Watching the detectives...

[onebigmonkey]

The "Apollo Detectives" channel is absolutely chock full of absolute garbage, and as anyone posting anything remotely critical is banned in short order, and/or their comments deleted, it seems a shame that their utter stupidity goes unchallenged (the excellent work of their nemesis Phase52012 aside https://www.youtube.com/@Phase52012).

I thought it was time critique of their failings was made here, as it's bound to get back to them and annoy them a lot.

Their latest vomitus

contains many ridiculous claims, but the first one is that this image:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive/21063236643/in/album-72157658983462236

Contains a defect. They have decided, because ChatGPT said so and as we all know AI can never be wrong about anything, that it shows a hole in the backdrop that NASA were somehow incapable of realising was there.

That "hole" doesn't appear in the photos either side of AS17-140-2149.

When I looked at the flickr view of that photo, it looked different to the one they were showing, so I had a more careful look. As you can see the two defects are different sizes and overall shape:




They do, however, share common feature - like the loop across the top and centre. the long filament on the left hand side, and the overall shape of the right hand side (and another long filament). Two different backdrops, or maybe a piece of detritus whose shape has been altered by different scanning processes? Which do we think is more likely?

The LM is visible in that photo, and Marcus says: "isn't that amazing nobody's pointed that out".

Well, this edition of Aviation week and Space technology from January 1973 certainly pointed it out:

http://onebigmonkey.com/apollo/ephemera/AWST/AWST_Jan_15_73.pdf

as did some of the assembled pans in the USGS Geology report:

https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/static/history/alsj/a17/A17PP_Plate07-treated.jpg



The other claim they make regards Apollo 12 photographs of the ALSEP offload from the SEQ bay (AS12-46-6783 onwards).

https://www.flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive/21077369024/in/album-72157659081038325

Their claim is that in photos taken after the offload, the SEQ bay door is taped shut, and that this is impossible because it would be too high for the astronauts.

What they don't seem to understand is that the main SEQ bay door was raised, and lowered, by pulling a lanyard - it can be seen in diagrams here:

https://www.ninfinger.org/karld/My%20Space%20Museum/lmdiags.htm

and in video here

The door itself is hinged, and you can see that on raising the door, more of the lower half is revealed (the tape inside the green box)



(The red circles highlight studs that can be seen on the door when it's lowered).

So no, the scene wasn't "reset" to take the photos after the offload, they just closed the door by the simple mechanism of pulling on a rope. The tape you think is sealing the door is just holding the Mylar in place on the panel.

Feel free to add any other easily debunked stupidity (this could be a long thread!).

[bknight]

I haven't watched the video, but Marcus is nothing but a grifter, deluxe.

[TimberWolfAu]

Even our beloved Najak takes issue with the Apollo Detectives

[onebigmonkey]

As far as the "hole" is concerned, they're backtracking a little now - claiming that it was AI what made them say it, mainly because Jarrah has weighed in with an equally incorrect claim that it is a hole in the actual positive film. A hole that has changed size and shape over time.

Yeah right.

Anyhow, their latest effort has latched on to a different claim:L the tarnsition from 12 fps top 6ps in Apollo 11's magazine H of th e16mm film: the ascent from the surface. For some reason they're picking on interpoloated footage, rather than an unprocessed version. amnd because they find all kinds of extra things in there (you know, the kind of things entirely consistent with AI interpolation), then there must be some sort of faking going on.

The best bit is their insistence that the frame rate change represents an edit, and is really the transition from them filming over a model to filming lunar orbit images or some such garbage.

Here's your challenge "Detectievcs": find the lunar orbiter images that show the detail of the area that is contained in the Apollo 16mm footage. I'll even tell you which ones you need to look at: Lunar Orbiter 4, images 84 and 85.

You can get them here:

https://planetarydata.jpl.nasa.gov/img/data/lo/LO_1001/DATA/LO4/

Here's just a tiny example, taken at the point they get all excited about. I've rotated the AJF version of the 16mm footage

to match the LRO view.




Now let's zoom in to the area in the red box:



This is the best Lunar Orbiter view of the same wide scale area:



Where's the detail "detectives"? Where are all the craters and rocks that the 16mm footage picked out?

Lunar Orbiter images did not contain the detail required of the Apollo landing sites to produce a model of any kind that would show the detail in the 16mm footage and photos. You can claimn it was a model all you like, but how did they make it with information they didn't have?

[Ian R]

Yes, I've recently commented on their videos to point out the flaws in their 'analysis' of Apollo 11 Mag-H. Of course, their response (seen in their latest two efforts) is . . . lacking, shall I say? 

[bknight]

Who are these detectives anyway as I don't do FB.

[onebigmonkey]

Ah bless them, they've released a "critique" of Dave McKeegan's excellent video on the Apollo surface photographs, which is here:

They don't start off well by changing the title of Dave's video to strawman his position, misrepresent what his video is actually about, and then ad hominem their way through a huge assumption that Dave has never used film cameras, but that's the least of their mistakes.

Despite Allen appealing to his own authority, something that seems very much out of place, they get so many things wrong. They include footage of Dave Scott taking a panorama, something they claim that they can only be done with viewfinders or there would be gaps and misalignments - blissfully unaware that there are many panoramas that have exactly those things - including the very first one that Neil can be seen taking at the foot of the ladder:

https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/static/history/alsj/a11/a11pan1093226HR.jpg

They don't seem to understand the modifications made to the cameras to allow them to be used. They invent a whole new branch of physics by claiming objects instantly reach their maximum temperature the very second they're exposed to sunlight, they seem entirely unaware of the hours of training carried out in photography - despite Dave covering it very well.

They make great play about Dave not having access to the precise film that Apollo used, so his analyses must be invalid, and also that it's impossible to recreate the kind of vacuum on the moon so how could NASA test them, then without a trace of irony make claims about their own tests that obviously also aren't using the SO film or lunar vacuum.

Just one example of how dumb, ignorant and ill-informed they are can be found when they discuss the famous bootprint photo:

"Now, did he take the camera off his chest, point it down at the ground, having altered the focus ring, which required it to be focused to 3 ft, the shortest distance he can focus at, point it at the ground without a viewfinder, and get it all nicely in frame. That's a question that hasn't been answered."

If only there was footage showing it happening that anyone who had the in-depth knowledge about Apollo that they claim would know about.

Phase52012 has already stepped in with a response, but I haven't seen it uet, but it's pretty much shooting dumb fish in a barrel.