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Post by orumdude on Sept 9, 2006 14:39:12 GMT -4
They could have taken simple pictures of the sky on one of the missions with a suitable camera. It may have been of no interest to people employed by tNASA but it would to anyone with a soul. who wished to see arguably the most magnificent sight ever seen by a human being.
One doesn't expect military people to be poetc but not to mention stars at all is bizarre. Armstrong also said stars couldn't be seen from the lunar surface which doesn't make sense.
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Post by gillianren on Sept 9, 2006 15:43:53 GMT -4
It only fails to make sense if you don't know what you're talking about. So, then, you say it doesn't make sense to you?
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Post by echnaton on Sept 9, 2006 16:15:49 GMT -4
The sight of the sky outside the earth's atmosphere would have been stupendousThe sight to an astronaut is largely irrelevant. The pertinent questions are, 1) how much brighter are the stars when viewed from above the atmosphere? 2) Is it possible to photograph stars at the same time as properly exposed sunlit objects? Answer these questions. They are much clearer, see Hubble 2) No it isn't but they could have taken pictures with the correct equipment. pointing it at the stars. So your point is that Apollo didn’t do what you think they should have done? A real advantage that Hubble has is the ability to get very long exposures, allowing it to get pictures of dim and distant objects that are difficult through earth bound telescopes. But so what, the Apollo missions were designed for manned exploration of the moon and accomplished that very well. That Apollo did only very limited astronomical work is a weak complaint. |
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Post by orumdude on Sept 9, 2006 16:18:48 GMT -4
"Apollo did only very limited astronomical work is a weak complaint. "
Nothing to do with astronomy and everything to do with beauty and soul.
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Post by echnaton on Sept 9, 2006 16:29:36 GMT -4
They could have taken simple pictures of the sky on one of the missions with a suitable camera.
Pictures showing just stars are pretty boring. A Photo can’t compare to actually going out an looking for yourself. Its kind of like watching fireworks on TV. Pretty dull if the broadcast is not jazzed up.
It may have been of no interest to people employed by tNASA but it would to anyone with a soul. who wished to see arguably the most magnificent sight ever seen by a human being.
Are you saying that no one at NASA had any artistic inclinations? That seems hard to believe in light of the fact that Al Bean was an artist as well as an astronaut.
Armstrong also said stars couldn't be seen from the lunar surface which doesn't make sense.
They couldn’t see them most of the time for the same reason that if you go to night football game you have great difficulty seeing stars while in the stadium. The lighted scene is so bright that you pupils contract to the point that the stars are not visible. This is similar to scenario of a camera taking pictures of properly exposed sunlit objects that you agreed to.
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Post by orumdude on Sept 9, 2006 16:37:08 GMT -4
"They couldn’t see them most of the time for the same reason that if you go to night football game you have great difficulty seeing stars while in the stadium."
In a stadium, the lights come from all directions which is completely different. Turning your back to the sun and looking up would have allowed you to see stars. The reason you can't do that on earth is the atmospheric light scattering.
I'm saying it's very hard to believe not one astronaut was moved sufficiently to mention the stars.
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Post by grashtel on Sept 9, 2006 17:10:57 GMT -4
"They couldn’t see them most of the time for the same reason that if you go to night football game you have great difficulty seeing stars while in the stadium." In a stadium, the lights come from all directions which is completely different. Turning your back to the sun and looking up would have allowed you to see stars. The reason you can't do that on earth is the atmospheric light scattering. I'm saying it's very hard to believe not one astronaut was moved sufficiently to mention the stars. The problem is that your eyes take about ten minutes to become dark adapted enough to see stars and any lighted objects in your field of view will prevent them from doing so. Which added to the fact that their helmets and backpacks restricted how much they were able to look up to the point where excluding the surface from their field of view was difficult at best. Add to this that the Astronauts had lots to do and only a few hours to do it in and them not spending ten minutes standing around doing nothing so they can see some stars becomes quite plausible. |
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Post by grashtel on Sept 9, 2006 17:13:28 GMT -4
Rather than arguing with us about this why don't you do a little experiment, step outside from a brightly lit room (which unless it is extremely brightly lit far dimmer than being in Sunlight) and look up and see how many stars you can see?
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Post by LunarOrbit on Sept 9, 2006 17:27:45 GMT -4
The fact that pictures like this one are considered by many people to be some of the most beatiful photographs since the invention of the camera contradicts what you said. |
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Post by PhantomWolf on Sept 9, 2006 22:04:15 GMT -4
Having just watched From the Earth to the Moon again (I originally saw it about 7-8 years ago when it first come out) It amazes me how much the Astronauts had to fight to get some of the things they did get. After geology training, Dave Scott wanted a stand-up EVA, take a special rake for sampple recover and have a telephoto lense for the camera so that they could get a good overview of the Hadley area prior to heading out. To do it that mean an extra depress and repressuriation and so more Oxygen. That meant more weight and so they had to compromised by using less abort propellent. All these things means that the crew had to compromise in one area to get something else. Gene Cernan wanted a 4th EVA but due to weight considerations, didn't get it. The idea that they should have taken equipment to study something other then the moon is totally ridiculous because anything that could have been seen from the moon could have been seen equally as well from Earth Orbit (with one exception, the Earth.) That they took the UV Camera on Apollo 16 is pretty amazing to me since it likely pushed out an experiment that would have again furthered our knowledge about the moon.
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