ApolloHoax.net
Apollo Discussions => The Hoax Theory => Topic started by: onebigmonkey on August 16, 2014, 10:06:43 AM
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I've been having some fun with Chandrayaan images recently picking out features in Apollo 15 images that can't be seen on Lunar Orbiter pre-Apollo views (see http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa15a.html)
I decided to turn my attention to other landing sites and managed to do this for Apollo 14:
(http://i59.tinypic.com/wiol1j.jpg)
The first image in the gif sequence is Lunar Orbiter, then Chandrayaan, then finally LRO.
Frankly I am suspicious that I am suffering from a severe case of pareidolia, an I'd like other people to repeat the exercise.
I downloaded the raw image for the file covering Apollo 14 from Chandrayaan's long term data archive:
http://www.issdc.gov.in/CHBrowse/jsp/include/search.jsp?search=normal
You need to register to see the menus.
The orbit in question is number 757, reference number TMC_NRN_20090110T154836362.
If you have registered you can request the high resolution raw image (1.1 Gb), which becomes a 5Gb IMG file.
Their site supplies the software to view the file, but it is shaky to say the least - you may know better software to use.
I extracted the file, then saved the relevant area of it so that Photoshop could see it. It needed flipping horizontally and converting down to 16 bit. I then changed the dpi to 600, adjusted the levels and applied some sharpening.
I am in the process of uploading the relevant image and software to my dropbox if anyone doesn't want to register with them thy ask for a lot of personal details) - I'll post the link when the files are ready.
Any thoughts?
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An interesting find. It's possible that the dark line is caused by the tracks, and the darkened area is right where Apollo 14 would be. It's difficult to come to any definite conclusion though.
Have you done any other studies comparing other sites? I did this one a while ago comparing Apollo 15 as viewed from Chandrayaan, Selene and LRO.
(http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r81/headlikearock/Apollo%2015/A15_landing_site_compare.jpg) (http://s142.photobucket.com/user/headlikearock/media/Apollo%2015/A15_landing_site_compare.jpg.html)
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I've seen that one of yours and I commend you on your eyesight!
I believe Chandrayaan does definitely cover Apollo 12 and Apollo 15 in more detail, but the files either aren't shown on their browser or they are shown but not given a link. I did email them asking if the Apollo 15 one was publicly available (seeing as it's been used in conference presentations showing the rille) but have not had a reply.
They claim to have covered all the sites one way or another
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Pune/Apollo_landing_sites_mapped_by_Chandrayaan/articleshow/3961580.cms
but that article is unclear as to whether they were all covered by the terrain mapping camera.
If anyone wants to repeat the exercise all the files you need are now up
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pjal4g8yszenhsz/AACS_tCOr-yOwG_E1KAs3b9qa
The line that could be tracks does seem to extend towards Cone crater following the route that can be found on the LRO images of the same area.
I'm reluctant to claim it as a positive, but it's one hell of a coincidence!
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I've seen that one of yours and I commend you on your eyesight!
:D
I know what you mean: I can't claim anything definitive in those images. However, I can see a dark 'splodge' in the Selene image right where the Apollo LM would be, and in both the Chandrayaan and Selene images I can see a darkened area corresponding to the ALSEP site. I'd describe this as more of a 'tantalising glimpse' than conclusive proof of anything. Certainly food for thought though!
The line that could be tracks does seem to extend towards Cone crater following the route that can be found on the LRO images of the same area.
I'm reluctant to claim it as a positive, but it's one hell of a coincidence!
Neither image is anything that would convert a dyed in the wool hoax believer I'm afraid...!
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I've been having some fun with Chandrayaan images recently picking out features in Apollo 15 images that can't be seen on Lunar Orbiter pre-Apollo views (see http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa15a.html)
PS is that your website? Very impressive work. I did some similar studies a while back, but not in as much depth.
North Crater on Apollo 16 (http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r81/headlikearock/NorthCrater1_zpsfdea408d.jpg), image comparison between LRO and Apollo surface images.
Camelot Crater on Apollo 17 (http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r81/headlikearock/Apollo%2017/Camelotcraterstudy-large.jpg), image comparison between LRO and Apollo surface images.
Feel free to use them. Or laugh at them :)
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I would like to do a three-way comparison from the A17 lunar ascent using the ascent film, LRO, and 1960's orbiter photos. As some of you know, Wunder-blunder showed the early orbiter pics alongside the ascent pics, but chose the latter from an altitude that was too high to see some of the smaller details which do _not_ show up in the 60's orbiter photos. (Just an oversight on his part, huh?)
Hopefully I can show conclusively that the Apollo footage shows some small details which simply do not show up in any earlier photography. Originally, I posted this thinking the Chandrayaan pics might help, but now I don't see how they would be useful in my project. One thing I need to do, though, is get the highest quality 60's orbiter photos I can. This is necessary in order to avoid the obvious argument from Wunder-blunder.
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You do know about the LOIRP, right? (Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project)
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Any thoughts?
Sure. The Indians are now in on the hoax!
:)
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I would like to do a three-way comparison from the A17 lunar ascent using the ascent film, LRO, and 1960's orbiter photos. As some of you know, Wunder-blunder showed the early orbiter pics alongside the ascent pics, but chose the latter from an altitude that was too high to see some of the smaller details which do _not_ show up in the 60's orbiter photos. (Just an oversight on his part, huh?)
Hopefully I can show conclusively that the Apollo footage shows some small details which simply do not show up in any earlier photography. Originally, I posted this thinking the Chandrayaan pics might help, but now I don't see how they would be useful in my project. One thing I need to do, though, is get the highest quality 60's orbiter photos I can. This is necessary in order to avoid the obvious argument from Wunder-blunder.
You might want to look at this then :)
http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa17.html (http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa17.html)
In some threads I've even produced the ascent frame shown in my actual paper copy of the Preliminary Science Report to prove that the Apollo images are actually contemporary, but even that isn't enough for some people.
I've done the same for all of them :)
http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landings.html (http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landings.html)
As far as I can tell Chandrayaan doesn't cover any of the other landing sites in as great a detail as Hadley Rille - at least as far as the current publicly available ones are concerned. China's Chang'e-2 has some usable imagery of Taurus-Littrow that I've incorporated into the one above.
My general finding is that while the overall quality of Lunar Orbiter images is extremely good, once you get down to the small details they aren't as good as the LRO, and they certainly don't show all of the fine details visible in Apollo imagery - even the relatively poor quality TV broadcasts.
The usual reponse to pointing out that Orbiter views are inadequate in terms of producing a fake moon set is some sort of sooper-seekrit speshul satellite that no-one knows about, or that the really good Oriber images are heavily censored blah blah etc etc.
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I've heard it claimed the Chang'e 2 probe was able to capture, albeit with less resolution than LRO, Apollo remnants, but I have yet to see any images that confirm that.
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I've often wondered if that was a case of, ahem, 'Chinese whispers' and things getting lost in translation.
Chandrayaan likewisr claim to have photographed Apollo sites. Technically they did, in the same way that my phone has photographed the atomic structure of molecules making up my cat.
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I've heard it claimed the Chang'e 2 probe was able to capture, albeit with less resolution than LRO, Apollo remnants, but I have yet to see any images that confirm that.
There was an early claim that was patently false that they had captured tracks made by Apollo 15, but they didn't follow the known paths of the EVAs - it was just the way the craters appeared.
Actually, I think that may have been Chandraayan...
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While we're on the subject of views from lunar orbit, and just for fun here's something I've just added to my site.
It's the last resolvable image from the Apollo 12 16mm descent footage compared with another 16mm shot of Pete Conrad collecting the contingency sample and an LRO view of the same area.
The crater is the one against which they planted the flag
(http://i59.tinypic.com/2ptecdk.jpg)
:)
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I visited your site, onebigmonkey.
I'm very impressed. You've done a very great job. Thank you.
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I visited your site, onebigmonkey.
I'm very impressed. You've done a very great job. Thank you.
Thank you :)
I'm now working on the last few moments of the Apollo 11 16mm footage, and can so far resolve craters up to the last 10 seconds or so that match the LRO images.
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OK so I've added extra analyses of 16mm descent footage on the Apollo 11 and Apollo 14 pages of this part of my site.
I'm particularly pleased to have been able to identify one of the PLSS in an Apollo 14 LRO view :)
http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa11.html (http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa11.html)
http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa14.html (http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa14.html)
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I am getting "The connection has timed out" for both those pages right now. I'll try later.
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HMm - my web host is free and occasionally flakey, though it is working for me on both laptop and phone.
I was going to do Apollo 15 next, but I wonder if there's any point in light of this stunning piece of work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmh7wktM7eU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmh7wktM7eU)
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Comoj.com is not functioning for me, although the web site checker says it is up. Might be my service, we have had some heavy storms here today. I'll try from home later.
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OK so I've added extra analyses of 16mm descent footage on the Apollo 11 and Apollo 14 pages of this part of my site.
I'm particularly pleased to have been able to identify one of the PLSS in an Apollo 14 LRO view :)
http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa11.html (http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa11.html)
http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa14.html (http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa14.html)
Stunning piece of work!
I'm just looking at your "Sideways on" page.
http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/sideways.html
Call me Mr Picky, but... I don't think libration is caused by the Earth's gravitational pull. It's more an optical effect to do with relative orbital paths, Earth's rotation etc.
Apart from that... seriously, I'm impressed! :)
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OK so I've added extra analyses of 16mm descent footage on the Apollo 11 and Apollo 14 pages of this part of my site.
I'm particularly pleased to have been able to identify one of the PLSS in an Apollo 14 LRO view :)
http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa11.html (http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa11.html)
http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa14.html (http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa14.html)
Stunning piece of work!
I'm just looking at your "Sideways on" page.
http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/sideways.html
Call me Mr Picky, but... I don't think libration is caused by the Earth's gravitational pull. It's more an optical effect to do with relative orbital paths, Earth's rotation etc.
Apart from that... seriously, I'm impressed! :)
You're right. It has nothing to do with gravitational pull. Libration is a purely optical effect caused by three things, the eccentricity of the moon's orbit, the incliation of the moon's orbit and the rotation of the earth .
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You might want to look at this then :)
http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa17.html (http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/landingsa17.html)
I saw your other page already and that was good, but HOLY COW... this was a helluva lot of work! You're not married, are you? :)
If I get around to making any videos on this subject I will definitely give viewers this link. Excellent work, and thank you!
Edit: In case you are married, here, you can quote this for your wife:
Onebigmonkey, your work is amazing! I know how long it takes and how brain-draining it can be, but rest assured, your web site is contributing information which is priceless as an educational tool and as a reference for anyone wanting to know the truth. You should be very proud of your unique achievement.
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Finally able to see the page. Nicely done.
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Aww shucks thank you everyone - it's just fun for me!
Yes, I am married btw, but once the flowers of romance have drooped you need something else to do in the evening :D
Thanks also for the tip about libration, I'll correct that later.
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I would just like to echo Astrobrant's comments re the usefulness of this sort of thing.
Its this kind detail that is so often overlooked by both HBs and Apollo enthusiast, that are the icing on the cake for me, the detail that proves Apollo was real and not faked.
Also, just looking through your Apollo 17 Landing Sites page. I have to say how hugely impressed I am with it.
17 was my favourite Apollo mission. I was 13½ when Apollo 11 landed and while I understood the significance of it in history (one small step etc), you do a lot of growing up between 13 and 17 so when Apollo 17 was there, I had a much better understanding of what much of the science was about.
At work, I have a 36" x 10" panorama print of the entire Apollo 17 landing site (taken fro the LRO) placed vertically on one end of the shop counter. Its shows the LRV tracks, the foot tracks, the location of ALSEP and the place where the LRV was parked to take that famous ascent video as man left the moon for the last time.
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Your site will make excellent lunch-hour reading -- thanks!
Libration manifests itself in two ways. Side-to-side libration is caused by the elliptical orbit. As we're well aware, the Moon is tidally locked and has a rotation rate equivalent to its orbital period. Its rotation rate is stable and, for observational purposes, constant. But Kepler's second law tells us that in an elliptical orbit the Moon will speed up and slow down as it moves through its orbit. It moves faster approaching perigee and slower approaching apogee. This means that during each revolution, the Moon "gets ahead of itself" and "behind itself" at different times, turning to show us glimpses of the sides. During its approach toward apogee, for example, the Moon speeds ahead and its constant rotation rate doesn't turn it to face us perfectly; we see a bit of its trailing edge through apogee. Conversely through perigee we see its leading edge. From Earth's perspective, the Moon appears to twist left and right during its cycle.
Vertical libration is caused by the difference between the Moon's rotational axis and its orbital inclination. They aren't the same value. Like most celestial bodies, the Moon's rotational axis is not perfectly perpendicular to the plane in which it orbits. But the axis is fixed in space reasonably stably for observational purposes. This means during one part of its orbit, its north pole points more toward us than at the opposite side, where it points away from us. This lets us see the north polar regions at some times and the south polar regions at other times.
When you combine the two motions the Moon indeed appears to wobble over the course of a lunar month like a spinning top about to fall over. (Unless you're in Inception dream space.)
If you lived on a lunar surface base, the Earth would stay in roughly the same place in the sky but would describe a figure-eight motion around a fixed point due to lunar libration. The Earth would also exhibit monthly phases, but in the mirror-image direction that we see of the Moon from Earth.
Who wants to hear about nutation?
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The interesting thing to me about the moon's orbit and orientation is that while its orbit is inclined 5.14 deg to the earth's equator and its axis is tilted 6.68 deg with respect to this orbit, its axis is only 1.5 degrees off perpendicular to the ecliptic -- the earth's (and moon's) orbit around the sun. It has maintained this orientation for billions of years, and this is why frozen water has apparently been able to accumulate in perpetually-shadowed craters at the poles.
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Libration manifests itself in two ways.
I thought there was three, the third being due to the diameter of the Earth.
At any given moment, two observers on opposite sides of the Earth, see the moon from a slightly different angle, forming a parallax triangle view with the base being approximately the diameter of the Earth.
I reckon that angle to be around 1.8°. Not sure if that is readily observable though?
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Who wants to hear about nutation?
Nutation is a term wasn't familiar with until you mentioned it, but now that I've read the Wikipedia article, I think I largely get the gist. Thanks Jay; once again you've taught me something I didn't know, as well introducing me to something that I didn't even know that I didn't know. :)
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This is what makes the study of the actual physical universe so rewarding. The truth is far more fascinating and far stranger than anything AwE130 or Neil Burns could possibly imagine.
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This is what makes the study of the actual physical universe so rewarding. The truth is far more fascinating and far stranger than anything Adrian AwE130 or Neil Burns could possibly imagine.
Oooh, nice Mark Twain paraphrase there Jay!!
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I did what?
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I did what?
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”
― Mark Twain
Given all the references to certain "works of fiction", lately, especially as regards ghosts and golf courses, I thought it was rather apt.
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I thought nutation is what happens to you when you go through the Van Allen belt.
[Runs towards exit as Jay flings coffee cup...]
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That's a great Twain quote, one I've not heard before. I grew up in the Midwest and it was all about Twain, but I guess there's always more Twain in heaven and Earth than is dreamt of in my philosophy. Neil Burns would do well to take a cue from Mr Clemens. There's a guy who both (a) knew how to make stuff up properly, and (b) knew how to make it entertaining.
Back to the subject at hand, these days I open with the notion that nutation is the process used to make Nutella. But indeed, over in the programming-language topic I discussed programming ephemerides in Fortran, having to take into account both precessing and nutation. Precession is significant only for astronomically large (no pun intended) time intervals. But for accurate results over even small time periods you must account for nutation in Earth's dynamics so as to compute the location of objects in the sky accurately to with a second of their true location.
My coffee mug was a gift from the crew of one of the Cirque du Soleil shows in Las Vegas, so it has about as much chance of being thrown as a does a piece of flown space hardware.
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I thought nutation is what happens to you when you go through the Van Allen belt.
[Runs towards exit as Jay flings coffee cup...]
I thought it was the Van Halen belt?
:follows Sus_pilot at speed:
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This is what makes the study of the actual physical universe so rewarding. The truth is far more fascinating and far stranger than anything Adrian AwE130 or Neil Burns could possibly imagine.
Oooh, nice Mark Twain paraphrase there Jay!!
Did you mean Shakespeare? "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Oh, how correct he was!
Edit: Oh, now I see what you were referring to. Still, it was a good paraphrase of Shakespeare, too.
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If you lived on a lunar surface base, the Earth would stay in roughly the same place in the sky but would describe a figure-eight motion around a fixed point due to lunar libration.
Hmm, I've always perceived that in an intuitive, careless way. I thought it would appear to move in a small circle. Now that I think about it more analytically, I still come up with a circle.
Edit: Maybe you're thinking of the sun's analemma.
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Precession is significant only for astronomically large (no pun intended) time intervals.
The earth's axis precesses once in about 26,000 years but it is significant enough over a human lifetime that positions of astronomical objects are referred to an epoch, usually 1950.0 or 2000.0.
Also, precession is very significant in the orbits of earth satellites, caused mainly by the earth's equatorial bulge. One orbit in particular, the sun-synchronous orbit, exploits precession in an interesting way. The satellite is launched into a circular, retrograde (east->west) orbit with an inclination and period carefully chosen so that the orbital plane precesses eastward 360/365.25 degrees per day. This causes it to exactly match the earth's orbital motion around the sun so that the orbital plane keeps the same relationship to the sun-earth line. The satellite thus passes over any given point on the earth's surface at the same local time each day and night, e.g., 3AM/3PM or 9AM/9PM.
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So i was looking at Apollo 17's landing and take off 16mm footage and matching with LRO images, because that's what you do on a Sunday and I spotted something.
Below are 3 views of the same scene - on the left is the landing, centre is the LRO view, and on the right is the ascent video view.
What I'm interested in is the white object I've circled that is not present in the descent video (at least in the versions I've seen), but is there in the LRO and ascent.
Annoyingly, the first few seconds of Apollo 17's ascent wasn't captured, so we can't see if anything flew there and landed as a result of the ascent engine exhaust. Careful viewing of the footage that is available shows that the object seems to emerge and 'twinkle' in a way that brightly lit rocks in the scene don't. Annoyingly, the TV view from the rover is in exactly the wrong place and there is nothing obvious in the post-EVA views from the LM.
So - any thoughts?
(http://i59.tinypic.com/2z6ing1.jpg)
Apart from aliens, carelessly discarded lighting rigs etc etc
(e2a: I've stretched and rotated the 16mm views to match the LRO view, in case anyone thinks they look different)
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How far from the landing site? Could be a piece of kapton.
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How far from the landing site? Could be a piece of kapton.
About 25-30 metres. I wondered if it might be foil, but was surprised it wasn't still moving horizontally as it does in other ascent videos. A piece from Apollo 15 was visible moving for quite some distance in that ascent 16mm footage. I managed to track it down, as did someone else.
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If it was along the ascent trajectory, the exhaust would start to point away from it pretty quickly because of the pitchover maneuver which started the horizontal velocity increase.