LRO photos show ascent stage still on the ground?

[Laurel]

When you said "racy photos," did you mean the Playboy Playmates on the Apollo 12 cuff checklists, Sts60?

I really am a girl, I just like Apollo 12.

[sts60]

You are correct, Laurel - and I believe you.   (BTW, my boss was in a support room in the MCC during A12.)

[AtomicDog]

"No Stars?" Really? This was the big reveal?

[darren r]

Well, that was an anti-climax. Who'd have thought it?

Personally, I've always been baffled by the 'no-stars proves hoax' argument. If NASA wanted to fake a sky full of stars, what would stop them, given they have access to all the world's astronomers? To me, the lack of stars, and the explanation as to why, is proof positive that the landings happened.

[JayUtah]

Personally, I've always been baffled by the 'no-stars proves hoax' argument. If NASA wanted to fake a sky full of stars, what would stop them, given they have access to all the world's astronomers? To me, the lack of stars, and the explanation as to why, is proof positive that the landings happened.

I'm glad you asked that one.  That's one of my favorites from the late Bill Kaysing.

He says that there are no stars in NASA photos because if NASA had put them in, and any of them had been in the wrong place, any amateur astronomer would have immediately been able to spot this.  He then went on to claim that Christa McAuliffe was killed by blowing up the space shuttle Challenger in order to prevent her from telling the world that stars really are visible from space.

So much fail.  Well, let's look at that.  Yes, NASA had access to any astronomer it wanted, as well as a whole staff of professional astronomers.  So if there were plenty of professional astronomers to correct the star positions, why would they fear amateur astronomers?  The whole problem of "misplaced" stars is know where they should be versus where they are in the photos.  So if it's so easy for an amateur to detect that stars are out of place, why wouldn't it be easy for NASA to know this and to put the stars where they're supposed to be?

And why would the stars be in a different place anyway?  The parallax from Earth to Moon is negligible.

Let's not even get into the Christa McAuliffe claim.  That's just braindead.

[Glom]

Let's not forget the absurdity of suggesting the solution to being unable to position stars correctly being to omit them altogether. If they should have been there, then they guarantee everyone is going to think something is up.

[Echnaton]

Well I think we can all agree that the people who inhabit this forum are a good deal smarter than wherever Edward had his experience with the "disappearing" poster.

Rather than run and hide, they have answered his question in a timely and efficient manner.

Comparing the regulars here to hoax proponents is counter productive.  To our purpose at least.  If we want HBs to come here to present their thoughts we need to be as open to them as we can.  Without HBs, this forum has lost its main purpose.

Lets welcome them and ask questions designed to test their understanding of what they believe. 

[smartcooky]

Well I think we can all agree that the people who inhabit this forum are a good deal smarter than wherever Edward had his experience with the "disappearing" poster.

Rather than run and hide, they have answered his question in a timely and efficient manner.

Comparing the regulars here to hoax proponents is counter productive.  To our purpose at least.  If we want HBs to come here to present their thoughts we need to be as open to them as we can.  Without HBs, this forum has lost its main purpose.

Lets welcome them and ask questions designed to test their understanding of what they believe.

Actually, that wasn't the comparison I was making.

[gillianren]

See, that's how we know you really are a gal and not a guy pretending to be a gal.

A guy, whether Apollo fan or hoax believer, would immediately ask, "Where?"

Yeah--because I'm a girl, I just thought it.

[cos]

While we wait how about playing guess the question.

I'll start;

Why are there no stars in the sky?

(actually that would be quite funny).

From page 8 of this thread.

This whole thing was a wind up.

[smartcooky]

Let's not forget the absurdity of suggesting the solution to being unable to position stars correctly being to omit them altogether. If they should have been there, then they guarantee everyone is going to think something is up.

In fact, if they had added fake stars, and even if they couldn't get them exactly the right places, it wouldn't necessarily be an astronomer who would catch them out, it would be a photographer.

Stars in the lunar sky in a photo like this....



...would certainly provoke a "what the hell is this?" response from any photographer worth his salt.

I would be asking questions about the type of camera they used to achieve this result, and the first question would be....

"How did you get the shutter speed fast enough to avoid blurring the moving rover and falling dust, while having the exposure long enough to expose stars?"

Even my Nikon F3 fitted with my 50mm f1.2 lens using 1990's 1600 ASA film would not be able to achieve this shot at any shutter speed.

[Kiwi]

Well, Edward's two most important questions have now been answered and there was nothing new about either of them.

So, is he now compelled to believe that the moonlandings actually happened? 

I hope he has noticed that his latest question has been very well and unemotionally answered by one of the members he chose to insult more than once -- Andromeda -- whom he may not have realised is one of our female regulars.

The simple and straightfoward answer is that the photo by the astronomer is an artist's impression (he uses the words "might look like this" - emphasis mine) and does not take into account the way the human eye works.

The important part is, again, the word "might."

M35 (NGC 2168), the star cluster which is shown in the Apod, is a naked-eye or binocular sight, but if we tried to view it when the sun was that close our retinas would probably be quickly fried.  So the picture is only a fanciful "might" and in fact impossible as far as the unshielded eye goes, and probably most cameras too.

I hope Edward recovers from his wounded feelings, remembers that it was he who started the insults, and returns to ask sensible questions.  Hell, I got a great belly-laugh out of his erroneous description of myself.  Why can't he do the same?

[gillianren]

I hope he has noticed that his latest question has been very well and unemotionally answered by one of the members he chose to insult more than once -- Andromeda -- whom he may not have realised is one of our female regulars.

People so seldom realize we have any of those.  Trust me--I should know.  (And, yes, I once got a PM on BAUT--I won't use the other name--asking for pics.  Because this is the internet, and he was a stoned teenager.)

[Kiwi]

...Andromeda -- whom he may not have realised is one of our female regulars.

People so seldom realize we have any of those.  Trust me--I should know.

Yep, even Glom recently said something about us all being better men, although I think we all knew what he really meant.

[raven]

Well, that was an anti-climax. Who'd have thought it?

Personally, I've always been baffled by the 'no-stars proves hoax' argument. If NASA wanted to fake a sky full of stars, what would stop them, given they have access to all the world's astronomers? To me, the lack of stars, and the explanation as to why, is proof positive that the landings happened.

Another thing worth noting is many Apollo astronauts were Gemini and even Mercury veterans.
The Apollo 11 astronauts certainly all were.
If stars should be visible in sunlit conditions, then these astronauts could use those experiences as the basis for telling how the stars looked in cis-lunar space and on the lunar surface, even if it was a hoax.