He probably figured out originally that he could make a comfortable living by pandering to the uncritical conspiracy crowd.
Yes. When writing up what Bart had to say in his video, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon"
I added my own note in bold for the more discerning viewer:--
0:24:22 From an analytical standpoint, photographic anomalies have to be sought out with an understanding of lighting and shadow. The most straight-forward is simple.
0:24:32 When objects are lit solely by the sun, as all the scenes on the moon were said to be, after all, lighting equipment was not only impractical, it was unnecessary in bright sunlight, then all shadows, regardless of the landscape, will run parallel with one another and never intersect, as shown by this example. [At this point, the intelligent viewer could pause the video, place pieces of paper along the shadows, and find that contrary to what Sibrel says, his shadows are NOT parallel — which is exactly what the rules of perspective dictate.]
And his lies or appalling ignorance (or both) continue:--
0:27:05 And what about stars? On the moon with no atmosphere they must have been quite a sight to behold, yet there is seldom any mention of them, if ever, by any of the astronauts on any of the missions.
So assuming that the view out of a spacecraft's windows would be similar to the view out of a spacesuit's visors on the moon, that comment got me searching the Apollo 11 Flight Journal for examples of the crew mentioning stars:--
Apollo 11
Stars mentioned by name: Alpheratz, Antares, Atria, Deneb, Gienah, Menkent, Navi, Nunki, Rigel, Scorpii Theta, and Vega.0:45:02 Collins (on-board): Yes, I noticed that. Before, it was maintaining less than that; it was abnormally low. I almost asked them about it during boost, and then I decided to heck with it. Damn, it'll be hard to see through these optics ... down a little bit. Okay, proceed to Menkent. There she goes - Menkent.
0:45:31 Collins (on-board): Menkent - God, what a
star.
0:46:45 Armstrong (on-board): I can see some
stars. Well, maybe I ...
0:46:53 Collins (on-board): Okay, again, looking through the telescope, I'm absolutely unable to tell if it's Nunki, but I have it in the sextant - so let's mark on it.
0:48:18 Collins (on-board): Okay, now I - I'm going to verify with the third
star, and let's see what that
star's going to be.
star number 34 - -
0:48:34 Aldrin (on-board): Atria - -
0:48:35 Collins (on-board): - - is Atria. You might note that, Buzz, also. I think - -
0:48:39 Aldrin (on-board): 34?
0:48:40 Collins (on-board): Yes, I think that's the third
star; it'll say somewhere in that checklist. Proceed to Atria. Alright, if IMU is realigned, realign the GDC.
0:49:04 Aldrin (on-board): 0.1 degree. Probably GDC's off a lot more than that.
0:49:12 Collins (on-board): Okay, and Atria is there in the sextant. Well, you know, it's not right in the middle of the sextant. Of course, I guess - I don't know what - Have you ever heard any rules on what constitutes a good third
star check?
0:49:32 Aldrin (on-board): No, all you're really doing is seeing that you've got the right
stars, it seems to me.
2:48:07 Collins (on-board): I see a bright
star out there, must be Venus. Forgot to memorize John Mayer's views out the window well enough to say that's Venus or not, but it's sure bright.
5:41:35 McCandless: Apollo 11, this is Houston. Could you give us a - an Auto optics check to a third star or a different star from the one you've been using?
5:41:45 Collins: Sure, be glad to. I can go back and do the whole thing and pick different
stars.
5:41:52 McCandless: I don't think there - there's any need to do that. We'd just like to confirm it with a different star, since that roll angle was a little larger than expected.
5:42:03 Collins: Okay.
5:44:17 Collins: Old
star number 30 looks like it is right dab smack in the middle of the sextant.
7:20:56 Collins: Houston, Apollo 11.
Star 40 has just disappeared now in the sextant. Could the trunnion angle 47 - something be a little high?
7:33:03 Collins: Roger. Forty-four is just not bright enough for this. There's a reddish glow filling the black area of the sextant, and the
star is lost somewhere in there, and I cannot see it.
7:33:17 Duke: Roger. Stand by. We'll come up with another star. Over.
7:33:21 Collins: Yes. I'd appreciate that.
7:33:48 Duke: Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. We'd like you to go on to star 45. Over.
7:33:53 Collins: Okay.
7:43:28 Collins: Okay, Charlie. If the attitude you gave me on
star number 45 - The reticle is off, I'd say, a good 30 degrees in roll, and the
star is not in sight. Over.
7:43:44 Duke: Roger. Stand by.
7:47:55 Collins: Okay. I have this
star loud and clear now, Charlie, so I might as well do a bunch of marks on this one to get a good horizon count.
7:48:03 Duke: Roger. Stand by.
9:36:08 Collins: Roger. The reason for delay, Charlie, is that - difficult to find two
stars that are not occulted by the LM and also are not in the midst of a man-made
star field up here with dumps.
9:36:21 Duke: Roger. We copy.
9:40:34 Collins: Okay, Houston. That completes the P52. We verified the third
star with Antares, and Auto optics are pointing at it pretty closely. How do our platform drift angles look so far, Charlie?
24:24:00 Collins: Roger. I'm in a good attitude here to do - I have in the sextant this last P52
star,
star 37. Is that all right for the optics calibration to save some gas, or do you want to go over to
star 40?
24:24:23 McCandless: Star 37 will be fine for the optics calibration. And we haven't noticed a Verb 66, yet, after our state vector uplink. Over.
24:24:33 Collins: Okay.
24:25:xx PAO (Riley): Star 37 is Nunki. Apollo 11 is now in program 52 which is realignment of the platform prior to beginning the cislunar navigation operation.
24:29:25 Collins: Houston, Apollo 11. Marking on this star, I get a Noun 87 twice in a row of five balls, so that's sufficient for a count.
24:29:33 McCandless: That's certainly very sufficient.
24:29:40 Collins: Okay. Now I want to go to P00, and I am going to take your three angles and do a verify of 49 maneuver to your substellar point. Okay?
24:29:53 McCandless: Okay. We recommend that for the first star, if we gave you a new state vector, we'd like to try the CMC-computed angles for your Auto maneuver.
24:30:07 Collins: Okay.
24:32:13 McCandless: Roger. We copy. And that is for star 01?
24:32:19 Collins:
Star 01, right near the horizon. Code 110.
24:32:22 McCandless: Roger.
24:41:07 Collins: Houston, Apollo 11. On this
star, the Auto maneuver works just fine. I am right at the substellar point. Everything looks beautiful except there is no
star in sight. It is just not visible.
24:41:20 McCandless: Roger. Is this for star 01?
24:41:23 Collins: That's correct.
24:41:29 McCandless: You are not getting any reflections or anything like that that would obscure your vision, are you?
24:41:40 Collins: Well, of course, the Earth is pretty bright, and the black sky, instead of being black, has sort of a rosy glow to it. The
star, unless it is a very bright one, is probably lost somewhere in that glow, but it is just not visible. I maneuvered the reticle considerably above the horizon to make sure that the
star is not lost in the brightness below the horizon. However, even when I get the reticle considerably above the horizon so the
star should be seen against the black background, it still is not visible.
25:18:19 Collins: Okay, Houston. It appears to be okay now; We've changed our attitude slightly, and I have a
star and I'm maneuvering to get the M-line parallel.
25:44:01 Collins: That's right. I - I haven't entered - I gave the - I gave it back to the computer for a second. I put the mode switch from Manual back to CMC while I fooled with the DSKY, and the computer drove the
star off out of sight. So the delay here has been in going back to Manual and finding the
star again, which I've finally done. And - Just a second here, I'll go to Enter and get a 51 and mark on it. As I say, for some reason the computer drove the
star off out of sight.
26:07:24 Collins: Roger. Wonder if you have a
star that might be a little closer to the direction we're burning than the one you gave us.
26:07:33 McCandless: Roger. We're going to rework the attitude in the sextant star for you in order to improve the high-gain antenna coverage, and we'll have that for you in a few seconds.
27:25:43 Collins: Yes, I'm happy with the last updates we got, you know, in terms of what it did to our state vector. Still not altogether happy with the various procedures. If we could pick
stars within the smaller range of trunnion angles so that you could allow P23 to pick its own maneuver and go to that substellar point and then have that
star visible, that would seem to me to be the simplest and best way to do it.
48:57:41 Collins: The Sun bounces off the LM structure. With the LM attached, that telescope is just about useless. Those star charts that MPad provided us, I think, would be most useful if we had to use the - if for some reason we had to mark through the telescope. We could use those as a guide for what we're looking at and say, "Well, that bright blob over there has got to be that
star because that's the position we're in." But so far, we've not been able to pick out any decent star patterns while docked with the LM using the telescope.
52:58:48 Collins: Okay. I am going to go ahead and thrust then. Triangle difference is 0.01, but it's sort of difficult at three-tenths rate. I'm required to use medium speed unresolved, and it's difficult to hold the
star centered long enough to get a decent mark on it.
71:59:20 Armstrong: Houston, it's been a real change for us. Now we are 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 nightside of Earth. But all the way here, we have only been able to see
stars occasionally and perhaps through the monocular, but not recognize any
star patterns.
77:07:07 Aldrin: Houston, when a
star sets up here, there's no doubt about it. One instant it's there, and the next instant it's just completely gone.
77:12:06 Aldrin: Roger. Seems to me since we know orbits so precisely, and know where the
stars are so precisely, and the time of setting of a
star or a planet to so very fine a degree, that this might be a pretty good means of measuring the altitude of the horizon ...
102:01:00 Armstrong (on-board): Okay, Mike, we passed the
star check. Foxtrot.
103:22:30 Armstrong: From the surface, we could not see any
stars out the window; but out my overhead hatch, I'm looking at the Earth. It's big and bright and beautiful. Buzz is going to give a try at seeing some
stars through the optics.
103:47:29 Aldrin: Okay. That last
star was Navi, and it wasn't too well distinguishable. I can see where that error could come in. I think for the gravity alignment with one
star, Rigel will be quite good.
122:41:58 Aldrin: Houston, Tranquility. I used Capella in the last sighting, and it's a good ways near the edge. A good ways away from the center of detent 4. I'm wondering if it would pay any to use Alpheratz,
star number 1. It might be a little closer. However, it would delay things a little, since I'd have to designate the radar out of the way. Over.
123:44:35 Aldrin: I know where the
star is; I'm not sure the PGNS knows where gravity is.
124:53:01 Aldrin: Houston, Eagle. Did you copy our
star angle difference and torquing angles.
124:53:07 Capcom: Eagle, Houston. We didn't have them on the downlink but we copied them on the VOX.
124:53:18 Aldrin: Okay. It was zero for
star angle difference, minus 06, plus 64, and plus 1.37. Over.
135:07:15 Collins (on-board): 357 and 1511. There's supposed to be a
star there.
135:07:26 Armstrong (on-board): That's right, if you put them in - in the right order. That 151.1 is shaft.
135:07:36 Collins (on-board): Yes. I got a
star in the - in the sextant.
135:07:38 Armstrong (on-board): Good, it passes. Let's press on,
135:07:41 Collins (on-board): I'm not sure it's Gienah.
159:52:02 Capcom: Roger, Buzz. It's an entry Pad, MPL, starting with roll 05, 35 - correction - 359 152 001. GET 194:46:03 267, plus 1102, minus 17203, 068, Noun 60, 36194 656 11894 36275 195 03 03 0027, Noun 69, all four lines are NA. Picking up with D zero: 400 02 09. RET of blackout, 00 17 03 38 08 20. Sextant star, 02 0945 149. Boresight star is Scorpii Theta, that's Scorpii Theta. Up 315, right 35, lift vector up. And the comments: This entry Pad assumes no midcourse 6. And for your information, looking at it right now, based on all the tracking we got, that maneuver would only be a tenth of a foot per second. So, we'll probably skip it. We'll let you know more about that later. Okay. Your horizon check at EI minus 30 minutes, GET of 194:33:03, gives you a pitch angle of 298. Okay. The GDC, your backup align - Your set stars for the entry REFSMMAT are Deneb and Vega, 079 234 340. Standing by for your readback. Over.
159:55:27 Aldrin: Roger. Lunar entry, MPL: 359 152 001 194:46:03 267, plus 1102, minus 17203 068 36194 656 11894 36275; 195 03 03 0027, four NA, 400 02 09 00 17 03 38 08 20 02 0945 149, Scorpii Theta. Up 315, right 35, up. Assumes no MCC-6. Horizon at EI minus 30 194:33:03, and pitch 298. Set
stars Deneb and Vega, 079 234 340. Over.
174:01:34 Collins: Peculiar thing, Owen, on the platform alignment is that when I really take my time and do a very slow, careful, precise job of marking, I'm getting about the same
star angle difference as when I'm doing it in DTC and have to do a hurried rush job with relatively poor tracking.
Star angle differences seem insensitive. It almost made me believe there's a very small bias there somewhere in the sextant.
193:47:47 Armstrong: That's affirmative, we completed the P52. We'll give you the data from it in just a second. We passed our sextant
star check at entry attitude, and right now we're maneuvering to our first horizon check pitch attitude of 298 degrees.
