Apollo photo's under "scan"

[billy]

I am asumming there are some irregularities shown in many of the photo's of Apollo 11 not discussed anywhere else. Can I post my findings on the copies of the photos of NASA or they are treated as copyright material ?

[Data Cable]

All Apollo photographs are public domain and can be reproduced freely.

[billy]

ooh happy :-) thank you didnt know so I'll start with my findings

[billy]

Beggining with the facts that the Apollo 11 mission had 3
target objectives as from what the president told in early 60
* to take photos *to gather rocks * to have 2 men on moon

Taking photos was a task well known to where and with a very
good know-how of what and with how many ways this could be done.
So the one and only special types of film magazines of the Hasselblads
used, the one and only kind of special film used, the plain non zoom
60mm lens, the plain f/5.6 for the lens, and a plain "plane" to shoot,
meaning no chromatic variations, or luminance irregularities or
reflections due to the average 7-9 % light reflectance of the lunar
soil.(i.e like brown selinite). Adding this with the "polarizer" filter
MANY of the reflections that would even think to exist should diminish
to the least extent.

So my first irregularity was a general view of all the 320 photo's
the 500 EL took.(2 magazines of 160 shots each with my info). No photo
was the same with the other. Next to that, if someone would say that
the only setting that could be changed was the shutter speed, where
it was from 1 to 1/500 (and typically used only 1/125 or 1/250 as
in clavius.org website sais) then we should have two kinds of photo's
except the ones last and first where the magazines would be burnt
from the sun...

So the colour of the lunar soil is brown chocolate, but the aldebo,
makes it look silvery, yet the majority of the photos taken, show it
almost like snowy white. (not at all even at the max.18% of the
Arist. crater with abs. values of R103 G103 B103 for medium 18% gray
if we desaturate a jpeg image).

If we take also the claim of NASA that there were test shots previously
and processed first so to calibrate with the kodak and ansi colour
standards for the maximum accuracy then either all the theory of
the world of photometrics USED by NASA was wrong or NASA changed the
"colours" each by each one selectively, so to show a better viewable
image.

I will not quote yet any NASA encyclopedia, NASA spokesman, or
other NASA web site info because the post will be awfully long and
I want a short (ok ok) post.

MY first thought is that IF NASA has changed the public given JPEG's
WHY not changed something more ? (hehe smells conspiracy victim <- )

So I started with the HIGHLIGHT/MIDTONE/SHADOW treatment in
the good old Photostyler 2.0 of mine.

Midtones +80% 1:1 croped - nothing else.

[ajv]

When you reference a photo please use the Apollo image number e.g. AS11-40-5874 and use high resolution images if possible. Good catalog references are the LPI to locate the image numbers or the Project Apollo Archive for good resolution images.

[billy]

This photo was taken from
history.nasa.gov/ap11ann/kippsphotos/apollo.html
and it's AS11-40-5875
Aldrin salutes the U.S. Flag

(hey it was a close number of your example you have memorized it!!!)

the other site has photo's I've never seen thank you !!!

[dwight]

If I can offer my 2 cents. Formulating photo analysis from jpegs, no matter how hi res they may be, is probably not a good idea. JPEG is well known as a lossy (very lossy) compression format. That generally means there will be data loss.

I'll admit it is a great format for getting a general idea, and can appear stunning when not overly compressed, however artifacting is the nature of digital imagery. Similarly while MPEG2 material looks better than original tape (when applied with noise reduction etc) it is still a lossy format. There are just too many error correction induced anomilies which will corrupt any hard core analysis.

Cheers
Dwight

[billy]

I dont disagree, but firstly what we see is not either jpeg artifact from
compression, either low noise. In fact the blue linething does not
exist in the same format image (jpeg) of the other site, our friend
here told us about the numbering also...


yet more consistent "lines" - rays? are in the AS11-40-5873 at
another angle of the sun 2 shots before with the LM at our right,
(can even be seen without modifications with +80% midtones)

but some more weird things happen here

[ajv]

it's AS11-40-5875 Aldrin salutes the U.S. Flag
No, it's not. It's AS11-40-5874. You can see the fingers of Aldrin's salute.

[billy]

indeed! and even 5874 from the same site of history the
midtones with+80 are ok with no line let me see again

yeap you're right! i FISHED it from
www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/images11.html
(had 4 windows opened)

and the hi-res is
www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/as11-40-5874HR.jpg

[billy]

huge difference!!!
in the history.nasa.gov/ap11ann/kippsphotos/5874.jpg
this thing...

simply doesnt exist (as also any noise or other color info)


its two different NASA sites...

[lionking]

or NASA changed the
"colours" each by each one selectively, so to show a better viewable
image.

I think this is what happened since I had a conversation with Tuttle about the issue of coloring and he said he changed colors to make a pretty pic to put on the internet.

[ajv]

The image on kippsphotos has been cropped (it's a rectangle) and doesn't even overlap the "blue linething". It clearly has different color levels compared with the HR image. Also, who knows exactly what jpeg compression or other image processing has been done on either image before publishing.

Note the following quote from the ALSJ (Kipp Teague is the "Kipp" in kippsphotos and the Project Apollo Archive).

These scans are being done by NASA Johnson, with some post-processing by Kipp Teague. The film is scanned at 4096 x 4096 pixels per image. Kipp reduces each digital image to approximately 2350 x 2350 pixels (equivalent to 300 dpi) and does minor adjustments of levels to ensure that (1) brightly lit areas of lunar soil are neutral grey, (2) objects with known colors (such as the CDR stripes or the LCRU blankets) look right, and (3) information in bright or dark areas is not lost.

Here's a note by Michael Light on the ALSJ about Apollo color.

[billy]

"The image on kippsphotos has been cropped"
Should it?

"It clearly has different color levels compared with the HR image"
and NO OTHER color "info-pixel" to show something as the other.

"Also, who knows exactly what jpeg compression"
The JPEG compression doesnt eliminate info data. It might change
some chrominance or even luminance levels by some percentage but
surely NOT eliminating info pixels even at a fair compression of 50%
EXAMPLE

JPEG 2000 COMPRESSION

ORIGINAL

SIMPLE JPEG COMPRESSION


example source ai.fri.uni-lj.si/~aleks/jpeg/artifacts.htm
also a good info source for JPEG in general
pascalzone.amirmelamed.co.il/Graphics/JPEG/JPEG.htm


quote of "Mike Light"

Color on the moon, as you know, is a very subjective phenonmenon; it
is also quite variable in terms of actual physical phenomena, ie, the
color changes depending on the angle of the sun and one's orientation
to it. 'Mouse grey,' 'mouse brown,' 'concrete,' 'asphalt,' etc.

Accoring to SHELDON C.SHALLON Chief Scientist of the Surveyor program,
and KURT R. STEHLING Director of the Electro-Optical systems in
NASA (Washington) then, on a whole chapter covering "the nature of
the lunar soil" say

"Thourough photometric study has led us to conclude that the surface
of the moon is very dark, reflecting on the average only 7% of
sunlight. The darkest zones, the seas, do not reflect more than 5%,
the continents nearly 9%, and the brightest area, the Aristarchus
crater, 18%. What is striking, is that the most luminous point on the
lunar surface is only 3-4 times brighter than the dullest, whereas
on Earth the ratio is much higher. Snow for instance reflects 50 times
more sunlight than most black earth.

Uniformity of colour is afurther peculiarity of the lunar soil.
Observation by telescope shows almost no variation in tint. This
impression is confirmed by colorimetric and spectrophotometric
examinations which reveal a more pronounce reflection of the
luminous rays in the red than in the blue wave lengths. Hence the
colour of the lunar surface is not simply dark, or blackish grey,
but slightly brown. A fragment of the surface has a tint reminiscent
of chocolate or of the crust of black bread. The earthly mineral
which most nearly approximates in colour to lunar soil is brown
lemonite.

[/b]

Brown lemonite at it's "most shiny" state - human finger left


Continuing with MIke Light sais...4
"What I know best in terms of color is the film, the first generation
master dupes, and in truth that film is a complete mess."
reminding that
"I should say, too, that the masters I worked with were the best they
get: happily NASA had just made brand-spanking-new color masters"
coming with the reasonable question
"So why the variability, even with the new masters?"

having as answer

A)The subtly changing colors of the moon itself,"

(this is contradicting with the above quote of the directors and
chief scientists in NASA Washington)

B)all color film shot on the moon was made for an Earth-based
chromatic spectrum of light, not that of a vacuum -- the film 'saw'
color differently in space than it would on Earth."

this is contradicting with at least 2 different other facts.

1) the film -at least of the Apollo 11 500 EL data camera - was a
special emulsion one specifically designed for this mission. It was not
the first time photographs were taken from vacuum "space" as many
experiments were done for that reason many years before. The most
problematic issue was not vacuum space but heat and radiation particles
that would may change the films "data", as was indeed the case with
the last photo exampled in the magazine.

As also stated in the
www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/apollo.photechnqs5.pdf
"PHOTOGRAPHY EQUIPMENT AND TECHNIQUES" - p.24 of 25 line 5

It can be stated, nevertheless, that available color film
is generally balanced to the solar spectrum in space and that
the effect of ultraviolet energy appears to be negligible
to image degradation

Nevertheless it was again also designed for that also...

(3) The Data Camera was given a silver finish to make it more resistant
to thermal variations that ranged from full Sun to full shadow helping
maintain a more uniform internal temperature. The two magazines
carried along with the Data Camera also had silver finishes.

www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11-hass.html

2) The film was tested before with the KODAK colour chart (it WAS
a KODAK ektachrome afterall), based on the ANSI table of colours,
AND shades of GRAY...

The film used for Apollo 11 was loaded and several test shots exposed
prior to flight. When the film magazines were returned for processing
after the mission, the test shots were cut off and processed first.
These were compared against accurate color charts to ensure that there
would be no defects in processing the remainder of the film and that
the colors would be most accurate.

history.nasa.gov/apollo_photo.html

Mike light conntinues
"Different film emulsions on the Moon, and processing methods once home
were used from mission to mission, with different overall color casts
and characteristics resulting."

the fact of the Apollo 11 magazine (examined here) doesnt answer the
colour variatons except the "mess" stated in reason 1, apparently
against the generalizing about other emulsion processes.

(to be continued with 2nd part)

[lionking]

Hello Billy

Since I don't know a lot about what you are saying, but if I understood well you are saying that the colors were changed by NASA. I don't know if my previous post answers your question. Just want to be on the same page with you. As I said before, Tuttle told me before that he changed colors , darkening the sky more, removing seemlines and stuff to make a pretty pic to put on the internet. So, there is nothing "unusual" about the rays not appearing, if I understood your point. Maybe the variations you are speaking about can be made by darkening the sky more than other skies and stuff, but since I am not an expert here, I prefer others answer you. thanks anyway