Imaging the Landing Sites

[gonzo]

I see there is much discussion regarding the imaging (either from earth or from lunar orbit) the Apollo landing sites.

If I remember correctly one of the tasks of the Command Module Pilots on the various landing missions was to take observations of the lunar surface to identify the actual landing site attained by the LM. From memory they each managed to achieve this, except Collins on Apollo 11 (presumably due to the 'test' nature of the first landing and the more limited amount of time spent in orbit). They were also 'scouting' for landing sites for future missions.

The thought occurs that they may have recorded some of these images. I'm not sure what instrument they used for this activity, but presumably if they were scouting for landing sites they would have had the ability to record the images as well? Is anyone aware if such images were recorded of the landing sites?

Presumably, though, this hypothetical evidence would still be unconvincing to 'hoax believers', but I think it would be a vluable resource if it did exist.

[gwiz]

gonzo said:

Is anyone aware if such images were recorded of the landing sites?

I assume the actual locating of the LMs on the moon would be done by looking through the optics of the CM navigation system and marking the instant that the cross hairs covered the LM.

This page has a photo of the Apollo 17 LM on the moon, taken from the CSM. Presumably similar pictures were taken by Apollo 15 and 16, which also had the large mapping cameras in the SM. For the earlier flights, any pictures would have had to be taken with hand-held cameras.

Edit: have just Googled this picture of Apollo 15. Unfortunately, neither link gives NASA frame numbers for the pictures.

[PhantomWolf]

except Collins on Apollo 11 (presumably due to the 'test' nature of the first landing and the more limited amount of time spent in orbit).

Because they landed long he had a lot of trouble trying to find where they had landed. The problem wasn't that it was the first landing, it was that no one actually knew exactly where they were so he was looking in the wrong place.

[gonzo]

phantomwolf said:

The problem wasn't that it was the first landing, it was that no one actually knew exactly where they were so he was looking in the wrong place.

I seemed to remember that they used a different technique in the subsequent landings to achieve a greater accuracy of finding the target landing site, presumably developed from experience with the first landing (was it some workaround about inputing navigation data after undocking?). I have tried to picture exactly what it was the CMP was looking for and whether that could actually be recorded, but the link from gwiz has helped.

Maybe I've had in my mind an impractical 'resolution'. The story of Al Worden (I think it was) identifying features like cinder cones (as they weren't) for future missions gave me the impression of resolving failry small scale details.

[dwight]

There is a webite which features all imaged landing sites with a distinct object causing a shadow which is identified as the LM. IIRC it is also possible to pinpoint the LRV. I'll have to do a bit of googling to find the site.

[gonzo]

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Apollo_15_panaromic_camera_landing_site.jpg

The Apollo 15 landing site is the white patch bottom left. So answering my own question is that they could image disturbances but not objects.

May still be of some scientific value to record changes to the sites at the next 'fly-by' opportunity, as well as killing off all but the crazier of the Conspiracy Theories.

If there were images that showed the shadows of the larger objects, that would be quite something.

This page www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/frame.html indicates that Dick Gordon on Apollo 12 saw the '50 metre' shadow of the LM to pinpoint the exact landing site, using the CM's sextant. Presumably recording images with the sextant wasn't possible?

[dwight]

This is the website with the shadow images taken from the CSM during said mission

www.boulder.swri.edu/~durda/Apollo/landing_sites.html

[gwiz]

gonzo said:

The Apollo 15 landing site is the white patch bottom left. So answering my own question is that they could image disturbances but not objects.

Or possibly you need a higher resolution jpeg. I think the pic I linked to in reply #1 is a blow-up from this frame, though the orientation is different.

[gonzo]

dwight said:

This is the website with the shadow images taken from the CSM during said mission

www.boulder.swri.edu/~durda/Apollo/landing_sites.html

FABULOUS - thanks for that. They may be grainy, but the clear images (esp Ap 17) of the LM shadow are really obvious. So how were these images faked???

[gwiz]

dwight said:

This is the website with the shadow images taken from the CSM during said mission

www.boulder.swri.edu/~durda/Apollo/landing_sites.html

Their use of Lunar Orbiter pictures for the Apollo 11, 12 and 14 sites suggests that there is no Apollo mapping coverage of these sites.

[gwiz]

gonzo said:

So how were these images faked???

These images of Apollo 15-17 certainly make Apollo falsifiable, as there is no other source that gives such high resolution of the lunar surface. If the Japanese, Chinese, Indian missions can match the resolution and confirm the detail, the HBs will have to do a lot of wriggling to maintain their beliefs. But if the Cold War was a fake, no doubt the Chinese, etc, are in on the hoax too.

[dwight]

Agreed but it makes maintaining that argument all the more difficult and pushes allegience to it further into the realm of fringe theory that would lose alot of "mainstream" support (in that people would be less swayed by the highly shaky argument). Similar to the face on Mars which seems to have gotten rather quiet since the newer imaging showed it to be a simple feature of terrain. Sure the hoax videographers eager to sell their consipracy videos would keep on a kicking and a screaming, but their voice would actually fall moreso on deaf ears.

The more I investigate Apollo, the more I am compelled by the evidence supporting it. So far everything I have looked into has matched up. Especially the folders upon folders of the development of the video cameras. It's pretty hard to decry NASA concealing evidence when they list the manufacturer and order number of the internal camera-cabling

[sts60]

Agreed. HBs seem to think that the Apollo record consists of a few models, some pictures, and a pile of random rocks. But there are tens of thousands of pages of detailed technical information, and that's not even considering all the science published as a result of Apollo.

In order to fake such a record, it has to be internally consistent, because the bulk of the information is available to the public for all time. (This is in addition to the need for it to conform to as-yet-undiscovered information by as-yet-unborn scientists!)

How do you make such a massive amount of paper consistent? Well, you figure out the mission, select a plausible approach, work out the overall design, parcel out the work to contractors, make detailed designs, test them and document the tests, integrate the subsystems,... Hmm. Sounds a lot like how you would build a real spacecraft!

[dwight]

Just as an aside, one interesting tidbit was that the sequential colour system was not highly regarded in the early video proposals. There was the hope that a tri-tube (Seperate R-G-B) camera would be developed that was small and robust enough to shoot the LEVAs.

The CT claim of the LM is quite funny. How many CTs have boarded a Grumman component aircraft I wonder? I have and I am certainly glad the engineers knew what they were doing.

[gwiz]

It occurs to me that the high-resolution mapping cameras carried on the service modules of Apollos 15 to 17 are a strong argument in favour of the reality of Apollo. The images from these cameras are the best imagery of the moon for the swathes of the surface that they covered, much better than can be obtained from earth, better than earlier US and Soviet unmanned probes, and they include images of the respective LMs on the lunar surface.

Any future lunar mapping mission will either confirm or refute the accuracy of these images. If NASA faked the Apollo missions, these images will become the long-awaited evidence of the hoax. NASA didn't have to fly these cameras and provide such an aid to a future revelation of the hoax, so the fact that they did suggests that the missions were real.