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Post by Count Zero on Jan 27, 2006 16:39:26 GMT -4
You omitted a third possibility: That they saw the approximate brightness that they were expecting and thus were not surprised at all. It is, after all, something that's so easy to calculate that it's been done twice in the last three days right here on this board, Ok, to state it more precisely: I want to know whether the statement by a NASA scientist that "stars are not readily seen in the daylight lunar sky by either the human eye or a camera because of the brightness of the sunlight surface" is true or just another of the zillions of lies spewn out by those "moon travellers" As I pointed out thirteen pages ago, this is something that you can go check for yourself without having to rely on anyone else's say-so. Get away from the computer, get away from Colby, get away from Jay, get away from Sibrel, get away from Sts60 and go do the experiment yourself.
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Post by Count Zero on Jan 27, 2006 16:05:27 GMT -4
That? That is "powerful" to you? Twelve pages ago I told you that you could go and test this yourself. Step 1 was get away from the computer. You said you preferred knowledge over belief, but instead of spending an hour outside gaining knowledge through experience, you would rather believe Eric Huffinschitt. You omitted a third possibility: That they saw the approximate brightness that they were expecting and thus were not surprised at all. It is, after all, something that's so easy to calculate that it's been done twice in the last three days right here on this board, Bughead, who gave you your "knowledge" about those rover (tires), when did you get it? Is it possible, conceivable to you that NASA adopts the stories if errors are detected? I don't know about Bughead, but I'm old enough to remember when the flights happened. I was at my uncle's house on Poe Street in Tucson when Dave Scott & Jim Irwin deployed the rover on live color TV. I remember the mesh tires. We've got issues of National Geographic that has photographs of them. This idea that NASA exercises Orwellian/Soviet revisionism is easy to test, because there is so much hardcopy material available from that time. But the first thing you need to do is get away from the computer.
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Post by Count Zero on Jan 26, 2006 21:50:13 GMT -4
Nomuse, et al You are so correct. One thing I love about this forum is the learning that takes place. Folks research, point out one anothers misunderstandings or errors in computation, and such. The whole community prospers for it. I really enjoy the thought experiments, like the camera exposure-thing, or working out the angle at which we would look through two thicknesses of atmosphere. These are things that don't rely on "common sense", beliefs, opinions or anybody's say-so; just stuff we can work out for ourselves. *** I've been trying to work on one that's been rattling around in my head for a while, but I need some help with geometry: We could work-out how bright the surface of the Moon would be if we were standing on it, by using sun angles & albedo. A figure for albedo is something of an appeal to authority; and one that stargazer rejects. instead, I want to work out the brightness in a different way: We know that a full moon shining on a field can light the scene rather well, and that's just a small light in the sky .5 degrees across. If that brightness (roughly speaking - see below) were multiplied across the entire ground (numerically speaking, through 180 degrees of azimuth and 0 to -90 degrees of elevation), how much brighter would it be? I know that using a full moon can give an inflated number because of hel... helig... <frak! I can do this> heligenschein (sp?), so can we use a half-moon? How?
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Post by Count Zero on Jan 26, 2006 21:21:55 GMT -4
When I have one of my scopes out, I usually look at the Moon last. Do an experiment, go outside on a clear starry night and get away from any bright ambient light. Allow at least 15-20 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the darkness. Get a good feel for how many stars you can see. Then briefly shin a bright light in your eyes and quickly look back to the sky. Compare the difference. A closer analogy, for our purposes, is to shine the light at the ground and look at that spot. I used this in post #381 on page 26 (ToSeeked! ).
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Post by Count Zero on Jan 26, 2006 8:23:18 GMT -4
If you assume that the layers of dust & smoke are uniform horizontally (look in every direction of azimuth), then the 30 degree elevation is still looking through twice the thickness as straight-up/90 degrees.
Light pollution can reduce the apparent brightness of stars nearer the horizon, but that biases the estimates to make the atmosphere a bit more "lossy" (say, 40% instead of 20%). This merely creates a worst-case estimate.
In case anyone was wondering, the curvature of the Earth is largely irrelevant to the calculation. 10 miles straight-up gets you above 90% of the atmosphere, and basically all of the crud. The 30-degree angle translates to a horizontal distance of 17.32 miles, or 15 nautical miles. This is 1/4 of one degree of curvature: half of the angular diameter of the Moon in the sky.
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Post by Count Zero on Jan 26, 2006 2:40:28 GMT -4
And btw. why didn't they just point one those TV-Cameras up to the sky, live for all the world to see. Or did I miss those too? Yes, you missed those too. Ed Fendell (the remote camera operator) looked up a lot, sometimes deliberately to look at the Earth or to track the ascent stage liftoff on Apollo 16 & 17, and sometimes accidentally - The Apollo 15 camera had problems with its tilt function. Need I remind you that the camera was set to view a sunlit landscape? Are you going to remind me that, without an atmosphere, the stars are brighter? Well, the sunlight on the landscape is going to be brighter for the same reason and by the exact same amount. So as the camera aperture stops down to compensate for that, it will continue to not see the stars. Let's talk camera exposure. The astronauts used ISO 160 film. If you wanted to photograph stars from the surface of the Earth with that film, you're going to have to open the aperture wide and expose the film for several seconds. Let's pick a number, say 10 seconds (in fact, it would take much longer: On the Gemini missions they were photographing stars above the atmosphere using exposures of up to two minutes). It's a ludicrously low number, but hey, let's be optimistic. Now then; you say that the stars as seen from the surface of the Moon are much brighter. Although you have been asked several times "how much brighter?" you have failed to answer.* Let's say they are twice as bright: You would still need to keep the shutter open for 5 seconds. Five times as bright? 2 seconds. Ten times as bright? 1 second. The astronauts shot all of their photographs at 1/250th of a second shutter speed, and they had the aperture stopped-down. The TV camera scanned each frame at 1/10 of a second and was also stopped-down. Even with the most wildly optimistic assumptions, it was flat-out impossible for the cameras shooting in daylight to see the stars. Go try it yourself - It'll take less time than it did for me to write this post. *On page 26 of this thread (reply#381, to be exact) I laid out a simple experiment, using no equipment, to find out just how much the atmosphere attenuates starlight. According to my calibrated eyeballs, it looks like roughly 20%. In other words, stars (and sunlight) on the Moon would look ~25% brighter than they do on Earth. I welcome other people's measurements.
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Post by Count Zero on Jan 26, 2006 1:54:38 GMT -4
So the positions of stars when observed from the Moon would appear identical to what we see from Earth. I worked out the maximum parallax of the next closest object to the Earth, namely Venus. Even at closest approach (Earth at perihelion, Venus at aphelion) the maximum parallax (Moon at apogee) would be only .6 degrees, which is ~1/4 of the diameter of the Earth seen in this picture. Of course, we wouldn't be able to see that, because we'd be looking straight into the Sun. Move Venus to a more favorable viewing angle, and the parallax drops to insignificance.
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Post by Count Zero on Jan 25, 2006 20:37:40 GMT -4
we really don't know how bright a human would perceive the lunar surface. Oh yes we do! When I look through one of my telescopes at the surface of the Moon, I can look at the sunlit lunar surface at the same sun angles as a man standing on the surface. My personal experience is that after I do this, I cannot see stars well for several minutes. (As an aside, if you believe that our atmosphere seriously reduces the amount of starlight we see, then remember that it is attenuating the moonlight by the same degree, meaning that a man on the surface would receive even more dazzle.) But common sense says that you turn your back to the sun, look up and ...wow Experience tells me that if I turn my back to the sun, I am now looking at a sunlit landscape. Experience tells me that if I look at a bright object, whether it is the Moon, or a light, or the sun, or a sunlit landscape, then it takes several minutes for eyes to re-adapt to see stars. Dude, get away from the computer, get away from your room, get away from the city and go someplace dark where you can see the stars. Then do some experiments: - Sit in the dark for 15 minutes and enjoy the view. - While you're there, compare the average brightness of the stars straight overhead, with the average brightness of stars 1/3rd of the way up from the horizon to the zenith (be sure you're not facing the glow of city lights). On a clear night with low humidity, you'll find that there's not much difference. Here's the important thing: When you're looking ~30 degrees off the horizon you're looking through twice as much atmosphere as when you're looking straight up. Therefore, the difference in average brightness between ~30 degrees and straight up is the same difference as between straight up and looking through no air at all.- Now switch on you headlights. Go sit on the ground in front of them, facing away. The ground in front of you is well-lit, but nowhere near as well-lit as it would be if it were in the sun. Sit there for 10 minutes (read a book if you like. I recommend anything by Terry Pratchett). Now go turn off your lights and look up - straight up - You know, the way that astronauts can't in their LEVA hoods & helmet. You will not see any but the brightest stars for several minutes. Go ahead. Try it. You don't have to take the word of any webmaster, or any Hoax Believer or Apollo Enthusiast or engineer or physicist. Go do this and trust your own experience. Go be a stargazer, instead of just calling yourself one.
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Post by Count Zero on Jan 24, 2006 19:48:43 GMT -4
Now bring up the evidence. The evidence has been presented. You ignored most of it and dismissed the rest without listing a concrete justification for why. Case in point: You reject the information on this site. Give reasons based on engineering and/or physical principles why it should be rejected. Again: The burdon of proof is on you, stargazer. NASA has made its claim and backed it up. When Jay makes a claim, he backs it up with numbers and experiments we can verify. Now you're making your claim, and we expect you to back it up.
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Post by Count Zero on Jan 24, 2006 18:53:51 GMT -4
However, all of that is not our concern here. What REAL proof do you moon landing believers have to offer for the authenticity of the Apollo moon landings? For starters how about the eyewitness testimony of thousands individuals who were directly involved in the project. The millions of documents describing virtually every minute detail of the Apollo program – documents which have held up under the scrutiny of engineers, scientists, and historians. Surviving samples of the hardware that qualified engineer attest would work as advertised. The over 380 kg of rock, soil, and core samples that every geologist who has examined them acknowledges comes from the moon. The science data returned to Earth by experiments deployed on the moon by Apollo astronauts – including the laser reflectors still in use today. Surely I’ve left some things off the list that others will add, however let me close with this, The inability of the conspiracy theorists to offer a competing hypothesis that holds up to scrutiny or better explains the evidence. EDIT: Cripes! I left out the thousands of photographs and hours of film and television -- all of which provides a convincing record of activities on a world not the Earth. OK, that neatly sums up evidence for Apollo. Stargazer, what evidence do you have that it was a hoax? So far you have not provided any numbers for radiation energy or flux, no viable process by which the rock & soil samples could be artificially created, no method for replicating the behavior of lunar dust (vacuum & 1/6th gravity) on Earth, nor any realistic explanation for the voice & data transmissions from the Moon, nor have you shown any understanding of the physics behind these things. Furthurmore, you have not produced any authoritative testimony or memoir by anyone who participated in the hoax, nor any hardware, nor evidence for any of the labs (or lab workers) who would have had to fabricate the evidence. What have you got, other than "I don't believe it"?
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Post by Count Zero on Jan 19, 2006 23:34:52 GMT -4
what do you think about the picture of the descent stage on that S/CAT website. Who took it? When was it first released? I had never seen that one until recently. That bit of obvious art used AS11-40-5961, taken by Neil Armstrong, as its template. The artist inserted the image of the Earth (which is actually too close to the horizon for it accurately depict any Apollo site), and removed the shadow of Armstrong & his tool, and the Eagle's ascent stage. He should have also removed the Solar Wind Experiment, which was brought home, and the flag, which was knocked over by the ascent stage's liftoff. Still, it gets the point across. I and many others have tried to imagine what the sites would look like today.
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Post by Count Zero on Jan 18, 2006 22:07:38 GMT -4
Welcome to the board. Putting footprints on the Moon doesn't just say something about America; it speaks to all people. It redefines what is possible. We all want our children to succeed, to be something, to go further and accomplish more. We want the people we work with to be diligent and productive. We try to inspire and motivate them. We explain that study and hard work can pay-off. One photograph of Buzz Aldrin's footprint in the Sea of Tranquility says a lot about what human beings with drive and ingenuity and teamwork can do. It proves it better than all the late-night, impassioned Internet rants ever written. The historical record of Apollo is overwhelming - greater than anything you can glean from questions on a bulletin board. That America abandoned Apollo (and the spirit it engendered) is a travesty. To persistently maintain that it never happened in the first place is nothing short of despicable. Now your turn: Why do you want to believe that Apollo didn't happen? Why does believing that heroes are actually life-long liars give you more comfort than the achievment of humanity's boldest dreams?
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Post by Count Zero on Jan 22, 2006 1:05:56 GMT -4
Fred? Dang! From your handle, I was sure your name was Jeremy. Oh well...
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Post by Count Zero on Jan 16, 2006 20:00:00 GMT -4
I actually don't think that he did point it at the sun. I think it was pointed at some highly reflective surface with the aperture open all the way. I have watched the segment a few times and while it wobbles about a bit, you can see the LM prior to the burnout. Bean said that it was reflection off the LM that killed the beast.
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Post by Count Zero on Jan 15, 2006 20:32:55 GMT -4
Good work. A classic example is the original picture of Buzz: It's badly tilted, and so far off-center that the top of Buzz's PLSS & antenna is cut off. When this picture is published, it's usually rotated & cropped. Neil had a strong tendency to rotate the camera to the left. When you look at the pictures as a group, that sort of thing really leaps out at you.
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