NASA photographic record of Manned Moonlanding:Is there evidence of fabrication?

[dwight]

Sorry Jay, but Romulus is right. Those lenses used on Apollo did indeed bend light and did strange things like focus it on the undeveloped film. Get with it man!

[JayUtah]

Shadows can do some funny things.

Indeed, it's not at all difficult to show how the simplistic expectations of conspiracy theorists fail to describe reality.

Nor are any of the conspiracy theorists I've encountered familiar with the proper method of detecting illumination coherence, the "shadow vanishing point" technique.  Tracing shadows along the ground, allegedly to show their direction away from the light source, suffers from several problems not the least of which is terrain.  Hence it is not reliable.  The SVP technique is impervious to factors such as terrain.

The make-it-up-as-you-go methods used by most conspiracy theorists to purport to detect real photos from fake ones have no validity in the field of photographic analysis.

[Luke Pemberton]

I see that others have asked the same questions about x-rays.

Romulus: can you describe how x-rays are produced by our sun and how their energies are comparable to the x-ray energies used by David Groves? How is solar flare activity classed, and if any what relationship does this have to x-ray energy and x-ray flux?

What other aspects of the radiation environment would have been problematic for astronauts on the lunar surface and what evidence do you have for their occurrence when the Apollo astronauts were on the moon?

[dwight]

Oh and sorry for the outburst your majesty, saviour of our people and leader of all propogandists or something.

[JayUtah]

Sorry Jay, but Romulus is right. Those lenses used on Apollo did indeed bend light and did strange things like focus it on the undeveloped film. Get with it man!

You're half right.  The spatial distortion curves for the Biogon show that, to a slight but measurable extent, the lens tended to accumulate that distortion away from the optical axis.  Basically the goal of the lens -- pseudonymously "lifelike" -- was to keep the spatial relationships as real as possible in the center of the frame, then to have everything to go pot at the edges.  Combined with the normal focal-plane distortion of any wide-angle lens, the Biogon could produce some interesting distortion effects in the corners of the frame.  But for the most part it's quite a good lens, still available today.

[Abaddon]

Well, time to start a list, I guess...

Things Romulus does not understand.
1. Radiation
2. Perspective

User 74444 over at GLP did this before. IDW did not much like it there. He won't much like it here either.

Contributions welcome.

Nevertheless, you all must admit he is amusing.

[Kiwi]

Romulus:  When you write "x-ray", "x-rays", and "x-radiation" PLEASE write them in the correct way, as most others in this thread have done: with the dash.

When you write "x rays" you could be talking about an unknown, unspecified or variable number of rays other than x-rays.

Writing terms correctly is part of that thing you seem rather fond of but are sometimes careless with:-- The scientific way.

Do you realise that many of the defenders of Apollo at this forum are, like me, citizens of countries other than the United States?  Some of us have never been to the USA or dealt directly with NASA, but you seem to claim we are all NASA shills. I defend Apollo because I followed the space race ever since I watch Sputnik 1 pass over my area in October 1957, and the mainstream information stacks up, for me. Hoax claims don't.

Also, some of the members are unlike me -- they are female, which you seem to have missed, although you've already met Gillianren. They are respected for their knowledge and their valuable input to the discussions here.

[Waits for a reply saying how stupid I must be to not know what Romulus means when he writes "x rays". Which would be wrong. I've  just find his habit confusing at times.]

[beedarko]

I am not a photographic expert

There are members here who are.  Do you therefore concede that there are others more qualified than you to examine photographic evidence?

The grammar nazi bullshit is the fall back of the idiot

Ordinarily I'd ignore it, but in your threads you've brayed so loudly and frequently about your intellectual/experiential superiority that the error stood out.  From the perspective of someone familiar with film photography, a simple error like that one committed multiple times betrays you as someone with little or no similar experience.

Have you ever taken a photograph with Ektachrome, or used a Hasselblad camera?  You're presenting specific arguments which presume some level of expertise on behalf of the claimant.  Therefore I believe my question is relevant.

[smartcooky]

VERY GOOD PROPAGANDA! Only one problem. The Photographer who took the picture of his and his companions shadow is  using a lens that purposely and unnaturally greatly magnifies and exaggerates the effects of parallax in order to be used as propaganda.. IF TWO VERTICAL  OBJECTS ARE AT A DISTANCE IN A PHOTOGRAPH AND THEIR SHADOWS (AND THEREFOR THE LIGHT SOURCE IS ILLUMINATING THEM FROM THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION)   PERPENDICULAR TO THE AXIS OF THE LENS THE EFFECTS OF PARALLAX SHOULD BE NEXT TO NOTHING. And yet in the Apollo photographic record I have over a hundred examples of just this

I wasn't going to post again, but the level of stupid in this one post got my attention.

You claim to be a "scientist", yet you don't know the difference between parallax and perspective.

You claim to be a "scientist", yet you don't understand that that a photograph displays a three dimensional world on a two dimensional medium, and that as a result, parallel lines will always appear non-parallel when they are oriented in any direction other than transverse. This is something that any 13 year old secondary school pupil would know.

If you don't agree, would you care to explain why the parallel lines this photograph of a parking lot do not appear parallel.



If you think this has been faked or some special camera & lens has been used, try going to a parking lot and looking for yourself.

Finally, the Hoaxtard assertion that nonparallel shadows on a photograph means that multiple light sources shining from different directions have been used overlooks a very important consideration...


 
....multiple light sources MUST result in multiple shadows

BTW; I AM a photographic expert of sorts. When I was still in the Air Force, one of my areas of experience was the repair and maintenance of Perkin-Elmer Minipan and Agiflite Surveillance Cameras. As a part of that maintenance expertise, we needed to have deep understanding of photographic analysis techniques so that we could calibrate the cameras correctly. After retiring in 1993, I have spent most of the last 22 years in the photographic trade.

[beedarko]

The fact is when you have two objects in the distance in a photograph and a angle between the shadows of  45 degrees the reason is because the source of light illuminating  them is 93 million miles closer to them than the Sun.

And we have changing horses in the G row.  Is the bingomaster keeping score?

[gillianren]

Also, some of the members are unlike me -- they are female, which you seem to have missed, although you've already met Gillianren. They are respected for their knowledge and their valuable input to the discussions here.

Cheers and thank you.  I'd note that I'm hardly a scientific expert of any sort, but I am, as I've said, aware enough to know that, if you don't present your numbers, you're not using science properly.  I don't consider it scientific evidence if there aren't numbers involved.  I consider it pointless handwaving.

[Kiwi]

Romulus: You might be interested in this photo in a 10-year-old post at the old BAUT forum -- the one that was originally run by Phil Plait, who never had anything to do with running this forum. Or maybe it was his earlier forum -- the Bad Astronomy Bulletin Board. Anyway, he turned up in post No. 7.
http://cosmoquest.org/forum/showthread.php?9059-For-those-who-claim-shadows-must-be-parallel&highlight=those+who+claim+shadows+must+parallel

See post No. 9 for a bigger copy, and ensure you study all eight visible post-shadows.

While we're on links, you might have avoided some of your problems with radiation and film by visiting this web page, which has been there for years:
http://www.clavius.org/envradfilm.html

There's also a radiation primer:
http://www.clavius.org/envradintro.html

Both pages are written very clearly by a knowledgeable person.

Here's another good page about the "hoax" by another person who knows his stuff and uses things like maths and science to back up what he says:
http://www.braeunig.us/space/index.htm
Click on "Moon Landing Hoax" -- I can't paste the actual link here.

And some interesting experiments carried out by someone who definitely says he is no photographic expert, yet makes many excellent points about Apollo photographs:
http://www3.telus.net/summa/moonshot/index.htm

As he says on his home page:

I read Dark Moon. I studied its "photo anomalies." And after I stopped laughing, I duplicated them with a digital camera and some well-known natural laws that apply on earth and the moon. And I did it with no photographic training or awards. My conclusion: The Apollo images were taken on the moon without benefit of clumsy props or hidden light towers. My second conclusion: Some of those Apollo deniers need to learn more about photography.

By the way, please don't think that so far you've actually convinced most of us in this thread. IMHO you've been losing all the way and made yourself look rather foolish.

Is there any chance of you dropping this "Mr. Windley" stuff and using the person's normal username, JayUtah? We know you're not being respectful, and you did say you would, but you seem to be averse to your arguments being demolished. Why?  That's the scientific way. I personally find that being corrected is an excellent thing, because it means I can go from being wrong to being right.

[sts60]

Romulus, in your reply #4 on this thread, you wrote:

And yet we see no evidence of radiation fogging in the Apollo Hasslebad/Ectachrome photography:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5860.jpg

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5861.jpg

{Please note that I chose these two specific examples because they have large areas that were totally undeveloped or exposed that would and should show evidence of  low level/moderate level radiation degradation.)...

Why do you say the photographs cited were "totally undeveloped" in large parts?

If you look a the photos  I referenced you will see they have very large areas with no light exposure at all (hard shade shadows), or very low light exposure if it is there. the purpose of using these examples is that if even a very minor degree of x radiation fogging existed, it would be evident in theses examples.

I looked at the photographs before asking you the question... But I'm afraid you haven't answered it.  Why do you claim the photographs are in large part "undeveloped"?

[Kiwi]

...If you had even a moderate degree of knowledge you would realize the fact that NASA produced thousands of images that look like the work of professional  photographers in the enviroment they claimed they did so is a LIE

Really?

I don't think the following 17 shots on the first roll taken on the lunar surface look particularly professional, do you? But I certainly don't expect many of them to be excellent because I appreciate they were merely record shots taken under very difficult and unusual circumstances without the advantage of a viewfinder.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5871HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5876HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5879HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5894HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5895HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5896HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5897HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5898HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5900HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5901HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5904.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5965.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5966.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5967HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5968HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5969HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5970.jpg

Note the effect of radiation in the last one, and remove the HR in the link if it doesn't work -- not all of the roughies have been presented in high resolution.

I'm assuming that as an Apollo researcher you know how to go to the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal and read the captions, but do ask if you need help.

How about all the dozens of boring record shots taken by the Lunar Module Pilots every few seconds from the rovers as they were driven out to distant sites?  Some of them make fascinating "movies" of a kind when viewed in IrfanView (just press the space bar to instantly see the next photo), but most of them are definitely not "professional." How about the many record shots of rocks – many of them being one of a pair for viewing in stereo?

Have you viewed the shots taken by Gene Cernan of North Massif with the 500mm lens? Most of them exhibit camera shake, and you can see, in the video taken from the rover, the movement of the front of the lens as he presses the shutter. Have you viewed that?

And Charlie Duke took a fair few disastrous shots at some of Apollo 16's stations. He took an entire batch of shots of one crater that are all out of focus. Seen them?

I'd guess that there are probably hundreds if not a few thousand examples of poor-quality photos taken on the moon, and that you simply haven't seen them. They were spoilt by poor focus, wrong exposure, lens flare, camera shake, poor composition – all the normal faults.

Naturally most laypeople have only seen the very best photos that were selected by the media for publication, and many of those have been enhanced for public viewing, such as the ones taken of Buzz Aldrin descending the LM's ladder. The originals were underexposed, so very dark.

[ka9q]

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5970.jpg

Note the effect of radiation in the last one

Actually, that's just a partly fogged frame because it was the last one on the magazine when it was removed from the camera. Yeah, technically it was fogged by "radiation" because visible light is also radiation.