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Post by Kiwi on Jun 30, 2005 10:39:04 GMT -4
JayUtah never fails to amaze at his breadth of knowledge
True, but even more amazing is his ability to convey what he knows about highly technical matters or abstract concepts in a way that almost anyone can understand it.
Thanks, Jay! I've already had a great day at 2:30am, because I've learnt something new.
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Post by Kiwi on Jun 30, 2005 10:11:30 GMT -4
No offence meant to anyone, but I have an irresistable compulsion to resurrect the best one-liner ever at the Bad Astronomy Bulletin Board, along with, naturally, full applause for the genius who coined it, Harald Kucharek, on 12 July 2004. ;D Ta-daaaaaa: "...Twinkies often refer to pretty bad prints or scans to do their rorschaching"Edited to add the link to Harald's full post about Kipp Teague's wonderful new scans from Apollo 11: www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=296192#296192
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Post by Kiwi on Jun 29, 2005 5:38:54 GMT -4
While I have the Spacecraft Films' Apollo 11 DVDs here (kindly lent to me by another Kiwi member of this board), can someone please tell me exactly where to view the footage concerned, and which part of it was shown by Sibrel. I have the original version of the Spacecraft Films Apollo 11 DVD, so it might be slightly different (as far as menus and chapters are concerned) than the version distributed by FOX. The footage that Sibrel used (a tiny part of) starts at Title 22, Chapter 5 on my DVD, and it takes place at about 34:00 GET. It shows the Earth out one of the windows for about 10 minutes and then the Capcom (Charlie Duke, I believe) requests that they turn on the lights so everyone can see the astronauts. They turn on the lights and remove some blinds from the windows. Sibrel only shows about 5 seconds of it and has his narrator speaking over most of it. Thanks, LunarOrbit. The things we do... It's probably reinventing the wheel, but in the hope of making the facts easily accessible, I have transcribed the dialogue from the two Apollo 11 TV transmissions at 10:32 and 30:28 GET. They can be found here, in "The Reality of Apollo": apollohoax.proboards21.com/index.cgi?board=apollo&action=display&thread=1120036997Some parts I couldn't understand so have shown [garbled] in those places. There are probably some errors and it is sometimes difficult to identify exactly who is speaking, so any help in getting the transcriptions accurate would be appreciated. Each new piece of dialogue starts with the times on the Spacecraft Films Apollo 11 DVDs, Disc 1, with three asterisks showing gaps in the dialogue, so it is easy to race through the DVD to find everything said. Maybe I am indeed a thicko, but I can't see where Bart Sibrel gets the idea that there is some sort of smoking gun or a hoax being perpetrated in these transmissions. Please, anyone, feel free to use the text to show others the true nature of his claim. Much of the dialogue sounds pretty routine to me (if flying to the moon can be routine), and it's worth noting the unhurried and free-of-frustration nature of it. Just professionals doing their job as efficiently as they can and tossing in the odd joke. Nothing mysterious at all, except perhaps to those people who might take a pimple to be a sign that they're getting the bubonic plague.
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Post by Kiwi on Jun 28, 2005 11:51:32 GMT -4
Typically when the MSFN television links were activated, the ground stations would the tapes over them to Mission Control. Can't figure out what's missing here. P.S: I claim the "I sighted an extremely rare species -- a JayUtah typo" teeshirt.
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Post by Kiwi on Jun 28, 2005 10:21:11 GMT -4
The first test period was about 10 hours into the flight. The ground controllers simply wanted a picture -- any picture -- from the capsule in order to see whether the onboard systems were working. Since Mission Control couldn't see the picture, and since protocol prevented the ground stations from talking directly to the capsule, there was a sort of awkward three-way exchange going on. The picture was fuzzy and wavy, and the television technicians at the ground station had to relay suggestions to Houston for the astronauts. The Mission Control operators couldn't see the picture, and so they wanted the astronauts to sort of narrate what was going on, so that when they got the tape playback from Goldstone over the MSFN television link later, they could match up what they were seeing with what the astronauts had described. During this transmission the astronauts had questions about exposure and other camera settings. Mission Control relayed up some suggested camera settings and then the Goldstone folks commented about how those affected the picture. While doing a little research tonight I noticed that this transmission actually went out to the American public a few hours later. First on the Moon -- A Voyage with Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Edwin E. Aldrin Jr, written with Gene Farmer and Dora Jane Hamblin, epilogue by Arthur C. Clark. Michael Joseph Ltd, London (1970), page 109: "The television transmission started coming into Goldstone at 10:32:40 GET, when the spacecraft was at an altitude of fifty thousand nautical miles. It lasted a little more than sixteen minutes. Two and one-half hours later, starting at 8:45 p.m. Houston time, the first Apollo 11 show was put on the American networks. But this was an unscheduled transmission; it had not been in the flight plan..."
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Post by Kiwi on Jun 28, 2005 9:57:53 GMT -4
The neglect they showed by not photographing stars in specific leaves a bad taste in that they would or could have such little regard for how important or relevant it would have been to take these photos. Who says, besides you and a handfull of hoax-believers? The object was scientific exploration of the MOON, not the stars. Just because YOU think it was important, doesn't mean that it was at all in the overall scheme of things. I don't think it was, and nor do many others here. No-one was obligated to fulfill YOUR faulty expectations. Nor mine. It certainly doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth -- in fact, I completely fail to understand why you say this. It's only important to those who can't grasp that the Apollo missions actually took place as the records state. The reasoning that it looks very similar to viewing from Earth is kind of a weak one, imo.Why? Because you simply don't understand the answers you have already been given? Please don't waste our time by ignoring us -- we put a lot of work into trying to help you. Sometimes it's necessary to examine an explanation meticulously, word by word, sentence by sentence, and read it over and over until you understand it. I do this all the time because I want to learn and refuse to be a thicko. Anything less than this is an insult to those who put in the effort to help. Think of this. The sun orbits the moon once a year, right? Therefore, at any one time it is as far away as it can possibly be from where it will be in six months time. Right? (Look up the figures and do yourself a scale diagram.) Therefore, the stars, by your reasoning (you're following every word here, right?), should look very different every six months. It should be possible to see them in 3D with a stereo pair of photos taken six months apart, right? Wrong! In actual fact, they don't look much different at all -- they are all too far away. Only with high-precision instruments can astronomers see a slight parallax shift when comparing the closest stars with distant ones at six month intervals. They can't measure any parallax change at all in the distant stars. The PR value alone of taking a photo of the Earth amongst the stars is incredible, and would take very little extra time or effort to do.I fully agree with the first part of this, but is the second part proving that you either didn't read, or didn't bother getting to understand my post above where I gave you the numbers and showed that it's IMPOSSIBLE? Was it just a waste of time trying to help you? Okay, from a photograhic point of view the moon is just a rock sitting in the sun. So YOU photograph it AND show the stars behind it in a straight, unmanipulated photograph (or get someone to help you do it), and post the results so we can see them. From what you insist, it should be a piece of cake, right? Wrong! It's impossible! Still don't believe me? I'll repeat myself in a slightly different way in the hope that you'll get it this time, though I have a feeling that you may not WANT to get it. Let's work it out: 125th at around f11 to f16 (the sunny 16 rule) with 100 ISO film should give a good exposure of an unobstructed moon if it's between full and first or last quarters. But even the brightest stars need an exposure of at least 8 seconds at f2.8, and you'd be better off catching them at around 20-30 seconds. Which are you going to expose correctly? The stars OR the moon? YOU CAN'T GET BOTH IN THE SAME SHOT. IT'S IMPOSSIBLE. Prove this yourself. Just do it! And by the way, you'll need a tripod, which the astronauts didn't have for their Hasselblads. Six times they had the chance to do it at least one time, and didn't.Wrong again, because it's impossible. Do your homework, man! You seem to be one of very few people who believes it is possible. This is not Star Wars and Hollywood we're talking about, this is reality. Regarding the sun stopping astronauts seeing the stars, I've already given you an experiment you can do to check this out yourself. You don't have to be on the moon to do it. Note that I said DARK sky and DARK area. Any light that enters your vision from anything other than the stars will muck up the experiment. It happened to the astronauts, and I guarantee that it will happen to you. But I wasted my time telling you, right? <Fixed typo>
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Post by Kiwi on Jun 27, 2005 10:55:25 GMT -4
While I have the Spacecraft Films' Apollo 11 DVDs here (kindly lent to me by another Kiwi member of this board), can someone please tell me exactly where to view the footage concerned, and which part of it was shown by Sibrel.
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Post by Kiwi on Jun 27, 2005 10:39:00 GMT -4
Turbonium, welcome to Apollohoax. Someone will no doubt be able to answer the query in your first post.
I don't think that PhantomWolf will mind me saying that he is a New Zealander, and so am I. We owe nothing to Nasa, and of course they have no control over what we say. We support the moonlandings because we have studied them thoroughly. I followed the entire space program right from when I saw Sputnik 1 as a kid in in 1957. I mention this because many hoax believers think that all of us on these boards have some connection with Nasa. Very few of us do.
Most people who claim the stars should have been visible in the lunar surface photos have absolutely no comprehension of the exposure differences for sunlit scenes and stars. In fact, I think many of them have seen too many movies, where the stars are always visible, but rarely ever displayed in the patterns that make up the constellations as we know them.
I was a professional photographer for over 15 years, amateur since 1968, have taught exposure, and photographed stars, so I understand a little about the complexities involved, as PhantomWolf and others here do.
That difference, 1/250 @ f11 and a bare minimum 8 seconds @ f2.8 is well over 30,000:1. Film cannot handle that difference, so it is impossible to include stars and sunlit objects in one photograph and have both correctly exposed.
A little experiment we can all do when in a dark-sky area: Sit in a brightly lit room and with one eye only, look at something bright, or the light itself, for about five minutes. Cover the other eye in some way that you can keep it open, but not allow any light in. Closing it can upset your vision with tears.
Then, keeping that one eye covered, quickly go outside to a dark area and look at the stars with both eyes. You will often find the difference is stunning. It can be so big that it is possible to feel giddy because your brain has trouble reconciling the different images in both eyes. Note that within a minute you will start to see stars with the uncovered eye that weren't visible at first, and in about four minutes both eyes will start to see exactly the same stars.
This simple experiment will go some way towards illustrating the difficulty in seeing stars when there are sunlit objects in sight. Just like with film, we can see one or the other, but not both at the same time.
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Post by Kiwi on Jun 21, 2005 23:15:36 GMT -4
Don't these guys ever observe their environment? At this time of the year, winter, I can often view the shadow of a perfectly straight power pole snaking gently from side to side across my front lawn. Why? Because of undulations in the lawn or varying grass lengths. Here are more excellent real-life examples of the so-called lunar photograph anomalies: www3.telus.net/summa/moonshot/main.htmClick on the thumbnails to see more examples and explanations.
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Post by Kiwi on Jun 21, 2005 6:49:57 GMT -4
Good one, Bob.
What is the "lunar surface" material? It looks like a dark-coloured shiny plastic sheet, so may reflect less light back onto the LM than the real lunar surface.
It would be interesting to see two shots exposed the same as the astronauts did: One shot taken of the back of the model and correctly exposed, and another shot taken of the front, but the aperture manually opened up three (or was it four?) stops. I'm assuming that you can adjust those electronic things the same as real cameras!
White, Percy and others have often claimed that it's "impossible" to lighten up the front of the LM the way the astronauts often did it. According to my 37 years' experience in photography it's not impossible at all. I sometimes feel a tad aggreived at those so-called experts spouting their nonsense.
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Post by Kiwi on Jun 27, 2005 6:27:29 GMT -4
Naturally it includes appropriate praise for members of this board: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by dknjms: ...it's actually stuff from a subsequent landing... that has lead me to wonder) but for some reason no-one ever wants to talk about those. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Emphasis added.) You obviously haven't been to the BABB or Apollohoax! At those places you'll find plenty of people (JayUtah and Bob B. in particular) who are so passionate about Apollo that the hardest job you'd ever have there is getting them to shut up... <Fixed typos>
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Post by Kiwi on Jun 27, 2005 6:13:00 GMT -4
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Post by Kiwi on Jun 21, 2005 22:54:03 GMT -4
Speaking of the hammer and feather experiment, has anyone noticed that when the camera zoom's in and out the LM and astronaut grow and shrink in image size but the mountain behide doesn't move at all. When focal length is increased everything get's bigger at the same time no matter how near or far away it is. Anyway I thought that was odd. Also when the camera zoom's back there look's like a black mask or something moving down over the top of the mountain. Sound's weird I know but that's how it looked to me by looking at the mountain's texture as the camera zoom's in and out. Moonglow, welcome to the board. Are you sure you know what you're talking about here, and have you done your homework? I have only a rough copy of this experiment that is taken from a condensed version of the movie, "Apollo 15: In the Mountains of the Moon," No. HQ 217. How could you imagine there is a "black mask" when it is the dark lunar sky appearing behind the upper slope of whopping great Mount Hadley Delta, which towers about 11,700 feet above the plain on which the Falcon landed? The slope that appears is the one that is roughly above St George Crater, near Hadley Rille, and approximately south of the LM. It can be viewed in many photographs of the area. As for "the LM and astronaut grow and shrink in image size but the mountain behide doesn't move at all..." what I see at top right, superimposed over the mountain but not on it, is probably dust on the lens. It is near the end of the EVA and the astronauts had to regularly dust the TV camera lenses. This dust build-up can often be viewed in the TV transmissions. I can't see any texture at all in Mount Hadley Delta, though it may be visible in better-quality DVDs. Nearer the centre of the screen is a white spot which at one stage appears over Scott's spacesuit, and also appears later in the distant shot of the lunar module from the rover's final parking spot. I'm not sure whether this spot is dust or a fault in the camera.
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Post by Kiwi on Mar 19, 2008 7:50:07 GMT -4
I feel embarassed for my country, though I know there are people like that everywhere. Me too, and as Mark Gray of Spacecraft Films once said in a thread here, "I suppose every village has to have its idiots..."
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Post by Kiwi on Mar 19, 2008 7:35:11 GMT -4
I have lived all my life in New Zealand and I've seen a programme about flying saucers by Nick Cook. Does that make me as qualified as Altair4? I have lived all my life in New Zealand and I'm quite unfamiliar with Nick Cook, but I read all the newspaper reports during the Kaikoura incident, have a book here called "The NZ Files -- UFOs in New Zealand," once read Bruce Cathie and Eric von Daniken, and two nights ago advised someone about things in the sky as shown below. Does that make me as qualified as Altair4? From a Trade Me Message Board Thread about the ISS and Space Shuttle (the thread vanishes into cyberspace two or three days after the last post): 8. dbb I have a Q for you -- Every morning me and mum go walking...each day looking toward the NW i see this round thing crossing the sky. It is soundless, wingless and is white. I am not kidding as mum has seen it as well. Any clues as to what it may be please??? solitaire3 (396 ) 10:53 pm, 17 Mar [With so little to go on, the first step was to find out the poster's location. Her profile said Waihi.] 10. No. 8 -- You need a much more detailed description for identification -- height in degrees, size, distance, direction of flight, area of the sky covered, speed etc. ## Dandelion seed? Weather balloon? Aircraft? ## Northwest from Waihi you'd be looking at heaps of aircraft flying to Mangere and possibly Whenuapai. I see the Wellington-Auckland aircraft flying across the Taranaki Bight about 20km out to sea from where I live, and they usually look exactly the same as you described. It's very rare to see the wings or tail, only the fuselage, which looks vaguely saucer-like. And what shape are many UFO's described as? Keep in mind that UFO is an abbreviation for Unidentified Flying Object, but many dummies nowadays wrongly take it to mean alien spacecraft. It doesn't. If you know it's an alien spacecraft, then it's an IFO. Identified. dbb (20 ) 2:54 am, 18 Mar [My favourite quote, which is with my profile on that web site: "Some people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices and superstitions. Edward R Murrow (1908–1965)]
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