you see the stars in the daytime?
Nice reply. Your patience is commendable.
Thank you. Though I came very close to suffering the same fate as Poet Master Grunthos the Flatulent (http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Grunthos_the_Flatulent) when watching that YT video.... ;D
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I notice that Allen - along with a host of his ilk - seem to always start with the assumption that Armstrong's remarks about the visibility of stars were the "original lie", the party line that other astronauts have had to toe.
They seem to ignore completely the Gemini missions, which tested out (among many other things that would be necessary for Apollo) celestial navigation by star sightings, which (AFAIK) were always done on the night side of the orbit because the stars were not visible while on the day side.
Stars are relatively dim and are difficult or impossible to see when there's a bright light source in your field of view, whether it's the sun, the day side of earth, the lunar surface, or a streetlight. There's no one simple yes or no answer to the question "Are stars visible from space?".
The refusal of HBs to accept or even comprehend the obvious seems to me to either be deliberate or a result of a totally incomprehensible level of arrogant stupidity.
And, sadly.....
(If you can't view the imbedded video, the link follows.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmhcycjVui8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmhcycjVui8)
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Let's keep it simple to make misdirection a little more difficult. The first 'astronaut' says: 'When you're in space and you're looking into deep space and you're in the sun side of the orbit, the sunlight washes out all the star light so you can't see any stars, just like here on earth.'
Do I have to even say it? I guess so. No atmosphere. The sunlight does not wash out anything, starlight included.
'ALL THE STARLIGHT.' How much clearer could he be that you cannot see stars AT ALL, even looking away from the sun. 'JUST LIKE HERE ON EARTH?'
If you're going to say I took him out of context, please include some possible context that would mean he is not babbling an absurd untruth.
Just stick to that one thing. He is saying that in the vacuum of space, the sunlight washes out ALL the starlight. Explain via the laws of physics what exactly is 'washing out all the starlight.'
He is not saying that his eyes cannot pick out the stars because of the bright sunlight; he is saying 'The SUN' is doing the work, the washing... of star light.
Try to stick to that.
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First, read this:
http://www.cns.nyu.edu/~david/courses/perception/lecturenotes/light-adapt/light-adapt.html
Understanding how the human eye works will answer your questions.
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Let's keep it simple to make misdirection a little more difficult.
Try to stick to that.
Hmm, lets not.
Do you now acknowledge that your supposition is based on an image that you mistakenly believe to be a NASA image?
Also, that what is in the image is not what can be seen by eye? Rather it is an artful interpretation, composed of data from many different sources and not a true representation of what is visible to the human eye?
Your proposition is based on a misunderstanding. Before you start hand-waving and a gish-gallop let's hear if you are still prepared to continue with your claims first.
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Let's keep it simple to make misdirection a little more difficult. The first 'astronaut' says: 'When you're in space and you're looking into deep space and you're in the sun side of the orbit, the sunlight washes out all the star light so you can't see any stars, just like here on earth.'
Do I have to even say it? I guess so. No atmosphere. The sunlight does not wash out anything, starlight included.
'ALL THE STARLIGHT.' How much clearer could he be that you cannot see stars AT ALL, even looking away from the sun. 'JUST LIKE HERE ON EARTH?'
If you're going to say I took him out of context, please include some possible context that would mean he is not babbling an absurd untruth.
Just stick to that one thing. He is saying that in the vacuum of space, the sunlight washes out ALL the starlight. Explain via the laws of physics what exactly is 'washing out all the starlight.'
He is not saying that his eyes cannot pick out the stars because of the bright sunlight; he is saying 'The SUN' is doing the work, the washing... of star light.
Try to stick to that.
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Um, posting the same thing again won't change the replies Allan.
Are you going to respond to what has been said?
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Let's keep it simple to make misdirection a little more difficult.
Try to stick to that.
Hmm, lets not.
Do you now acknowledge that your supposition is based on an image that you mistakenly believe to be a NASA image?
Also, that what is in the image is not what can be seen by eye? Rather it is an artful interpretation, composed of data from many different sources and not a true representation of what is visible to the human eye?
Your proposition is based on a misunderstanding. Before you start hand-waving and a gish-gallop let's hear if you are still prepared to continue with your claims first.
I too know the art of Ctrl-C & Ctrl-P ;D
Heck, I could do this all night!
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Ok - I'll bite. Please get yourself a car, a few candles and a dark night. Put the candles a few miles apart, but viewable from your present position. Then start the car, put on high beam and place yourself RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE CAR - look into the distance and try to pick out the candles.
This experiment is very much the same situation the astronauts would face when in orbit and the sun is shining on them.
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He's posting this garbage on Cluesforum, where apparently he is best buds with Simonshack.
His posts there are as stupid as this one is here.
http://www.cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1711 (http://www.cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1711)
I'm also guessing he hasn't read any of the LEO Apollo transcripts where they checked out stellar navigation techniques, for example
https://history.nasa.gov/ap09fj/006_day01_rev005.htm (https://history.nasa.gov/ap09fj/006_day01_rev005.htm)
All that will happen is he'll report back to his lunatic friends how yeah he showed over at Apollohoax blah blah shills blah blah and my weren't they rude and so defensive, almost as if they're in on it and are scared the truth will come out...
Buzz - where are you? It's clobbering time...
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Allan, read pages 12 to 16.
http://web.mit.edu/digitalapollo/Documents/Chapter6/hoagprogreport.pdf
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He's posting this garbage on Cluesforum, where apparently he is best buds with Simonshack.
Sheesh...you know you are a room with crazies when they start thinking that Hollywood movies like The Right Stuff as evidence but yet claim that the Virgin Galactic videos are faked.
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Let's keep it simple to make misdirection a little more difficult. The first 'astronaut' ...
Allan, you want to go line by line and be absolutely precise, so YOU do the same. First up you have astronaut in quotes - are you suggesting he wasn't one, or is that simply childish sarcasm? Explain your use of quotes.
.. says: 'When you're in space and you're looking into deep space and you're in the sun side of the orbit, the sunlight washes out all the star light so you can't see any stars, just like here on earth.'
Allan, as you are taking everything at face value, when the astronaut says 'washes out', what does he mean? After all, there is no water or detergent involved, surely?
C.1 In that case, is this just an analogy, perhaps?
C.2 If you concede it is an analogy, then what possible interpretations have you considered? If it is only one, then I accuse you of bias.
"Washes out" could mean that the whole sky was bright, and that prevented his eyes from adapting - this seems to be your interpretation, as you state that you think the lack of atmosphere is the problem and that couldn't happen...
..(I'm numbering the issues for you Allan, to make sure you address every one..)
C.3 Could it be (and I know this is WAY out there, as it involves basic logic and common sense, that when he said that the Sun 'washes out' the stars, he is actually referring to the Sun washing out the.. wait for it .. WHOLE SCENE? Who would have thought!!!, It could be that this astronaut is actually aware of his entire environment, rather than looking with tunnel vision (eg thru a telescope or other optical device - more about that later..) So what is in that entire scene? Here let me help..
C.4 There's the Sun itself.
C.5 There's this big bright earth - sunlit, daytime.
C.6 There's the refractions/reflections and scattering through the porthole.
C.7 There's the porthole edges, and any external parts of the spacecraft that might be in view.
C.8 There's any part of the spacecraft interior and the astronaut's attire and even his nose and anything else in his vision that is sunlit.
Feel free to add more, Allan - I'm sure you can come up with lots of valid information - we can see just what sort of a deep thinker you are...
C.9 And as anyone with an operational brain knows, if your eye has adjusted to anywhere near a daylight exposure (which is what it does as soon as anything at that light level is in the field of view), then it cannot possibly detect stars which are incredibly faint compared to daylight.
C.10 How bright is starlight compared to daylight, Allan? I know the numbers - do you?
I'm happy to post those numbers and a whole pile of pictures and a lot of detail to demonstrate exactly how this works.. But I won't be bothering until you, Allan Weisbecker, grow some cojones and actually address the refutations POINT BY POINT that are being shown to you.
PS - Keep an eye out folks, and be ready for Allan to Gish Gallop onto something else rather than actually address the huge gaping holes in his claims.
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Which one of you said this:
What they couldn't do was see the stars if the Sun was in the same field of view. No different to being on earth...after all, do you see the stars in the daytime?
Anyone have a problem with this statement?
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allancw, the following two experiments can be revealing.
First
Go outside on a clear evening with a pair of binoculars (around 7x50 would be fine; 11x80 would be better) about 30 minutes after sunset. Even though its twilight, and the sky will still be appreciably blue, you should be able to a see some of the "first" magnitude stars such as Sirius, Canopus and Artcurus. Now look with your binoculars! You will be amazed how many more stars you can see. I have actually seen Sirius in broad daylight (around 1pm IIRC)
Second
Later on that evening (or on another evening) when it is truly dark, go to a local park and look up. See how many stars you see? Now go stand under a bright street (preferably not one of those orange/pink sodium lamps, a mercury lamp is best) and look up. How many stars do you see now? Better yet, go to a sports stadium for a night game under floodlights or a clear night, and look up. How many stars do you see?
If you do these experiments honestly, make the observations honestly, draw your conclusions honestly and report the results honestly you will gain a better understanding of the reasons why some astronauts reported seeing stars in cislunar space while others didn't.
This is what real scientists do; experiment, observe, conclude, report with a completely open mind. They do not do what you and other CTs and HBs do; guess, assume and take their "knowledge" from YouTube videos uploaded by the likes of Hunchbacked, and the He-from-down-under-who-shall-not-be-named!
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Better yet, go to a sports stadium for a night game under floodlights or a clear night, and look up. How many stars do you see?
I have done this over and over. Every time I go to a night time game or concert. I occasionally do see a star or two, but normally I don't see any stars at night. Even in the parking lot after a game, the stars are pretty few. It should be no surprise to anyone who looks at the world around them that the astronauts only saw stars under certain conditions and did not see stars at all when the sun was in their filed of view. Allan, is just unobservant of his world.
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The first NASA astronaut on a Mercury sub-orbital lob didn't see stars either. Heck, he even says why in the National Geographic article (http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/ravens_cry/alan_NG_zps372ceb8e.jpg). I have a physical copy of this as well.
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Which one of you said this:
What they couldn't do was see the stars if the Sun was in the same field of view. No different to being on earth...after all, do you see the stars in the daytime?
Anyone have a problem with this statement?
So, you pick the one part of all the replies you can pick holes in (namely that having the sun in your field of view in space is not the same as having light scattered by the atmosphere in the daytime on Earth) and ignore everything else? Why am I not surprised?
Read the links you have been given on how the human eye works and why having a really bright thing in your field of view, or indeed having anything that is illuminated by that really bright thing in your field of view, will compromise your ability to see stars while in space.
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Allancw / Allan Weisbecker, first I must note that you have NOT addressed a single item posted here by those who know an awful lot more about light, astronomy, space sciences, photography, optics and the eye than you do... Not ONE. What might a sane person infer from that? And how long were you planning to spend on this forum *abusing it* by treating it as a blog? It won't be long if this continues.. I'll repeat the unanswered questions below.
Second I note that you have not responded on the question of whether this stars thing is your favorite, best evidence. I guess then we can assume that, as this was the first thing YOU wished to bring up in your new visit, that it is the best in your opinion..
Third, earlier you asked that everything be dealt with systematically, so I'll be addressing everything you say line by line, just as I have above, UNLESS you introduce a new topic before you have answered all questions on this one, in which case I (and I hope others) will be reporting you for the forum abuse I spoke of above.
So, while waiting for you to answer the questions already asked, let's continue on the same topic. I wouldn't leave it for too long, Allancw, as the list of things you cannot answer (but everyone else here CAN..) will quickly become embarrassingly long, and a very good indication of your lack of knowledge in ANY of the required disciplines...
Which one of you
Wait - you are quoting someone and you ask others to tell you who it was? Are you seriously this ignorant/incompetent or is it just childish rudeness? What a lazy request - I'm not looking it up - could have been me, but who cares - let's just address it properly and with the proper context added. Watch how this works Allan Weisbecker - this is what YOU should be doing..
.. said this:
What they couldn't do was see the stars if the Sun was in the same field of view.
Indeed, that is correct - you cannot see stars* if the Sun is in your field of view (due to simple eye capability and biology - I can roll out the Lux levels if you want, but I think that is pretty well accepted that if you have the Sun in your eyes you won't be seeing any stars..). There are other situations where the Sun may be out of your field of view where the stars will still be invisible, so it is not a comprehensive statement, but that is certainly one of those situations and it is correct.
C.11 If you believe otherwise, please outline why, or propose an experiment to prove your claim.
* By 'stars' - in the context of this discussion we are discussing stars other than our Sun. I think only a blithering idiot would dispute the statement on that technical semantic..
No different to being on earth...
In the respect stated, ie that the Sun is in your field of view, then yes, that too is correct. No matter whether you were in cislunar space, in orbit, on the Moon, on Earth.. IF the sun is in your field of view, then you will not be seeing stars. The Sun is a tiny bit brighter in space, sure, but that is not relevant here, as the difference in brightness of a distant star versus the Sun, is bazillions of times greater (that's a technical term..) than any tiny difference caused by having an atmosphere to scatter a bit of the light.
C.12 Allancw, in respect of the earlier statement, namely that having the Sun in your field of view will prevent you from seeing stars, is being in space in any significant way different to being on Earth?
after all, do you see the stars in the daytime?
While it is possible - under some very precisely defined circumstances - to see stars in daytime, it is extraordinarily difficult, and is not possible while the Sun (or anything illuminated by the Sun..) is in your field of view. So again, that would seem to be perfectly correct within the terms of the discussion.
C.13 Allancw, under what circumstances do you claim to see stars in the daytime?
C.14 Allancw, if you stand in a brightly lit parking lot at night, under one of the lights, can you see any stars in the region of those lights?
C.15 How much light (in numeric terms) is there in that scene? What about when you are in a scene that is sunlit? And then, how much light (in numeric terms) do distant stars emit?
I'll be happy to bring along some photographic evidence, showing how it relates to the operation of the human eye, if Allancw starts answering questions. hmmm... perhaps that is why he is staying quiet?
Anyone have a problem with this statement?
Nope, not if the context is correct - those statements are quite reasonable, even though they go nowhere near covering the entire situation. If it is NOT, then stop dancing around AND PUT YOUR CASE. And then start working through all the following questions:
(re the statement about stars being 'washed out')
C.1 Is this just an analogy, perhaps?
C.2 If you concede it is an analogy, then what possible interpretations have you considered?
(If it is only one, then I accuse you of bias. "Washes out" could mean that the whole sky was bright, and that prevented his eyes from adapting - this seems to be your interpretation, as you state that you think the lack of atmosphere is the problem and that couldn't happen...)
C.3 Could it be that when he said that the Sun 'washes out' the stars, he is actually referring to the Sun washing out the WHOLE SCENE?
(Who would have thought!!!, It could be that this astronaut is actually aware of his entire environment, rather than looking with tunnel vision (eg thru a telescope or other optical device - more about that later..) So what is in that entire scene? Here let me help..)
C.4-C.8 There's the Sun itself, the sunlit earth, the refractions/reflections and scattering through the porthole, the porthole edges, any external parts of the spacecraft that might be in view, any illuminated part of the spacecraft interior, the astronaut's attire and even his nose and anything else in his vision that may be illuminated by direct or indirect sunlight. Do you dispute any of that?
C.9 Do you dispute the fact that if your eye has adjusted to anywhere near a daylight exposure (which is what it does as soon as anything at that light level is in the field of view), then it cannot possibly detect stars which are incredibly faint compared to daylight? (see C10).
C.10 How bright is starlight compared to daylight, Allan? I know the numbers - do you?
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You can get the same effect by simply standing under a street light on a clear night, but that requires leaving the security of the basement for a while...
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Or the bridge...
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Why would they lie in the first place? Even if Apollo was fake, many Apollo astronauts were Gemini or even Mercury veterans, and those who weren't could be coached by the ones who were.
Why lie about what stars in space looked like under various lighting conditions when they could simply, um, tell the truth?
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Every single time.
Without fail, along comes an hb, who makes the same claim as someone previously. The claim as always gets soundly beaten, with numerous points raised and many justifiable questions raised. We then get diversion, selective responses, gish gallups, with none of the major points responded to and none of the questions answered. It is so tedious and by no means an exclusive tactic to the sad individuals who doubt Apollo.
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Which one of you said this:
What they couldn't do was see the stars if the Sun was in the same field of view. No different to being on earth...after all, do you see the stars in the daytime?
Anyone have a problem with this statement?
Nobody agrees with that statement in the context you are inferring! Even if the atmosphere was not scattering the light and stopping visibility, even if the sky was pitch black, we already have a precedent of what we can and cannot see at night with a full Moon. Substitute that for the Sun 400,000 times brighter than a full Moon and it is obvious the limiting and dazzling effect that produces.
I use the word "obvious" in terms not recognised by conspiracy theorists.
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I'm astounded at the concise use of words Allan has utilized in order to systematically debunk our foolish ways. The true mark of genius, I say.
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(http://i1336.photobucket.com/albums/o657/Andromeda_Apollo/imagejpg1_zps6e74498b.jpg)
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Which one of you said this:
What they couldn't do was see the stars if the Sun was in the same field of view. No different to being on earth...after all, do you see the stars in the daytime?
Anyone have a problem with this statement?
I can tell you who said it on here, but I'm not going to because if you want to know the answer to questions it's up to you to do some work.
I can tell you that I've heard someone make that same point in person, namely Charlie Duke, Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 16 and capcom for Apollo 11.
Here's what he said in an interview with Eric Jones of the ALSJ about setting up the UV camera:
Jones - "Could you see stars out in the shadow?"
Duke - "No. The only thing that was visible was the Sun and the Earth. The UV camera was just looking up into the heavens all the time, to me; and I don't know what they were looking at. We didn't take the time to dark adapt."
Dark adapt. Key words. See if you can work out what they mean.
Some light reading on Apollo stellar photography:
http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/starryskies.html (http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/starryskies.html)
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Which one of you said this:
What they couldn't do was see the stars if the Sun was in the same field of view. No different to being on earth...after all, do you see the stars in the daytime?
Anyone have a problem with this statement?
Classic hoax-believer stuff. "Quote mining" in an attempt to build an argument on a loose interpretation of a sentence. its a rare thing when I quote the Bible, but this suits "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"
So, Mr Weisbecker. Now that you have been shown that your YT video is based on an incorrect interpretation of an image do you care to revise your comments?
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So, Mr Weisbecker. Now that you have been shown that your YT video is based on an incorrect interpretation of an image do you care to revise your comments?
(https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/2354001664/hEF01D42E/)
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To give Allancw (Allan Weisbecker) all the credit he is due :D, I do think there is a common problem when people who have little imagination, and little ability to think beyond their narrow, limited experience here on Earth, try to imagine what being on the lunar surface would be like.
As earth-bound critters, we are used to *always* seeing blue (or grey) skies in daytime (and no stars), and then dark skies at night. And of course we are also used to *only* seeing stars after dusk, when the sky is dark or at least darkening. Cloud cover permitting, of course..
So, a simplistic response - lacking in any thought whatsoever - is to ignorantly believe that a black sky without clouds must mean you will see stars.
There are two things that might help the person who just doesn't 'get it'... (are you listening, Allan Weisbecker?). The first is to somehow develop an imagination and the ability to think laterally - in a way that isn't biased towards a particular desired outcome - and to put in a little work to properly research the topic, perhaps run a few simple experiments, and to think all the issues through carefully.
The second thing that helps many of us understand immediately, is simple - an interest (and a little experience) in night photography...
You see, Allan, if you had done any night time photography (I mean beyond relying on Auto settings..), then you would know that to get stars to appear in any image, you need to have a long exposure/open aperture. You would also know that the exposure time would typically be at least a few seconds or more (given a reasonable aperture setting and using ISO 100 film or sensitivity setting). Nothing like that which is used for daytime/sunlit scenes.
From that very simple observation, you would realise that those exposure settings *tell* you that these are very, very faint objects.
How faint? Well, starlight is generally less than 0.002 Lux. (Yes, I know that isn't an exact figure for how bright a single star might be, but I'm trying to keep this simple for simple minds....) To put that into context, here's what some other light levels are:
0.3–1.0 lux - moonlight
50-80 lux - typical well-lit room
100-300 lux - heavily overcast day
320–500 lux - typical office lighting
400-500 lux - dawn/dusk just before/after sun is visible
1,000 lux - typical overcast day
1,500 lux - sports stadium (strongly lit for televised sports)
10,000–25,000 lux - daylight (indirect sunlight)
30,000–130,000 lux - daylight (direct sunlight)
(from memory and verifiable from various sources including Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lux))
Now at any given time our eye can manage to see a ratio of about 100:1 between the brightest and darkest objects in its field of view (fov). There is some debate over the actual range and some claim up to 1,000:1, so let's accept that highest figure.
You can check this against the numbers above, and you will see it is being pretty generous - I defy anyone to be inside a brightly lit office and look out of a window (no going up to the window and shielding your eyes!) onto a scene lit only by moonlight and see details (or stars, for that matter..). Good luck with that.... Certainly, it is absolutely clear that there is no way whatsoever that an eye that is exposed to daylight, can possibly resolve a star - that is a ratio of many millions to 1, not thousands, even using the most conservative figures.
Now, the eye *can*, if given time, adapt itself so that the range is effectively shifted up or down. So at night, you eye slowly adapts to the dim light.. But of course if you are then exposed to very bright light, even if it is in your peripheral vision, the eye has to shift back into 'bright' mode and the dim stuff will vanish.
So.. and this part is ONLY for those with imagination and lateral thinking and the ability to follow logic... what was the situation on the Moon?
Bright sun in the sky (just a tad brighter than here on Earth as no atmosphere to scatter some of it..) - 130,000 Lux...
The entire ground, from horizon to horizon, 180 degrees, brightly sunlit. - 30,000 Lux
The LM, the other astronaut, and any hills/mountains, all brightly sunlit. - 30,000 Lux
The astronaut's own arms and hands, and the inner edges of his helmet, all brightly sunlit. - 30,000 Lux
Scattered light from the dust and scratches and refelections and refractions of the visor. - difficult to guess at..
And then, up in the sky, lots of stars, but all down near 0.002 lux.
Now IF an astronaut was as ignorant as the OP, and thought that it would be worthwhile to try some star viewing (for Deity knows what reason), they would have to:
- find some deeply shadowed area
- in a bulky and pretty rigid spacesuit, bend his back and tilt his helmet upwards, well away from the Sun and from *anything* that might throw any indirect light at his eyes
- wait for about a minute before he would have any hope of seeing *any* stars
- or wait for about 7-10 minutes before he would be able to perceive a decent starfield..
Now by doing all that, he might (after the ten minutes), begin to see something approaching what he might see from any country location on Earth. How much would that ten minutes cost, and why would he bother?
And then he would have to look down to the scene he was *supposed* to be working in, on a very tightly controlled schedule, and where everything is brightly sunlit. He would be dazzled for several seconds, running the risk of a fall. (Is it any wonder that Allan isn't in the space program in an advisory role?)
What should embarrass Allan Weisbecker is his astonishing lack of imagination, his lack of ability to think about what that environment was really like. Did he somehow forget that it is an alien environment? Does he honestly believe that dark sky equals seeing stars, with no need to consider the issues properly?
When was the last time that any of us ever stood on a landscape that stretched from horizon to horizon and was all brightly lit by the Sun, and yet when we glance up at the sky away from that Sun we see it is not light blue, but black? I, and I suspect most of the others who read this forum can indeed imagine/visualise what that might be like. But some folks (Hi, Allan) just cannot conceive what that would be like, nor can they be bothered to actually think about the logistics of trying (stupidly) to get a better view of the stars than even a casual glance upwards on a moonless night on Earth would give. Some folks cannot conceive of the cost of such an exercise, in terms of time and the risk as their eyes re-adapted to the sunlit scene.
Some folks just want to support their own (daft) conspiracy agenda, right Allan?
PS - A note for purists: yes, I've taken some liberties by mixing light levels with light outputs - if you can come up with a better way without this becoming incredibly complex, please have at it!
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ChrLz: Outstanding post. Thank you.
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A new thought here.
For every one of the didn't-think-much-about-it hoax believers who imagine there must be a spectacular starfield easily visible, and why wouldn't the astronauts comment on it (or if it took an effort to see, then of course make that effort)...
..have any of them considered that incredible and spectacular thing that the astronauts DID see? Which is a bright-lit landscape with an absolutely featureless sky.
I tell you, a clear, moonless night is pretty freaky all on its own. The idea of having daylight around you, and a gaping hole for a sky... Stars you can see from Earth. A few dim scattered stars, even easier (especially for us poor city-dwellers). What they saw, however, is something you have to land on an airless world to see.
As usual, what strikes me about the hoax believers is the notion that they don't get out enough. They imagine all these things, but show they've so very, very, very rarely actually gone outside and LOOKED at things. Their sense of wonder seems about equal to the imagination of a game designer and the output of a decent video card; not to the spectacle that is available to anyone willing to make a modicum of effort.
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To add to the great post by ChrLz.
I can't recall where I read this on AH, but the inner poly carbonate helmet filtered a small part of visible light, as did the outer visor on the helmet. The final visor - gold coloured - completely stopped stars from being visible. On the shuttle, the command module, Gemini or mercury capsules, the windows would also be filtering out some of the visible light. Is it correct that for launch, the occupants are all suited with helmets on?
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I can't recall where I read this on AH, but the inner poly carbonate helmet filtered a small part of visible light, as did the outer visor on the helmet. The final visor - gold coloured - completely stopped stars from being visible. On the shuttle, the command module, Gemini or mercury capsules, the windows would also be filtering out some of the visible light. Is it correct that for launch, the occupants are all suited with helmets on?
Can't answer your latter question but in regard to the gold visor they were supposed to keep it down for any EVA operations in sunlight. Partly that was just for comfort - just like wearing sunglasses down here on terra. The Sun was not visibly brighter, but it sure would have looked dazzling and totally weird being up there in a dark sky, combined with the entire brightly lit landscape.. It was more for their safety - the Sun was significantly brighter in frequencies above and below the visible spectrum. That 'nasty' stuff can do permanent damage, given enough time.
But it was really up to the astronauts and they would swing it up when they occasionally worked in the shadows. I think Buzz was busted in at least one of the A11 EVA pictures having his gold visor up when he really shoulda had it down - I also seem to recall him (or someone in a later mission?) getting a gentle reminder about it from Capcom...
I forget to wear my sunnies too, sometimes.. and in that environment who would blame them for getting a little excited and forgetting/delaying one of the less life-threatening recommendations.
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At least a couple of the Apollo astronauts did take the time and trouble to arrange sufficient dark adaptation to see stars from the lunar surface. I don't have time to dig up the references at the moment, but IIRC there is >= 1 in ALSJ, and I believe Jay also asked Edgar Mitchell about it. It's in the record, just as are plenty of reports from Apollo crew of star sightings in flight in appropriate circumstances.
Really, Allan, are you going to cling to your initial statement, or are you going to consider that your understanding of the topic might be flawed? Just as with the "no mention of VAB exposure planning" (paraphrasing) claim in your Apollo 13 thread, how will you ever learn anything if you refuse to reconsider your claims when errors are pointed out to you?
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I don't think there was a big safety issue in keeping the gold visor up. Jack Schmitt had it raised much of the time (despite occasional scoldings from Houston) simply because it had gotten so badly scratched that he couldn't see through it.
The gold visor was not needed to protect against UV. The polycarbonate (Lexan) pressure helmet was already pretty much opaque to that. Gold is very good at reflecting infrared (that's why it looks yellow) so other than preserving their night vision (so they could see stars? :-)) I think the astronauts kept it down simply to reduce the solar heat loading on their PLSSes, and hence cooling water consumption -- a critical consumable.
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At least a couple of the Apollo astronauts did take the time and trouble to arrange sufficient dark adaptation to see stars from the lunar surface.
Yep.. I was sorta hoping Allan might dig around enough to discover that for himself, and that's why I talked about just how much effort they would need to put in to do it to the extent necessary to get a view that was even just as good as a typical night on Earth...
Given the difficulties inherent in completely shielding themselves from stray light, the lengthy time required to sufficiently dark adapt, and the simple fact that even if they were, say, 90% successful they would have still only been able to see nothing different or better than a moonless clear night on earth, all makes it very obvious that any attempt to see stars would be one they would not spend much time or effort on.
And of course all of this again re-inforces the fact that it is a complex topic and trying to imply that one astronaut's comment about what he did or didn't see (especially when deliberately taken out of context, as Allan has been shown to do) is in some way evidence of a hoax, is completely and utterly laughable.
Actually, it is worse than that - it is hard to see it as anything other than a deliberate and wilful attempt at misinformation. But the fact that this doesn't get any mileage here or at any serious forum is a redeeming factor...
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By the laws of physics and simple common sense, these people are lying. I ask, Why?
Allancw is baaaack.
This like saying "By the power of Greyskull!". Has the same effect when issued in the usual quarters.
Imaging I know nothing of physics, it ain't hard cos I don't , hold my hand through an explanation with some info I can check.
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The Apollo Experience Report titled Development of the Extravehicular Mobility Unit has the optical data for the visors on page 20:
The pressure helmet had a UV transmittance of 0.18, and an inside and outside reflectance of 0.14.
The impact protective visor (inside the gold sun visor) had a UV transmittance of 0.00, an inside reflectance of 0.13 and an outside reflectance of 0.07.
The sun (gold) visor had a UV transmittance of 0.01, and inside and outside reflectances of 0.08.
So I remembered incorrectly that the Lexan pressure helmet by itself was opaque to UV, but I was correct that the gold visor was not needed to stop it (even though it's nearly opaque to UV) because the impact protective visor alone will do the job.
And in the near infrared, which we can't see but is where the sun radiates almost half its power, the sun visor transmitted only 12%, the impact visor 37% and the pressure helmet 68%. By passing only 19% of the visible light, the sun visor also reduces heating by visible sunlight and lunar surface glare. So I was correct in remembering that the sun visor significantly reduced the amount of direct and reflected solar heating of the astronaut's face and the inside of the suit.
Also, all three layers had zero transmittance in the far infrared, where the lunar surface re-radiates its heat. Their emittances are interesting in that they differ in the inward and outward directions. The pressure helmet is 0.93 in both directions, i.e., it appears black. The impact protective visor is 0.10 inside and 0.95 outside, and the sun visor is 0.06 inside and 0.94 outside. These small inward emittances appear to be designed to minimize radiation of the impact and sun visors' own heat onto the pressure helmet, heating it and the inside of the suit.
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Clearly, four recent NASA astronauts -- plus a bevy of Apollo boys -- claim outright that you cannot SEE stars from the vacuum of low earth orbit (or cislunar space re Apollo, same thing), which is clearly a LIE.
Complete misrepresentation...but I've come to expect that from you...
Let's start with that and leave the faked imagery for later.
Isn't that cute...HBer thinks he can somehow "control" the conversation...
The question has nothing to do with the usual BS that stars do not register on film.
So we can add photography to the list of things you simply DO NOT understand....thanks for clearing that up...
We are only talking about what these NASA people say they can SEE in space. By the laws of physics and simple common sense, these people are lying.
It's been explained to you...that you continue to deny it only makes you look like a credulous believer
I ask, Why?
Because YOU are willfully ignorant.
Allancw is baaaack.
If this is going to be "more of the same", then perhaps you should just go awaaaay.
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Can't answer your latter question but in regard to the gold visor they were supposed to keep it down for any EVA operations in sunlight. Partly that was just for comfort - just like wearing sunglasses down here on terra. The Sun was not visibly brighter, but it sure would have looked dazzling and totally weird being up there in a dark sky, combined with the entire brightly lit landscape.
And it's not as though people don't wear sunglasses on Earth on days where it's not all that bright, just because it's still brighter than they'd like.
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Yada Yada yada....
Allancw is baaaack.
This is what is know as a fringe reset.
For the uninitiated lurker or the future student working on a primary school thesis (I've seen how precocious Sci Fi kids are,) Ill describe the process. Regulars here know this all too well.
A fringe reset follows a general pattern. First a CTist get his bottom spanked and his face slapped after posting and failing to defend some cockeyed proposition. He skulks away to another forum to 1. argue the same nonsense, 2. argue different nonsense, or 3. where he can control the discussion. After some period of time, he is run off other forums and gets tired of talking to himself so he comes back to us to argue the same thing or some twist on the theme, pretending the past never happened and hoping everyone else will forget too.
Allan not only makes the fringe reset but seems to celebrate it as a joyous occasion. As if his return marks some special occasion. In fact it marks the first visit by a HBer in a good while and ultimately helps us in our goal of documenting turn of the 21st century Apollo hoax belief. I'll leave it to precocious future students, as an exercise, to classify Allan and his traits among the various HBs that have come our way.
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I believe Jay also asked Edgar Mitchell about it.
That is correct. He said he had to step into the shadow of the LM, tilt his head back as far as it would go in the helmet, and let his eyes dark-adapt -- then he could see stars from the lunar surface. Otherwise he said that if they were visible under normal working conditions, he didn't notice them.
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Let's keep it simple...
No, let's treat the question in its full context with all the important conditions and details left intact. Every time a hoax claimant tries to make this argument, he can do so only by trying to create simplistic expectations and false dilemmas that bear no resemblance to reality. The claims from NASA, its astronauts, and the disputers of the silly hoax claims are -- and have always been -- that the conditions of visibility vary so greatly during different space operations that no single "rule" dictates when stars will be seen.
Anything besides that is just a straw man.
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While the crickets continue chirping...
I thought I might check out Allan's claim to being a photographer of such skill that he could, you know, analyse stuff... So I popped over to his website as a first stop to see what he *claimed*... Well, I clicked the link (http://www.aweisbecker.com/dsp/_start.php) to his 'gallery/ies' to see his prowess... sadly, that page is very, very broken. What is even more embarrassing, it's broken in such a way that it shows the login name he was using, presumably when it all fell apart - the errors proudly proclaim that Access {is} Denied and then show that login..
:D
At least it doesn't show his password, I guess. To save you the trouble of going there, I've attached a quick screenshot of what it looks like, with little coloured boxes over the login name (I'm very kind..):
Anyway, I trust his photographic knowledge is better than those website skills - all I can judge is that one low-res badly processed shot of a particularly lethargic looking surfer.. and I'll refrain from telling you what I think, other than to say it reinforces what has already been said here.
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I think that you might have the wrong link. There is a photo "portfolio", but the images look like any other collection of personal snaps.
Mr. Weisbecker, do you have any links to your "13 page spread for the Smithsonian" please? A search for "Weisbecker" on the Smithsonian website produces a single hit which has nothing to do with you.....
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Which one of you said this:
What they couldn't do was see the stars if the Sun was in the same field of view. No different to being on earth...after all, do you see the stars in the daytime?
Anyone have a problem with this statement?
Here's a picture that perfectly illustrates the point:
(http://spaceweather.com/images2014/12may14/halo2.jpg?PHPSESSID=pdc2j66400h7gn14tq5jr08va0)
(OMG...someone's stolen all the stars!!! :o )
Of course, it'll be claimed (assuming that Mr. Weisbewcker decides to respond!) that the kids that launched the balloon (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Earth-to-Sky-Calculus/174490502634920) from which the image is taken are all paid Nasa shills....
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Everyone's a paid shill.
It's like the thing that most bugged me about Stargate by the end: they kept up the cover up. It was fine in the beginning, but by the time Atlantis rolls round, you've got half the Damn planet in on it. It made me wonder just who they're keeping it from by the end.
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I think that you might have the wrong link. There is a photo "portfolio", but the images look like any other collection of personal snaps.
Umm, I *supplied* the link (http://www.aweisbecker.com/dsp/_start.php) and the screenshot (...it's from aweisbecker.com). I suspect you went to his little self-publishing book company which I shall not respam for him - I went to Mr Weisbecker's actual website..
Mr. Weisbecker, do you have any links to your "13 page spread for the Smithsonian" please? A search for "Weisbecker" on the Smithsonian website produces a single hit which has nothing to do with you...
I too would like to see this. Especially when he is quoted as saying his work appears "frequently" therein.
Consider this another formal question, Allan Weisbecker - please cite two examples of your published works in the Smithsonian, or its 'magazine'... (I trust he doesn't mean he posted on their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/smithsonianmagazine) - that would be pretty hilarious..)
If you won't, then the implication might be somewhat ironic given the title of this thread...
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Umm, I *supplied* the link (http://www.aweisbecker.com/dsp/_start.php) and the screenshot (...it's from aweisbecker.com). I suspect you went to his little self-publishing book company which I shall not respam for him - I went to Mr Weisbecker's actual website..
Ahh, I see. yes..I did a rummage around to find his "portfolio", but I am loathe to link to it as I don't want to generate traffic.
I too would like to see this. Especially when he is quoted as saying his work appears "frequently" therein.
Consider this another formal question, Allan Weisbecker - please cite two examples of your published works in the Smithsonian, or its 'magazine'...
Sitting here with bated breath...... ::) ::)
I fear that we might have seen the last of Mr Weisbecker for a while though. He took the "La la la, I'm not listening" approach and disappeared the last time, despite the fanfare of this last poor effort of his.
Allancw is baaaack.
On a separate point, and given the lack of HB posts, is this the best that the HB "community" can put forward? Or have they retreated into their own little enclaves and no longer even want to try and support their fallacies?
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From what I've seen, either no one much believes in the Apollo hoax anymore or else no one much cares. I admit we don't get conspiracists of any stripe here very often these days, but even the few I know personally tend to think hoax belief is ridiculous.
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It appears allancw does not want to discuss or debate as I'm sure he realizes his position would only weaken if he did. An occasional post to bump his spam links is all he seems to want to do. At this point, I doubt he believes his own tripe..... it's all about money.
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From what I've seen, either no one much believes in the Apollo hoax anymore or else no one much cares. I admit we don't get conspiracists of any stripe here very often these days, but even the few I know personally tend to think hoax belief is ridiculous.
I am in the "no one much cares" camp. Apollo stuff just doesn't get much traction these days.
Its been argued to death. The Apollonian conspiratorially aware have mostly died out or moved on to more contemporary conspiracies. The few remaining ones have walled up to protect themselves from exposure to the embarrassment of being so out of fashion. But we still have Allan to kick around this week. Maybe some others will be back for an encore too, one of these days.
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Yesterday on N-TV they had a science segment and had the opinions of one Mr Gerhard Wisnewski. "Here we go again" I thought. Then, once he was done sprouting his nonsense they brought in the ESA and physics experts in. I have never felt so proud to be part of a media group that still praticed journalistic integrity.
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I did not know who Gerhard Wisnewski was, but I quickly learned that he's a German conspiracy theorist/"journalist" who seems to fit the "crank magnet" mold. Besides Apollo, he's also into 9/11 conspiracies, the whole lot.
I wonder if there is an English titled version of that program anywhere. It might be entertaining.
Along the lines of the news media's fetish for "balance" on even the most absurdly unbalanced factual questions, check out this recent bit by John Oliver re global warming denial. It's perfect.
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On a separate point, and given the lack of HB posts, is this the best that the HB "community" can put forward? Or have they retreated into their own little enclaves and no longer even want to try and support their fallacies?
I would like to believe that the majority of them (the casual ones?) have been so-often presented with an incessant barrage of indisputable science, plain commonsense and pure logic every time they raise their heads, that finally, some of it has actually gotten through their thick skulls into what passes for their brains.
Of course, there will always be the hard core idiots like Sibrel, Hunchbacked, that Swedish nitwit and "he-from-down-under-who-shall-not-be-named", who are probably so invested in believing their own lies that it would represent the most acute embarrassment and a serious loss of face were they to admit they are wrong. As a result, they no longer come to places like here and JREF, where their BS gets called for what it is by people who are experienced in the fields of space-science, astronomy, physics, photography, maths etc. Rather they only frequent the conspiratorial "yes man" forums like David Icke, Cluesforum, Above Top Secret and Godlike Productions, where they will find like-minded conspiritards only too willing to be devoted disciples who hang on their every word.
Its easy to be a big fish in a small pond, but it ain't so easy to be in the ocean.
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the conspiratorial "yes man" forums like David Icke, Cluesforum, Above Top Secret and Godlike Productions
You're right. As wrong-headed as HB's like Allan are, it's much preferable that they come here and engage with the people on this site, have their beliefs challenged and maybe even learn something, than spend time in hellish echo chambers like the sites you mention, endlessly feeding each others paranoia and preening arrogance. All those environments encourage is the sort of mindset that believes it is perfectly acceptable to 'phone up bereaved parents, accuse them of being 'crisis actors', tell them that their daughter never existed and that the incident in which she died was a false flag hoax.
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This post is based on my video at
Clearly, four recent NASA astronauts -- plus a bevy of Apollo boys -- claim outright that you cannot SEE stars from the vacuum of low earth orbit (or cislunar space re Apollo, same thing), which is clearly a LIE. Let's start with that and leave the faked imagery for later.
The question has nothing to do with the usual BS that stars do not register on film. We are only talking about what these NASA people say they can SEE in space. By the laws of physics and simple common sense, these people are lying. I ask, Why?
Allancw is baaaack.
Hmm - just found this quote from Apollo 11:
071:59:20 Armstrong: Houston, it's been a real change for us. Now we're able to see stars again and recognize constellations for the first time on the trip. It's - the sky is full of stars. Just like the night side of Earth. But all the way here, we've only been able to see stars occasionally and perhaps through the monocular, but not recognize any star patterns.
How about that? The astronauts actually could see stars from space.
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Yes, it's so, so strange that allancw didn't provide the actual quotes and context - the only reason I can think of is to deliberately mislead people - and surely that couldn't be the case?
Just in my opinion of course.. it is the true mark of a decent, thinking person to:
- ask questions about things they may not fully understand (instead of blithely asserting something or calling people liars, only to then discover it was their own lack of knowledge that was the problem..)
- politely engage in discussion and answer ontopic questions (even when they begin to realise that those questions will reveal that lack of knowledge)
- admit their errors (rather than cowardly change the subject) - it is *only* after you admit errors/lack of knowledge that you can learn those new things..
- bravely admit when they were wrong and apologise for any insults they may have used (like calling people liars) once it finally becomes clear to them that their entire argument was fatally flawed.
Again in my humble opinion - if you have stopped learning, you may as well call it a day - your useful life has ended.. no matter how much 'fun' you can get from hanging around people who are even more gullible and less-informed than you are.. (I refer to the video link posted on Allan C Weisbecker's 'Apollo 13' thread..) And if you also can't admit when you get it badly wrong nor apologise to those who corrected you and those you called liars, then... well, the readers will judge what sort of person that is.
It's your choice of course, Allancw.. what sort of person are you?
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From what I've seen, either no one much believes in the Apollo hoax anymore or else no one much cares. I admit we don't get conspiracists of any stripe here very often these days, but even the few I know personally tend to think hoax belief is ridiculous.
I think that LRO's clear imaging of Apollo landing artifacts on the Moon pretty much was the coup de grace for most casual HBs - i.e., those whose identities weren't wrapped up in denying this particular part of reality. Sadly, Allan seems to be too emotionally invested in disbelieving Apollo to be able to acknowledge errors and learn about the subject.
It's rather like David C/rocky/cosmored/etc., whose belief system won't even permit him to consider that somebody might honestly disagree with him - not that they are right; he literally can't conceive that anyone who doesn't buy his claims could be honestly wrong. It's a sad, cramped, paranoid little world such THBs (True Hoax Believers) inhabit.
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Forgive me for this slightly/almost/off/ontopic contribution. But I'm excited to have finally got an Iridium flare pic (less than an hour ago - woohooo!), and hopefully this might show I have at least a little expertise with photographing stars and stuff...
Sony α57 DSLR with 18-55 kit lens, 30 seconds @ f5.6, ISO 200, on tripod using 2-second delay. This crop is reduced to about a quarter of original size and cropped very slightly. It's had a minor contrast adjustment but has not been noise-processed or enhanced in any other way, so it's barely out of the developing tank... I think many here will recognise the background stars, and thereby also understand why only some of them show noticeable trails... :D The flare was a -8.1, by the way - I drove about 60km to get right under it..
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Very nice. I like the resulting composition. That's one of the most visually pleasing flare photos I've ever seen.
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Nice iridium flare image!
It does make me chuckle a bit when you hear HBs banging on about stars appearing on photos. it's clear that the vast majority of them have never tried to take images of the sky. if they did, then they'd realise just how blooming hard it is!
The other thing that stands out is when jokers like Weisbecker think that a smattering (or even a lot) of terrestrial daytime photography knowledge makes them experts in night-time photography. It doesn't. In fact, such knowledge tends to be a hindrance as the two disciplines are so very different. To get any sort of detail in night-time astro-images can take many hours of exposure.
This image that I am working on has over 8 hours exposure in it, and it probably needs another 4-5
(http://astrob.in/94076/0/rawthumb/gallery/get.jpg) (http://astrob.in/94076/0/)
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Nice iridium flare image!
Thanks - nice deep sky image!! I'm afraid I'll never get to that level of astrophotography - my eyes glaze over when you say it takes hours - I'm into the highest form of efficiency, which is of course .. laziness!
I'll let you dedicated guys take the really hard stuff.. :D
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Forgive me for this slightly/almost/off/ontopic contribution. But I'm excited to have finally got an Iridium flare pic (less than an hour ago - woohooo!), and hopefully this might show I have at least a little expertise with photographing stars and stuff...
Well, it looks as if we're not going to get any sensible and courteous replies from AllanCW, so we might as well discuss something else.
Nice shot. I've seen heaps of Iridium flares -- quite a few just by accident. The first time I looked for a -8 flare it was heavily overcast, but I still watched and didn't see the satellite, but briefly saw a beam of light coming through the clouds a bit below the right location.
Looking closely at your photo and taking some rough measurements, there's a little dot in it which might just be the bright centre of the magnificent Omega Centauri globular cluster.
Here's a closer look at Astronomy Picture of the Day:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100331.html
And, while not quite as pretty, this darker exposure gives a bit better idea of the 10 million stars in it:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110615.html
In both cases, click on the captioned photo to see a bigger copy.
Omega Centauri is usually a naked-eye sight from the back of my house, but tonight the moon is too bright and the sky a little hazy so I couldn't see it after about a minute outside. Under better conditions I can usually dark-adapt sufficiently to see it about 12-18 seconds after getting outside from a normally-lit room.
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Looking closely at your photo and taking some rough measurements, there's a little dot in it which might just be the bright centre of the magnificent Omega Centauri globular cluster.
Yep, it's the right part of the sky:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/Gadfium/Forum%20Uploads/751669_zps46da24bd.jpg~original)
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It does make me chuckle a bit when you hear HBs banging on about stars appearing on photos. it's clear that the vast majority of them have never tried to take images of the sky... when jokers like Weisbecker think that a smattering (or even a lot) of terrestrial daytime photography knowledge makes them experts in night-time photography. It doesn't. In fact, such knowledge tends to be a hindrance as the two disciplines are so very different. To get any sort of detail in night-time astro-images can take many hours of exposure.
This image that I am working on has over 8 hours exposure in it, and it probably needs another 4-5
(http://astrob.in/94076/0/rawthumb/gallery/get.jpg) (http://astrob.in/94076/0/)
You must be a saint to have the patience to work at that. I prefer to look at other people's photos instead of taking my own, even though I live in a near-dark sky area under all the southern hemisphere goodies.
My astronomy program and books don't go as deep as the objects in your photo, so I'm wondering what the dark orange object at 3 o'clock from NGC 3718 is. If you doubled the radius of the green circle around NGC 3718 in the smaller copy, it would probably reach the object.
Is it a more distant edge-on galaxy, or an aberration? And what exactly is the fuzzy white pair at 11 o'clock from that object?
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You must be a saint to have the patience to work at that. I prefer to look at other people's photos instead of taking my own, even though I live in a near-dark sky area under all the southern hemisphere goodies.
My astronomy program and books don't go as deep as the objects in your photo, so I'm wondering what the dark orange object at 3 o'clock from NGC 3718 is. If you doubled the radius of the green circle around NGC 3718 in the smaller copy, it would probably reach the object.
Is it a more distant edge-on galaxy, or an aberration? And what exactly is the fuzzy white pair at 11 o'clock from that object?
Thanks very much. A big part of the data acquisition is automated...my observatory is controlled from inside my house. Once it's all up and running then it's just a monitoring job. The hard work is in the post processing...there can be as many hours put into processing the data as acquiring it.
The objects to the right of NGC3718 is the Hickson 56 group (http://www.kopernik.org/images/archive/hick56.htm), which lies about 400 million light years from us.
Regarding the "fuzzy white object" is that the galaxy in the lower part of the image (NGC 3729)? Thats another galaxy that is gravitationally interacting with NGC3718. Or do you mean the blob that lies "below" the Hickson group? if so, then thats the snappily named galaxy SDSS 588013384351678583
The most distant object that I've found in the image is SDSS 587732136993816762 which is over 1.1 billion light years distant. Not too bad for a bloke in cloudy Lancashire with an 80mm refractor in his back yard. If you're interested then you can see more of my image here (http://www.stephenjennette.com)
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Omega Centauri is usually a naked-eye sight from the back of my house, but tonight the moon is too bright and the sky a little hazy so I couldn't see it after about a minute outside. Under better conditions I can usually dark-adapt sufficiently to see it about 12-18 seconds after getting outside from a normally-lit room.
My guide for finding Omega Centauri is to
1 locate the tail star of the Crux
2.locate the outer of the two "pointers"
3. Imagine them to the Base of an equilateral triangle with its Apex to the north
4. You will find Omega Cen there Apex of that triangle would be.
Works every time! :D
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Rather they only frequent the conspiratorial "yes man" forums like David Icke, Cluesforum, Above Top Secret and Godlike Productions, where they will find like-minded conspiritards only too willing to be devoted disciples who hang on their every word.
Ugh. Thanks, Smartcooky. Thanks a lot. Not being familiar with all of those places you mentioned, especially cluesforum, I decided to go take a look at them the other day. I've had a splitting headache and a case of nausea ever since. The ignorance that runs rampant on those forums is unbelievable.
I just don't understand some people.
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Ugh. Thanks, Smartcooky. Thanks a lot. Not being familiar with all of those places you mentioned, especially cluesforum, I decided to go take a look at them the other day. I've had a splitting headache and a case of nausea ever since. The ignorance that runs rampant on those forums is unbelievable.
I just don't understand some people.
*gets Morgul a fluffy blanket, a happy puppy or kitten and a nice warm cup of tea* Welcome to the Internet, I am sorry you had to experience that. :P
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Rather they only frequent the conspiratorial "yes man" forums like David Icke, Cluesforum, Above Top Secret and Godlike Productions, where they will find like-minded conspiritards only too willing to be devoted disciples who hang on their every word.
Ugh. Thanks, Smartcooky. Thanks a lot. Not being familiar with all of those places you mentioned, especially cluesforum, I decided to go take a look at them the other day. I've had a splitting headache and a case of nausea ever since. The ignorance that runs rampant on those forums is unbelievable.
I just don't understand some people.
"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy!"
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I was re-reading Heinlein's Have Space Suit - Will Travel the other day (yes, it's a juvie; wanna make something of it? ;)) and came across an interesting passage.
The speaker is a young man rather lost on the lunar surface, trying to orient himself by the stars.
"They say you can see stars from the Moon even when the Sun is in the sky. Well, you can - but not easily. I had the Sun over my shoulder but was facing Earth, almost three-quarters full, and had the dazzling ground glare as well. The polarizer cut the glare - and cut out the stars, too."
Pretty close, for sci-fi published in 1958.
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A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke also explicitly mentions and gives the reasons for the difficulties, as well as the common conception they should be there.
"The public expected to see stars in the lunar sky even during the daytime, because they were there. But the fact was that the human eye could not normally see them; during the day, the eye was so desensitized by the glare that the sky appeared an empty, absolute black. If you wanted to see the stars, you had to look for them through blinkers that cut off all other light; then
your pupils would slowly expand, and one by one the stars would come out until they filled the
field of view. But as soon as you looked at anything else--”phut”, out they went. The human eye
could look at the daylight stars, or the daylight landscape; it could never see both at once."
Not bad for 1961.
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Pretty close, for sci-fi published in 1958.
Yeah, but NASA was formed in 1958 so CLEARLY Heinlein was one of the first on the payroll. ::) ??? :o
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"They say you can see stars from the Moon even when the Sun is in the sky. Well, you can - but not easily. I had the Sun over my shoulder but was facing Earth, almost three-quarters full, and had the dazzling ground glare as well. The polarizer cut the glare - and cut out the stars, too."
Pretty close, for sci-fi published in 1958.
{warning - silly technical quibble follows ;)}
Polarising, by nature, only works at a limited range of glare reflection angles, plus it doesn't reduce glare by more than an f-stop or 3 - not very significant when we are talking about the difference in eye adaptation for stars versus a brightly sunlit landscape-or-anything-else-in-the-f-o-v. If by 'over his shoulder' he means his back was to a low-ish Sun then there would be little polarising effect anyways - it works best at 90 degrees-ish to the lightsource (unless heiligenschein is polarised, and I can't think why it would be....).
However, perhaps he was referring to a crossed-polariser method of reducing light levels, in which case I withdraw the quibble.
This, and Clarke's later effort, are admirable predictions nevertheless. :)
I am now wondering at what point we can refer to Allan's post as a fine splat example of seagullery?
Allancw/Allan C Weisbecker, are you there?? You got some 'splaining to do..
tap, tap, tap.. is this thing on?
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All the hallmarks of a seagull poster.
he's not been on the board for a number of days now.
(http://imageshack.com/a/img838/2971/dmkag.jpg)
Another wilfully ignorant fool. Why are some people so afraid to learn new stuff????
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Because it means giving up their lives as they know it. They have to dress differently, drive different cars, move to a respectable part of town, change friends. It's just not that easy I tells you.
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Allancw is baaaack.
Funny. He didn't even get that part right.
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All the hallmarks of a seagull poster.
he's not been on the board for a number of days now.
Another wilfully ignorant fool. Why are some people so afraid to learn new stuff????
Because it impacts on their worldview; often-times, its a worldview that they cannot bring themselves to give up because so much of their self-esteem is invested in it. They simply cannot bring themselves to learn new stuff that might show their conspiracy is ill-founded, because of the fear that their world-view will be shown to be the house of cards that it is, and that it will collapse, bringing them down with it.
I am convinced that the majority of conspiracy theorists (and I'm not talking about the casual ones here, but the ones who have an obviously paranoid obsession such as "he who shall not be named") suffer from some pretty severe psychological problems. They seem to share a lot of characteristics; low self-esteem, an underlying distrust of authority, a cynical view of politics, argumentative and difficult to get on with.
These traits tend to support the idea that they mostly have a “monological belief system,”, the basis of which is that all events the world over can be explained by a web of government and big-business conspiracies.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-believe-conspiracy-theoies/
http://conspiracypsychology.com/2013/01/17/alex-jones-and-the-monological-belief-system/
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Because it impacts on their worldview; often-times, its a worldview that they cannot bring themselves to give up because so much of their self-esteem is invested in it. They simply cannot bring themselves to learn new stuff that might show their conspiracy is ill-founded, because of the fear that their world-view will be shown to be the house of cards that it is, and that it will collapse, bringing them down with it.
I'm sure that the irony is completely lost on them....after all, they are always banging on about "closed minds" when in reality they have the most closed, blinkered minds in town. That Mr Weisbecker for a start. Look at his Apollo 13 thread where he "guaranteed" that no documents existed that could contradict his view. In a very short space of time he was presented with copious, contemporaneous documents that did just that. Yet he point-blank refused to even acknowledge them. Similarly with this thread. He rapidly saw which way it was going and he hot-tailed it out of here.
I'd normally say that this mindset is more to be pitied than laughed at, but I struggle to understand why someone would be so wilfully ignorant and entrenched that they cannot even consider learning. As someone else has pointed out, once you stop being able to learn you really are at a dead-end.
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In addition to the valid reasons given, people don't want to learn because learning is hard. Learning something that is correct and complete often requires one to learn something that is difficult and boring. Conspiracy theories are neither difficult nor boring. So they would rather learn them instead. In other words, conspiracism is a shortcut to the illusion of erudition.
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... conspiracism is a shortcut to the illusion of erudition.
Oooh, I like that!!
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"They say you can see stars from the Moon even when the Sun is in the sky. Well, you can - but not easily. I had the Sun over my shoulder but was facing Earth, almost three-quarters full, and had the dazzling ground glare as well. The polarizer cut the glare - and cut out the stars, too."
Pretty close, for sci-fi published in 1958.
{warning - silly technical quibble follows ;)}
Polarising, by nature, only works at a limited range of glare reflection angles, plus it doesn't reduce glare by more than an f-stop or 3 - not very significant when we are talking about the difference in eye adaptation for stars versus a brightly sunlit landscape-or-anything-else-in-the-f-o-v. If by 'over his shoulder' he means his back was to a low-ish Sun then there would be little polarising effect anyways - it works best at 90 degrees-ish to the lightsource (unless heiligenschein is polarised, and I can't think why it would be....).
However, perhaps he was referring to a crossed-polariser method of reducing light levels, in which case I withdraw the quibble.
This, and Clarke's later effort, are admirable predictions nevertheless. :)
My impression was that he was talking about some sort of automatic cross-polarizing system, with an effect something like a high-speed photochromatic lens.
Like most sci-fi writers of the 50s, he got some things right, but a lot of things wrong, too... he projected breathing an oxy-helium mix at 4 psi "to prevent the bends" (which doesn't explain how you avoid them without pre-oxygenating), and basically free flow breathing to provide cooling, something like the emergency mode for the OPS.
Still, he clearly understood the difficulty of seeing dim points of light when there are bright light sources all around, which a lot of people evidently STILL don't.
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... conspiracism is a shortcut to the illusion of erudition.
Oooh, I like that!!
It's also the title of the Asylum films take on the Road to Perdition.
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PMSL...he now reckons that the Hubble is fake
What a boy!
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Didn't Heiwa think the same thing?
Presumably Solon did, too.
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Didn't Heiwa think the same thing?
Presumably Solon did, too.
It's crank magnetism (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Crank_magnetism) at it's worst.
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I am not sure which is funnier, crank magnetism or crank factionalism, where the cranks declare blood feuds over differing versions of their 'theories'.
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Presumably Solon did, too.
Solon seemed to think everything that saw stars had "gratings", exotic optics and sensors, etc. A big part of his "theory" was that only these super-complex devices ever saw stars. Them being fake would undermine that. Though it wouldn't be the first idea he latched onto with that problem...
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Ah yes, I'd forgotten about the gratings.
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In addition to the valid reasons given, people don't want to learn because learning is hard.
I think it's a little different. Sure, some people learn more easily than others but learning anything worthwhile can be a lot of hard work even for the smartest.
But I think there's something even more important than intelligence: motivation. Some people find learning intrinsically rewarding while others do not. I don't understand why there's such a difference but it seems to be real.
I've heard more than one Nobel laureate talk about how lucky they felt to have retained their childhood curiosity into adulthood. I think they're right; children are born to be scientists but we seem to beat it out of most of them.
Reminds me of one of my favorite movie exchanges:
Klaatu: You have faith, Professor.
Prof. Barnhardt: It isn't faith that makes a good scientist, Mr. Klaatu. It's curiosity.
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Not bad for 1961.
Well, sure. IMHO the best science fiction has always involved straightforward extrapolations of known science.
We didn't have to go to the moon to discover that you can't see stars in the daytime by naked eye. You only had to apply long-known physics and physiology to the question. Oh, and you have to know what questions to ask in the first place.
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Since we are mining older SF that got it right, here is Arthur Clarke's Earthlight (1955), p6-7.
The protagonist is travelling westward by lunar monorail when....
"There, marching across the sky in flaming glory, were the peaks of the Apennines, incandescent in the last rays of the hidden sun. The abrupt explosion of light left Sadler almost blinded; he shielded his eyes from the glare, and waited until be could safely face it again. When he looked once more the transformation was complete. the stars, which until a moment ago had filled the sky, had vanished. His contracted pupils could no longer see them..."
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Since we are mining older SF that got it right, here is Arthur Clarke's Earthlight (1955), p6-7.
And a damn good story that one. Always thought it would make a great spy movie!
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Since we are mining older SF that got it right, here is Arthur Clarke's Earthlight (1955), p6-7.
And a damn good story that one. Always thought it would make a great spy movie!
Re-reading at present, it's amazing how much he got right. It still works as a story and the theme of off-Earth resources is very contemporary.
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Yet Clarke, like so many others, got it wrong when he said that the protagonist's contracted pupils kept him from seeing the stars.
The iris has a very limited dynamic range. Most of the eye's dynamic range is in the retina, which changes its "film speed" depending on how much light strikes it. When you go into the dark your pupils dilate within seconds or even less (at least if you're young) but it takes tens of minutes for your retinas to replenish light-depleted pigments and become dark-adapted.
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It can make the difference between seeing stars and not seeing stars if your eyes are already partially dark adapted, such as if you are inside a room with the lights at night, and you go up to the window, blocking the room lights from view. I know I've seen stars under such circumstances.
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If I can throw in some w-a-g figures (haven't googled, happy to hear more accurate numbers!), I'd take a stab that the contraction/dilation of the pupil gives around 5-6 f-stops worth, that when added to the retinas natural *instantaneous* range will give a total of about 9-12 f-stops range for normal, single scene viewing.
But if you then add the time for chemical adjustment - eg night adaptation and vice versa - I'm pretty sure it's up around 22 - 24 stops overall dynamic range. Obviously that figure does not apply to a single scene, but covers the sort of range it has in total, given time to adjust and provided no stray light affects the adaptation (which is the problem on the Moon).
Interestingly, although it's impossible to compare eyes to cameras in a fair way, a good quality DSLR will also give about 9-12 stops of dynamic range for a given single scene.. and of course you can then tweak it and do various 'cheats' (change ISO and use Dark Frame Subtraction, use very large aperture lenses, use High Dynamic Range or Dynamic Range Optimisation, etc to also cover well over 22 stops ..
Smaller sensor cameras may only be closer to half that.
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Yet Clarke, like so many others, got it wrong when he said that the protagonist's contracted pupils kept him from seeing the stars.
The iris has a very limited dynamic range. Most of the eye's dynamic range is in the retina, which changes its "film speed" depending on how much light strikes it. When you go into the dark your pupils dilate within seconds or even less (at least if you're young) but it takes tens of minutes for your retinas to replenish light-depleted pigments and become dark-adapted.
It might not have been wrong based on what was known at the time
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I think it's been known a very long time. Simple observation of the pupil of the eye shows that it has both a very limited range and a fairly fast response time, neither of which explain the wide dynamic range of the eye and the time it takes to dark-adapt to get that full range.
Furthermore, you lose the ability to dilate your eyes as you get older, just as you lose the ability to focus the lens. Certain drugs also stop down the iris, such as opiates. Yet your vision still maintains a pretty wide dynamic range.
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I wonder if some of the difficulty in describing the dynamic range of the eye is because it is not a simple system. I remember reading that the rods are concentrated in the center, the cones more present in the periphery, suggesting that different parts of the instantaneous field of vision have different sensitivities. But in the complete system, your eyes are rapidly scanning, presenting different parts of the retina to each part of the scene being imaged (and reconstructed piecemeal by the brain while doing so).
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I remember reading that the rods are concentrated in the center, the cones more present in the periphery
It's the other way around - rods on the periphery and cones in the center. Since rods are responsible for night vision, a person can seen fainter objects (such as when looking through a telescope) when using his/her peripheral vision.
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I think it's been known a very long time. Simple observation of the pupil of the eye shows that it has both a very limited range and a fairly fast response time, neither of which explain the wide dynamic range of the eye and the time it takes to dark-adapt to get that full range.
Furthermore, you lose the ability to dilate your eyes as you get older, just as you lose the ability to focus the lens. Certain drugs also stop down the iris, such as opiates. Yet your vision still maintains a pretty wide dynamic range.
It wasn't covered when I did vision physiology as a biology student in the late 70s, 30 years after Clarke wrote his book.
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I remember reading that the rods are concentrated in the center, the cones more present in the periphery
It's the other way around - rods on the periphery and cones in the center. Since rods are responsible for night vision, a person can seen fainter objects (such as when looking through a telescope) when using his/her peripheral vision.
Yah, I knew about the averted vision. But I can never seem to remember which one is the rod and which is the cone.
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I remember reading that the rods are concentrated in the center, the cones more present in the periphery
It's the other way around - rods on the periphery and cones in the center. Since rods are responsible for night vision, a person can seen fainter objects (such as when looking through a telescope) when using his/her peripheral vision.
Yah, I knew about the averted vision. But I can never seem to remember which one is the rod and which is the cone.
Another reason that averted vision works is that the further from the center of the eye the rods are, a single nerve pathway to the brain covers more and more rods. The arrangement provides a more sensitive threshold for seeing at the expense of detail.
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Yah, I knew about the averted vision. But I can never seem to remember which one is the rod and which is the cone.
A biology teacher told us to think about which one you'd rather have in hand when you are in dark. OK, that works better in Finnish, where the translations are more like "staff" and "peg", respectively.
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Cones are for Colour vision...
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I am starting to get concerned about the wellbeing of of our fiesty OP? He promised us he was back, but there has been nary a peep since. Oh I do hope misfortune hasnt befallen him as I was ready to hear his convincing arguments about an alleged hoax...
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I am starting to get concerned about the wellbeing of of our fiesty OP? He promised us he was back, but there has been nary a peep since. Oh I do hope misfortune hasnt befallen him as I was ready to hear his convincing arguments about an alleged hoax...
Drive By Spam!
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(http://i1336.photobucket.com/albums/o657/Andromeda_Apollo/imagejpg1_zps1210e90e.jpg)[/URL]
Oh, in shoals of them, think that was obvious from day one. Do you get shoals of sea birds? Or is it flocks, what about sea birds that dive under water to get at the fish, would they be a flock above the water and a shoal underneath? ;)
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Cones are for Colour vision...
They are not.
They are for ice cream.....
OK. On my way out in shame.
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Yep...classic seagull poster...flaps in schreeching and dropping guano everywhere. Then drops out without any acknowledgement of his errors.
he's still over on YouTube trying to make out that the Hubble images are all fake. Sheesh...I wonder how nutcases like Weisbecker gets through life. Do they get confused over cartoons and wonder why the coyote manages to survive huge rocks dropping on his head?
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They get through life by avoiding where they will be accountable to people with real knowledge on a stage where they can be shown to be in error. They know this.
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I rather like actual seagulls, though even in my liking I admit the description is fairly apt.
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Do you live near the coast, Raven?
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Yes, I do. The keening laugh of seagulls is one of the joys of living on the West Coast. :)
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I am starting to get concerned about the wellbeing of of our fiesty OP?... Oh I do hope misfortune hasnt befallen him
Well there is always the possibilty he applied his wilful ignorance to the real world and got run over when he "protested" against the reality of traffic lights...
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Do you live near the coast, Raven?
Yes, I do. The keening laugh of seagulls is one of the joys of living on the West Coast. :)
Strangely, I live on the USA East Coast, a good 300 miles inland, and we still have flocks of seagulls - evidently they range quite far up the larger rivers.
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That's not the answer I expected, Raven - everyone else I have heard say they like seagulls are people who don't have to live near them! ;D
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I wonder how nutcases like Weisbecker gets through life. Do they get confused over cartoons and wonder why the coyote manages to survive huge rocks dropping on his head?
Of course not. Like any other nutcase, he realises that is all fake; a conspiracy perpetrated by "Acme" as a promotional tool for its wide range of products.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98915197/ApolloHoax/ACME.png)
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Strangely, I live on the USA East Coast, a good 300 miles inland, and we still have flocks of seagulls - evidently they range quite far up the larger rivers.
We've got the "rats of the sky" here in the Michigan/Indiana area, too.
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Every dump I've been to, no matter how far inland, they are there.
That's not the answer I expected, Raven - everyone else I have heard say they like seagulls are people who don't have to live near them! ;D
Oh, they can make a mess, but they are graceful fliers, quite beautiful and rather intelligent.
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My thoughts exactly. In fact, I considered linking a Sam video.
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Every dump I've been to, no matter how far inland, they are there.
That's not the answer I expected, Raven - everyone else I have heard say they like seagulls are people who don't have to live near them! ;D
Oh, they can make a mess, but they are graceful fliers, quite beautiful and rather intelligent.
I spent one day in Ilfracombe last week. I don't like seagulls either. Look what they did to my car!
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Yes, they do do that. ;D Never leave the top down on a convertible in seagull country! :o
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Utah's state bird is the California seagull, and we have tons of them despite being hundreds of miles away from California. They have a hallowed place in Mormon history, so we endure them. I think we're the only state that has an official state firearm as well -- the Browning .45 cal. automatic. Any connection is probably unintentional.
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I wouldn't be completely sure--or at any rate, you won't be as soon as someone mentions it in Texas. Though I've long loved that the official state sport of Maryland is jousting.
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Utah's state bird is the California seagull, and we have tons of them despite being hundreds of miles away from California. They have a hallowed place in Mormon history, so we endure them. I think we're the only state that has an official state firearm as well -- the Browning .45 cal. automatic. Any connection is probably unintentional.
I had to look it up, and, apparently, there is at other states that have done likewise. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_firearms)
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Is it really necessary to have so many official things? The New York legislature was debating what should the state snack and few months ago. I mean seriously.
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No idea, but it seems to be a pretty new thing, with all the legislation passing in the New Teens, the Tens, or whatever we call this decade.
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We in Texas are free from the tyranny of a state mandated firearm. However, there is a state mandate for almost everything else these days.
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As of July 30th, we now have one in Alaska: the pre-1964 Winchester Model 70 bolt-action rifle. Now I'm kind of sorry I sold mine.
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Ha, I recently found an old copy of the one usable image we were able to get out of a +X camera we put on our materials science satellite for no good reason that I recall. Sunlit Orbiter, somewhat overexposed, and... no stars. It's a cruddy image, admittedly, but according to HB narrative should still show a mess of stars.
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Rosetta's lander took a picture of the spacecraft and comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2014/09/Rosetta_mission_selfie_at_comet
Interestingly, this is made from two images with different exposures to "bring out the faint detail".
No stars.