Glow in the dark spacesuit???

[superman]

On the Moon, the astronaut's only source of light was the Sun. ... Here's an astronaut who descends into the huge shadow caste from the lunar module, yet his entire body is still visible even though he is completely submerged in darkness. this does seem to provoke thoughts of another light source, which of course doesn't exist......................studio lights???

[phunk]

There is another source of light all around him... the moon! Just look up at the full moon, that light is all reflected off the surface. The astronaut is illuminated by light reflected from the ground around him.

[superman]

would the reflected light from the sun really glow that bright on the surface i would imagine it to be blinding to generate that sort of light...... i find it hard to beleive

[echnaton]

The astronaut was lit by the light reflecting off the surface of the moon. The camera was set to account for the amount of light on the astronaut in the shadow. That is why the directly lit areas are overexposed.

[Bob B.]

Superman,

The web page from which you selectively quoted debunks the studio light claim. Did you stop reading when it no longer said what you wanted to hear?

www.iangoddard.net/moon01.htm

Examination of Apollo-Photo "Anomalies"

Illumination in Shadow: FOX narrator: "On the Moon, the astronaut's only source of light was the Sun. ... Here's an astronaut who descends into the huge shadow cast from the lunar module, yet his entire body is still visible. How is it that he is not shrouded in darkness?" Apollo critic answers: "It's because there's more than one light source, which means they're not on the Moon."

The side-by-side photos show a test I conducted with a toy lunar module and astronaut placed in its shadow as in the Apollo image above. The two photos show the difference between a reflective gray-paper foreground and a less reflective black-paper foreground. Foreground reflectance from the powerful lamp above was sufficient to illuminate the toy astronaut in the shadow of the toy lunar module. This simple test demonstrates that Apollo astronauts illuminated in shadow are not an "anomaly" but a predictable result of sunlight reflecting off the lunar surface.

[echnaton]

superman said:

would the reflected light from the sun really glow that bright on the surface i would imagine it to be blinding to generate that sort of light...... i find it hard to beleive

The helmets had sun shields because the sun was very bright. But in reality it is no brighter on the moon than here on earth but being outside in the bright sun for 7 hours with no protection will make the eyes quite tired. The visors also protected them from UV rays, which are much higher in space than on earth.

[superman]

my first post, i thought i start with a weak post and see how viscous you guys really are

[JayUtah]

The brightness of something in a photograph depends in part on its ability to reflect light. A space suit reflects about 80% of incident light in the visible spectrum. Ian Goddard's plastic space man won't have exactly the same optical properties. But what this means is that if we take different objects of the same color but different indices of reflection and light them with identical light, some of them will appear bright in photographs and others will not.

Apparent brightness also depends in part on the exposure characteristics of the camera -- in this case the television camera. Being a high-contrast device, it will tend to push brights toward brighter and darks toward darker.

But your real question seems to be, "What's the light source?" The obvious answer is, "The lunar surface." While the sun is the only direct source of light, practical lighting conditions -- with or without air -- make use of diffusely reflecting surfaces to scatter light. Contrary to the claims of the conspiracists, you never have a scene lit only with direct light. You must always make allowances for indirect lighting coming from surfaces.

Studio photographers make use of this extensively. I can set up a single light source in the studio and use reflector to bounce light from that single instrument to a completely opposite side of the subject.

Look at this page.

www.clavius.org/bibzz1.html

These are principally photographs I shot during the production of Conspiracy Moon Landing, which was rerun on National Geographic last night. Fig. 5 shows all the light sources in the entire scene. Between the actors' heads you can see the 18 kW "brute" shining directly at us. At the left is a 1.2 kW fresnel shuttered to illuminate the truck only. Figs. 6 and 7 are better exposed and show the astronaut well illuminated by only a single light source quite some distance away. The "fill" lighting is coming from the reflection off the desert floor. In Fig. 6 note how even dark objects like George's blue jeans are visible.

[brotherofthemoon]

You just refuted yourself in your own post, superman!

[JayUtah]

would the reflected light from the sun really glow that bright on the surface i would imagine it to be blinding to generate that sort of light...... i find it hard to believe

The lunar surface is about as reflective, on average, as aged asphalt (i.e., stuff that's been around for five years or so. Sun reflecting from that can hurt your eyes, even if you customarily think of asphalt as dark gray.

I just shot these out in the parking lot.



Standard wooden crate casting a shadow onto aged asphalt. Now I know the shadow won't be as stark because I have a blue sky overhead, but pay attention to the sunlit part of the asphalt.



I want to correctly expose the penguinaut sitting in the shadow, so I open up the aperture. Look what happens to the surrounding asphalt. It is essentially washed out white. Now this is sunlight on a 12% reflective surface. Not too hard to make it look brighter than it is.



Here's the back of the penguinaut. It's black plush, and it shows up here -- properly exposed -- as darkish gray. and black.



And here's the back of the penguinaut overexposed. Some if it is actually almost white. Yet the "color" is black.




And for completeness, the front of the penguinaut at different exposures.

You can't take apparent brightness of something in a photograph as the absolute truth of how it would have appeared to the naked eye.

[LunarOrbit]

Superman:

Please do not link to photos that are on other websites without the permission of the owner. Doing so is a drain of their bandwidth, and bandwidth costs money.

Instead link to the page that contains the photos you wish to discuss, or store them on your own webserver. I will edit any future posts you make that violate this rule.

[Jason]

"Penguinaut" is going to be my new favorite word.

[hplasm]

superman said:

my first post, i thought i start with a weak post and see how viscous you guys really are

Most people on this board aren't very viscous- especially now the weather is warming up- tho' some of the wild ideas held up to "prove the hoax" are quite thick... ;D

[nomuse]

Is it now going to be Jay Utah and the Viscous Penguins?

[hplasm]

Jay Utah and the Viscous Penginauts ! ;D

I want to be a Viscous Penguinaut! T-shirts, please!!