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Post by margamatix on Aug 20, 2005 16:36:53 GMT -4
Which photograph is that, and what suggests that it is falsified? There is a picture in Shepard's book that is a composite and I'm pretty sure it was even labelled as such.. It was in Shepherd's book, but was not presented as a composite. It was presented as a true record. Incidentally, Shepherd laughed because he sliced the ball. It is of course impossible to slice a ball in a vacuum.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Aug 20, 2005 16:44:06 GMT -4
It was in Shepherd's book, but was not presented as a composite. It was presented as a true record. Since I do not have a copy of the book I can not verify that. Do you have the book, or are you simply taking the word of Aulis as fact?
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Post by JayUtah on Aug 20, 2005 16:48:04 GMT -4
Ground texture would make a difference, distance from the camera would not.
Not so, and I explained this in detail in my previous post. Distance determines the angle with which your line of sight intersects with the ground. Since the lighting angle is constant, distance affects phase angle.
A photograph is not a single line of sight, but rather a "cone" of divergent lines of sight that fan out from the focal point of the camera, or of the observer's eye.
Stand up and look straight forward. Out of the corner of your eye see where your field of vision intersects the ground. For most people that's about 5 or 6 feet ahead of you. Draw an imaginary line from your eye to that spot. What angle does that line make with the ground? 45 degrees, or thereabouts?
Now, without moving or adjusting your eyesight, look at a spot farther away. I'm looking out a window across the street, 150 feet away. If I draw the same kind of imaginary line, what angle does it form with the ground? Trigonometry says just under 2 degrees.
Now let's say you're looking in the direction of the sun and the sun is 10 degrees above the horizon. Shadows are long; texture elements are shaded on their down-sun side (i.e., the side facing you). Keeping the solution in one plane, the phase angle in the first example is 125 degrees. In the second example the phase angle is 168 degrees.
Now unless you dispute that phase angle does not have an effect on perceived brightness, you have to conclude that distance matters.
If Count Zero's photograph is unmodified, this would be more consistant with the lighting I would expect to see.
As would I. He is linking to a scan of the original transparency. The image you're using is probably a multi-generational copy. The falloff is real; it has a physical explanation. But the photographic duplication process amplifies contrast, especially the way the scans were done.
Another factor we didn't discuss is the response of the film. Ektachrome E-3 is a reversal film. As such, it has a narrow range of contrast. The darks become darker and the lights become lighter as opposed to what you see with your eye. But as I said, the falloff is real and has a physical explanation. It's just more pronounced in some copies of the picture.
However, NASA is not above falsification of photographs, as the Alan Shepherd golf photograph demonstrates.
That was not made by NASA.
...you mean "show me a photograph with a lighting gantry clearly visible, rather than just the light from it" then I cannot do that, nor would you reasonably expect me to.
I reasonably expect you to provide evidence for your claims. You claim there is an artificial light used, and I want to know how you arrived at that conclusion. If it is your argument that it "must" be artificial light because natural light cannot do that, then I require an explanation for the sample photographs that show natural light can do that, and a refutation of my physics explanation.
If you make an extraordinary claim, it is not unreasonable to demand extraordinary proof. Yes; I require evidence that can only have arisen from an artificial light. I deal every day with artificial lights; I know some of those signs. Can you show me any?
But then you are unable to accept that an astronaut is being suspended on a wire, simply because the wire itself is not visible, although the effects of its pulling clearly are.
I am not obliged to accept any explanation for which there is no direct proof, and which is based on artificially restricted evidence.
You cannot show me the wire. You simply say it "must" be a wire because that's the only way that motion could have been accomplished. However, you say that because you limit yourself only to a stripped-down version of the evidence. The clues that tell you what's really going on are in the full set of evidence. In the better evidence you can hear the astronaut propose to push off his partner's hand. In the better evidence you can see him reach up with his hand and push off with it just as he moves upward. In the full evidence there is no mystery.
Can you show me the wire? No, you cannot. You infer that there must be a wire because of the motion you see. But there is a better explanation for the motion, and it's in the evidence you refuse to consider. If we consider the two hypotheses (that he pushed up with his hand, and that he was drawn up by a wire) we find there is ample evidence for the first hypothesis and none whatsoever for the second. You admit you can't show me the wire.
You have no skill at reasoning backward from effect to cause. You see an effect, and you propose a cause to explain it. When asked for evidence of the cause, you simply state the observed effect. Well, yes -- you specificaly formulated that potential cause with the presumption that -- if it had actually occurred -- it would produce the observed effect. So simply to cite the effect as evidence for your candidate cause is purely circular. When we ask for evidence of the cause, we mean how do you know that your cause is the one that produced that effect?
That's when you bring up your indirect argument and say it has to be your cause because it couldn't be anything else. But when push comes to shove, you can't demonstrate that you have examined any of the other potential causes. There are potential causes that you don't even know about, so how can you be so sure they aren't the real cause? That's why your mode of proof is exceptionally weak.
In the astronaut recovery case, you simply failed to look at any of the evidence favoring another possible cause (i.e., his partner helping him). Not only is that a possible explanation, it's a highly likely one. We can see it happen. Therefore your argument that it "must" be a wire because it can't be anything else, is patently false.
Now instead you could show us the wire. But you haven't yet. You just say the wire "must" be there, even though we can't see it, and the effect attributed to it is actually another cause.
Similarly, you look at the photo of Aldrin and you observe a certain pattern of light. You reason backward from effect to potential cause, and you assert that there must be an artificial light. Why? Because you can see the light itself, or some piece of lighting equipment? No, because you say it's impossible for natural light to create that kind of pattern. It's the same indirect argument: "It must be my hypothesis -- even though that seems improbable -- because it can't possibly be anything else."
And again, when you make that argument, you have the burden of proof to go out and really see whether there are other explanations and show why they don't apply.
And in fact, we don't even have to prove an alternate explanation. We just have to come up with an alternate hypothesis. Because your argument relies on your hypothesis being the only possible one. We only have to show that there is another explanation that is possible -- one that you didn't think of or didn't fully explain away.
Not only have we done this in the case of the photograph, we have shown not only that our explanation is possible, but that it actually fits the evidence better that your hypothesis.
So yes: you either have to quit making indirect arguments or show us the wires and lights in person. It may not appear to you that you are evading a burden of proof, but you surely are.
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Post by JayUtah on Aug 20, 2005 16:56:08 GMT -4
It was in Shepherd's book...
Shepard's book had nothing to do with NASA. It was published privately.
...but was not presented as a composite. It was presented as a true record.
No, it wasn't. It was simply presented. There was no claim that it was a photo taken on the moon, and since both astronauts are depicted in it, it is very hard to argue that it was intended to be understood as a true photograph.
In the absence of a specific declaration, David Percy simply choose to assume that the editors of the book intended it to be a real photograph. The editors make no such claim. Percy is simply pasting his desired motives on the editors.
Incidentally, Shepherd laughed because he sliced the ball.
False. Shepard did not actually slice the ball. The CAPCOM made a joke that he had sliced it. He could manage only a clumsy one-handed stroke and managed to knock the ball only a few meters away from the LM into a crater.
It is of course impossible to slice a ball in a vacuum.
That's what made the joke funny.
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Post by Count Zero on Aug 20, 2005 17:03:32 GMT -4
Whether it's listed as a composite or not (I intend to order the book next pay-day) The fact is that Moonshot is not an official NASA publication, nor were Shepard & Slayton affiliated with NASA at the time of writing or publication, nor will you find any NASA claim that this is one of their photos. Here are all 1342 Hasselblad images from the Apollo 14 mission. That it is a composite is obvious: The was never a Hassleblad photo of the two astronauts on the surface, because someone had to take the picture. Aulis states, "Stuart Roosa should have been the one to take such a photograph, but he was with Alan Shepard for the duration of the golfing scene, as confirmed by the ‘live’ TV coverage..." Stu Roosa wasn't on the lunar surface, he was orbiting the moon in the CSM. Aulis gets it wrong AGAIN!!! Why do you listen to these knuckle-heads?
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Post by LunarOrbit on Aug 20, 2005 17:34:39 GMT -4
Whether it's listed as a composite or not (I intend to order the book next pay-day) I just ordered a used copy from Amazon.ca for $3.
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Post by Sticks on Aug 20, 2005 17:49:41 GMT -4
Here is a link to the uncropped, first-generation scan at the Project Apollo Image Gallery. The smoothed dust from the engine exhaust is very clear. An irrelevant question here, but is there a decent blow up of the visor so we can see the reflection of the lander and Neil?
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Post by JayUtah on Aug 20, 2005 17:51:20 GMT -4
David Percy is arguing from silence. When the original source gives no explicit statement of intent, someone like Percy can't defensibly come along and say the intent "must" have been a certain thing because there's no denial for that certain thing.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Aug 20, 2005 17:53:32 GMT -4
I've just hunted out my copy.
Sadly, aside from a general acknowledgement at the end to NASA media services and the Shepard and Slayton families, the edition I have doesn't contain any photo credits.
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Post by JayUtah on Aug 20, 2005 17:53:54 GMT -4
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Post by Sticks on Aug 20, 2005 18:00:18 GMT -4
Probably the wrong area to mention this but the link for "Apollo Lunar Surface Journal," or www.clavius.org/bibsite.html seems to be a dead link
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Post by Sticks on Aug 20, 2005 18:09:03 GMT -4
On a side point re the visor, if there had been a filler light, we would see it in the visor (I would have thought)
The visor therefore reveals that this is an authentic shot
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Post by JayUtah on Aug 20, 2005 18:17:44 GMT -4
As we discovered while filming in the desert, nothing is more revealing than a hemispherical reflector. One shot that didn't make it into the final program is a scene in which I pointed out -- in the reflection in the visor -- each of the elements of our simple set: the light, the director, the cameraman, the sound man, and the grip holding the fill reflector.
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Post by hubcapdave69 on Aug 20, 2005 18:54:23 GMT -4
Oops, never mind. That's not Jack White's work.
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Post by ajv on Aug 20, 2005 19:00:34 GMT -4
Talking about reflections, Aldrin's visor might even have caught an image of the Earth. See the 5903 commentary at the ALSJ. Kipp Teague provides this image which has been rotated, flipped and color corrected to offset the gold visor. The bluish spot is at the top but I must admit I'm not completely convinced. The flag comes out nicely in this view though.
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