Author Topic: Apollo 16 Grand Prix and frame rate  (Read 34 times)

Offline Peter B

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Apollo 16 Grand Prix and frame rate
« on: January 04, 2026, 04:04:04 AM »
Someone has raised a point on YT about a scientific paper by Mihaly Horanyi which discusses the Apollo 16 Grand Prix footage (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258468670_Tracking_Lunar_Dust_-_Analysis_of_Apollo_Footage)

In Part 2 "Analysis of the 'Grand Prix' Footage", Horanyi says:
Quote
As is the case for most modern video cameras, the frame rate of the TV camera used during the Apollo 16 mission was 29.97 fps...

Then, later, he says:
Quote
The time interval between frames is fixed by the frame rate to be 1/29.97 s.

However, obviously, the Grand Prix footage was recorded on the film camera at 24 fps. Doesn't this mean Horanyi has made a mistake in his calculations, and that his conclusions are therefore invalid?

Thank you for any assistance.

Cheers!

Peter

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Offline Jason Thompson

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Re: Apollo 16 Grand Prix and frame rate
« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2026, 05:36:19 AM »
That is definitely a flaw, yes. It's a rather glaring one, and I wonder how it went unnoticed given that you can clearly see the TV camera on the rover so it obviously isn't being used to record this footage! Even if the author didn't know they systems by sight, it's a fundamental part of any rigorous study to properly identify the source of the material you're working from. How often have we had that argument with HBs here? It's not hard to find that information and it should have been step 1 of the whole process.

There are other questionable aspects too, such as trying to measure the position of a cloud of dust particles, which is only visible when enough grains gather in the same spot in space to be resolved by the film camera. I don't think you can assume the track of a visible cloud of particles can be treated as a single entity under ballistic conditions.

All of which means that, while the error in the time factor of the calculation is not enough to change the conclusion from lunar gravity to Earth gravity, there is a fundamental flaw in it which means it's hard to use this to defend the reality of Apollo while maintaining arguments about the provenance of source materials as a defence against HB claims.
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