My God, it's full of stars...

[onebigmonkey]

Well done ajv - I also nailed it down to Venus, once I got the perspective right!

The photos, according to

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19740026159_1974026159.pdf

were taken as part of a 'Skylab contamination' series, designed to see how venting from eg urine dumps would interfere with photography. The Definitive Apollo Source Book says these photos were taken between 23:24 on 26/04/72 and 00:54 on the 27th. As this puts them much closer to Earth than I had originally thought I set that as the origin in Stellarium, removed the ground and headed for Venus:



So, that's an entire weekend going cross-eyed at Stellarium wasted

It has, however, given me an idea for a new side-project, which is to try and look in more detail at these low light 35mm photographs from all the Apollo missions that took them and put together a page identifying the stars in them.

Now, who's up for this one:

[onebigmonkey]

Well that was disappointingly easy!

The photo above is AS16-127-20022, which the report I linked to above says was part of a series looking towards the Gum nebula taken on the 21st.

The report gives limits for the photograph edges so I set a location somewhere in the middle at 07h00m00s and 25 degrees in Stellarium.

The bright star that appears to be cut off on the upper left hand margin is (I believe) Sirius, and diagonally upwards from it are two pairs of stars tha are recognisable in stellarium (the first pair actually has a 3rd fainter one just visible). To the right and slightly below Sirius is a small elongated triangle of stars that is also a match between the two.

[ChrLz]

You might want to go visit nova.astrometry.net, where they do this kind of analysis for free..  Very easy to use, and quite tolerant of crappy images, star trails, and 'foreign' objects like planets and satellites.

I threw the AS16-127-20022 image at it anonymously just then, and got this:
Center (RA, Dec):   (114.007, -33.162)
Center (RA, hms):   07h 36m 01.756s
Center (Dec, dms):   -33° 09' 44.716"
Size:   38.5 x 25.7 deg
Radius:   23.149 deg
Pixel scale:   226 arcsec/pixel
Orientation:   Up is 73.2 degrees E of N

It also gives a nice little labelled map that shows it is pointed at the heart of Puppis, and a sky view showing the angle, etc - click the link above to see what a clever little system it is.  I've had very few failures, and it has helped me bust a few "Omigod, it's Planet X" pretenders by proving that the contents of their images (often including Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Sirius, Canopus, Vega etc) are relatively easy to identify and verify.

[onebigmonkey]

You might want to go visit nova.astrometry.net, where they do this kind of analysis for free..  Very easy to use, and quite tolerant of crappy images, star trails, and 'foreign' objects like planets and satellites.

I threw the AS16-127-20022 image at it anonymously just then, and got this:
Center (RA, Dec):   (114.007, -33.162)
Center (RA, hms):   07h 36m 01.756s
Center (Dec, dms):   -33° 09' 44.716"
Size:   38.5 x 25.7 deg
Radius:   23.149 deg
Pixel scale:   226 arcsec/pixel
Orientation:   Up is 73.2 degrees E of N

It also gives a nice little labelled map that shows it is pointed at the heart of Puppis, and a sky view showing the angle, etc - click the link above to see what a clever little system it is.  I've had very few failures, and it has helped me bust a few "Omigod, it's Planet X" pretenders by proving that the contents of their images (often including Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Sirius, Canopus, Vega etc) are relatively easy to identify and verify.

Where's the fun in that

That is clever stuff though - I may try it with some of the others, and it does look as though I was right about the one you submitted.

I think the only slight disappointment for me is that the conspiracy idiots will argue that these photographs could have been taken from Earth, as all the stars on view are visible. The only counter arguments I can think are the time it would have taken to take the images from a terrestrial telescope given atmospheric interference and "You're a moron".

Similarly I was hoping that these two earthshine images from magazine 127:





would be helpful, given that they show an oblique angle of lunar craters as opposed to vertical view form Earth. However, they are of Riccioli crater and some smaller ones near to it (see this image http://www.astronet.ru/db/varstars/msg/1200113). As Riccioli is close to the limb, the angle of the image is such that the deniers will just deny it.

[onebigmonkey]

I set that site a challenge with this one;



for which I'd already got a location (based on following the camera after an earlier blurred frame identified Venus):



Venus is out of shot to the right, Saturn is out of shot 'above'.

It failed - might be interesting to re-submit it with some white dots superimposed on the faint blobs.

[ChrLz]

I'd try increasing the contrast carefully rather than painting on it - bear in mind that the algorithm takes into account relative brightnesses (or sizes, if the stars are exposed enough to have 'bloomed')..

I would have expected that one to work.... hang on ..  the only reason must be - Apollo was hoaxed!!!!


(Sorry.. )

[onebigmonkey]

I'd try increasing the contrast carefully rather than painting on it - bear in mind that the algorithm takes into account relative brightnesses (or sizes, if the stars are exposed enough to have 'bloomed')..

I would have expected that one to work.... hang on ..  the only reason must be - Apollo was hoaxed!!!!


(Sorry.. )

I think it found a few matches in the process but not enough - I'm guessing the grain in the image isn't helping.

One of the things they did during these experiments was to minimise the rotation of the CSM - this little movie I made from some of the frames in mag 127 show where it didn't always work! The bright object that flashes by top right is Venus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdOLegJDnqE&feature=share&list=UUwVfgCZMszq1V6l4rytWQww

(I did try embedding it, but it gave an error).

[onebigmonkey]

OK so here was a challenge. Apollo 15's low light photography on 35mm film is hard to track down, and there isn't much available on the web - the most commonly available ones being 4 zodiacal light photos..

What I did manage to find was this report ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19750021316_1975021316.pdf that discusses the image processing techniques they used on the photographs.

One of the targets for Apollo 15 was the L4 Lagrange point, which they took on July 31st 1971 at around 13:35 GMT.

Here's one of the Apollo 15 images, taken of the L4 Lagrange point, AS15-101-13566:



Here's the same image inverted, rotated cleaned up a little:



Why rotated? Because here's what Stellarium says the view looking towards L4 on the date in question looks like:



I like this game

[Mag40]

OK so here was a challenge. Apollo 15's low light photography on 35mm film is hard to track down, and there isn't much available on the web - the most commonly available ones being 4 zodiacal light photos..

What I did manage to find was this report ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19750021316_1975021316.pdf that discusses the image processing techniques they used on the photographs.

One of the targets for Apollo 15 was the L4 Lagrange point, which they took on July 31st 1971 at around 13:35 GMT.

Here's one of the Apollo 15 images, taken of the L4 Lagrange point, AS15-101-13566:



Here's the same image inverted, rotated cleaned up a little:



Why rotated? Because here's what Stellarium says the view looking towards L4 on the date in question looks like:



I like this game

I don't think the HB community even knows about these pictures, they're still stuck on the idiotic claim stars should show up in short exposures.

[onebigmonkey]

Well, the next time anyone mentions the lack of stars, you can point them towards my website where I've added a section on them:

http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/starskyhtml.html

I particularly like the zodiacal light photography from Apollo 17, which was taken over 3 sessions in 51 hours, and in which Jupiter can be seen to move exactly as Stellarium predicts it should and in exactly the right place.

[onebigmonkey]

I've now completed this little side project by adding a study of the UV images taken by Apollo 16.

I've also (I think) found Venus in some more images from Apollo 14, this time colour ones taken after EVA-2. The ALSJ suggests they were intended as comparisons for the black and white ones taken at the LM ladder, but there is nothing to corroborate that in the transcripts. I think Venus is visible in a position consistent with the photographs being taken a couple of hours after the end of the EVA, before the debriefing session.

That particular page is here:

http://onebigmonkey.comoj.com/obm/as14venus.html

This is where I find out it's already been done I guess!

[DataCable]

Wow, I initially thought that was my animated GIF of 9189-9197, but wondered why Venus was barely visible.

[onebigmonkey]

Wow, I initially thought that was my animated GIF of 9189-9197, but wondered why Venus was barely visible.

The ALSJ cite you as the original source and that one is based on yours

[AtomicDog]

Have any of the "no star'ers" EVER attempted to address the Apollo 14 Venus photos?

[raven]

Have any of the "no star'ers" EVER attempted to address the Apollo 14 Venus photos?

Jarrah did, by trying to show that objects was in the wrong position for that time and place.
The link is to Astrobrant's rebuttal.