No tracks left by the moon buggy

[smartcooky]

One of the most ridiculous of their ideas was the "Superlight" bollocks. I mean, where is that used in real life??? These  people really live by the "I can think it, therefore that MUST be how it was done".

Well they clearly didn't "think it" very well. That "superlight" is, by my estimate, about 18m in diameter (using the little human figures at about 6ft tall as a rough guide).

If that was anywhere near close to the subject it was lighting, it would not cast sharp shadows. The shadows of everything it illuminates would be indistinctive because light would be coming from across a wide angular distance. (think shadows cast by fluorescent tubes).

In order to cast shadows as sharp as the sun, they would have to place the superlight at the distance at which its apparent angular diameter is that of the Sun, approx half a degree. My "back of the envelope" calculation shows this distance to be about two kilometres!!!

For the superlight to illuminate the set from two kilometres away it would have to be a tremendously powerful lamp. I don't have the necessary knowledge to calculate this (perhaps someone here has) but my ballpark guess would be that we are talking hundreds of millions of candlepower.

[grmcdorman]

Jeez, is that really how big the HB's claim the 'super light' was? Wouldn't that just fry anything put in front of it?

In front of it? How about it'd fry itself? ... not to mention that something that big would be a rather large engineering project - which, like many of the other HB claims for technology or operations, has left no trace whatsoever.

[Allan F]

And mounted on a vehicle which could move it around and elevate it according to the changing position of the sun it should emulate. Several hundred meters in fact.

[bknight]

Percy probably had Groves think this bit of photographic evidence.

[onebigmonkey]

And mounted on a vehicle which could move it around and elevate it according to the changing position of the sun it should emulate. Several hundred meters in fact.

Oooh!  I've gone back to something I started looking at a while ago (see 'Shadow boxing' on my site)) looking at the movement and size of shadows as missions progress.

The fact that the proximity of a supposed studio light would infuence the size of the shadow  hadn't occurred to me!

I need to  look at how this would affect the width of a lunar module shadow in relation to to the LM itself now

[BertieSlack]

Welcome to the site

You need to view the picture along with the others in the series, rather than rely on a single image. It's really quite simple.....the rover drives up to a position, the astronauts gets out and move around the rover. Their actions re-disturb the regolith and either cover up (through dust sprays) the tracks or just erase them.

Heres an example from A15:

That Apollo 15 photo, and its place in the excellent panorama that Dave Scott took at the rover's final parking spot, is perfect to illustrate the point about rover tracks getting erased around the rover. The panorama also shows how tracks (and other features) are much harder to see down-sun and up-sun compared to cross-sun.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/a15pan1674859.jpg

I also like this Apollo 16 photo taken by Charlie Duke:

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a16/AS16-107-17436HR.jpg

Again you can see how astronaut activity around the rover has obscured the tracks - and you can see how Charlie himself obscured the foreground tracks just by walking across them once to take up his position for the pan sequence.

HBs are also fond of a photo from Apollo 16 which appears to show no tracks around one of the rover wheels but with no obvious signs of astronaut activity there. A quick look at the mission transcript reveals that, after parking the rover at one of the geology stations, John and Charlie realised that rover was right on top of the spot where they wanted to do some sampling - so instead of getting in and driving it away they just picked it up and moved it out of the way by hand.

[Kiwi]

Hello new to this site
whilst looking at photos of the supposed moon landing I was shocked at just how bad they were. The buggy in some of these photos are so prepped it is laughable there are clean crisp foot prints suggesting a powder like surface but no tread pattern left by the buggy. the picture I attached is a clear demonstration of this. its as though the buggy was placed in these shots the area prepped and only after it looked good did they allow the actor to walk towards the buggy. This reoccurs time and time again. I must be seeing the wrong photos you can even see the line between stage and backdrop  I apologise if this is a reoccurring topic I was just after your thoughts thanks. 

Welcome to ApolloHoax, timbo. Mind if I ask a few questions and give you some useful hints?

You say "the supposed moon landing." Which one are you talking about?  You've selected a poor-quality photo, AS17-146-22367, from Apollo 17, so is that the landing you consider is "supposed"?

How many lunar surface photos have you looked at?  Two or three? Tens? Hundreds? A thousand? Were they all bad? Could you not find a single decent photo? There are indeed many photos that have poor exposure, poor focus and/or camera shake, but there are plenty of good ones too.

Do you know about the Apollo Lunar Surface Journals (ALSJ)?
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/frame.html

They give a great deal of detail about what went on while the crews were on the lunar surface, and they have massive image libraries with all of the lunar surface photos (and some orbital ones) with captions that explain many of them, and with their times noted to the nearest second. Your photo was taken at approximately 166:53:35 into the mission, and the caption at the ALSJ says:

166:53:35 This is Gene's "locator" to the Rover. This excellent picture shows the TV camera pointed off to the left and the high-gain antenna pointed back towards Earth, which is over the South Massif. Note that the low-gain antenna, which is partially hidden by the high-gain is also pointed at Earth. The SEP antenna is behind Jack's seat and the rake for the explosive charges is visible on the back of the Rover. The East Massif is at the upper right. Readers should note the dark blemish on the East Massif foothill above and slightly to the right of the SEP antenna. This is the outcrop area that Gene notes as he and Jack leave Station 8 at 167:39:41.

Here's the direct link to the hi-res version: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-146-22367HR.jpg

If you know what to look for, you can see the two aerials pointing at Earth, which explains the large amount of dust kicked out by Cernan and Schmitt as they went about their tasks around the rover. And if you view the video footage, you can probably see the TV camera and rover getting jiggled as they remove tools, and later footage will show soil being kicked.

Do you realise that looking at a front-on view of the rover in the position where it stopped after driving forward up the hill, is not a good photo for looking for wheel tracks? Shouldn't you be looking for them in a photo that shows the view behind it?

However, have you looked closely at your photo, just to the right of the rightmost wheel (the left-rear rover wheel)? I can indeed see wheel tracks forming a gentle S-shape, but I can't really tell if that is a fairly close view of one side's tracks, or a distant view of both of them.  Viewing more photos taken at that particular place, Station 8, might reveal which. The S-shape is indistinct because of being out of focus and/or affected by camera-shake, but it's certainly there.

When you wrote "I must be seeing the wrong photos you can even see the line between stage and backdrop", did you think this through?  Even if you know nothing about photography, TV or stage work, did you consider the moon's diameter or circumference as contrasted with Earth's?  Did it not occur to you that the horizon on the moon would be much, much closer than we see Earth's horizon? Do you know anything about the size of the Taurus Littrow Valley, how high its surrounding mountains and hills are, and where the astronauts went on it? (The info is readily available at the ALSJ.) Did you also consider that even when viewing the scenery on the moon with two eyes, the astronauts had great trouble estimating distances due to the complete lack of scaling information and atmospheric haze?

Do you know that two of Buzz Aldrin's allotted tasks were to photograph his boot print and to kick soil for the scientists to view?

By the way, there are people here who certainly do know about photography, TV and stage. Some are professionals, some are experienced amateurs, and some are, like me, retired from one of those trades. There are also people here who work or have worked with spacecraft. So feel free to ask more questions.  Many of us like helping people learn about the moon-landings, and it sounds as if you could do with plenty of help.

Here are links to a tiny selection of the better lunar surface photos you might have missed. I'll leave it to you to find and read the captions in the image libraries at the ALSJ.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5902HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5927HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a12/AS12-46-6716HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a12/AS12-46-6806HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a12/AS12-48-7134HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a14/AS14-66-9229HR.jpg Blast marks from the LM's engine
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a14/AS14-66-9324HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a14/AS14-67-9367HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/AS15-88-11864HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/AS15-86-11602HR.jpg Plenty of rover tracks
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a16/AS16-113-18340HR.jpg John Young's second jump-salute
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a16/AS16-117-18797HR.jpg Distant lunar module from the rover
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-134-20382HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-134-20435HR.jpg Local horizon and further mountains everywhere
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-134-20506HR.jpg Spoilt by lens flare and possibly a blob of numbering ink at bottom right
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-137-20979HR.jpg The broken fender, fixed with maps - note that the "tyres" are made of wire
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-139-21204HR.jpg The distant LM shot with telephoto lens
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-140-21390HR.jpg Very grimy Cernan with reflected Schmitt and Earth

[JayUtah]

Well they clearly didn't "think it" very well.

It never ceases to amaze me that, for someone who claims to be not only a professional photographer but an eminent member of the Royal Photographic Society, David Percy seems to display a never-ending stream of ignorance when it comes to photography and lighting.  If you spend much time working around professional lighting for film, theater, or photography, you simply can't help but learn how it works.  You don't have to be a master artisan to see, for example, that broad area light sources cast soft-edged shadows.

Much as I would like to ascribe this to inflated claims of expertise, Percy has been shown his errors enough times, and has evaded accountability to demonstrate his "photo rules" in practice, that I believe he is deliberately misleading his readers.  I have to interpret his overall behavior as that of someone who knows he's wrong but is simply too interested in making a quick buck by prostituting his alleged expertise.

[Noldi400]

It may also be worth mentioning that, in addition to the low gravity, there was another reason that the rovers left shallower tracks than might be expected. In some videos (I don't have a link just at the moment) it's clear that the mesh construction of the "tires" lifted regolith and deposited it directly behind. IOW, the construction of the rover inherently caused it to partially obscure its own tracks.

[raven]

Well they clearly didn't "think it" very well.

It never ceases to amaze me that, for someone who claims to be not only a professional photographer but an eminent member of the Royal Photographic Society, David Percy seems to display a never-ending stream of ignorance when it comes to photography and lighting.  If you spend much time working around professional lighting for film, theater, or photography, you simply can't help but learn how it works.  You don't have to be a master artisan to see, for example, that broad area light sources cast soft-edged shadows.

Much as I would like to ascribe this to inflated claims of expertise, Percy has been shown his errors enough times, and has evaded accountability to demonstrate his "photo rules" in practice, that I believe he is deliberately misleading his readers.  I have to interpret his overall behavior as that of someone who knows he's wrong but is simply too interested in making a quick buck by prostituting his alleged expertise.

Oh, I very much believe he is an intentional liar. Like Bart Sibrel's porthole/cut-out claim, his transparency theory is proven a lie by unshown (by him) video in the transmission.
Another example I believe is figure 20 on page 68 of his book, 'Dark Moon'. He claims it is the full version of the photo when he makes his 'off centre crosshair' claim, but not only is it a version with height added at the top but part of the bottom cut off as well. David Percy is nothing more than a scam artist trying to make a buck off people's mistrust.

[bknight]

...
David Percy is nothing more than a scam artist trying to make a buck off people's mistrust.

Marcus Allen should be labeled with the same description IMO.   

[raven]

...
David Percy is nothing more than a scam artist trying to make a buck off people's mistrust.

Marcus Allen should be labeled with the same description IMO.

I would not doubt it.