Re Norad - Mythical Creatures

Again thanks for the response but I think that we may be boring others on the forum but I am enjoying the debate.

The main reason I did not initially want to get into a debate about the NASA photographs is because of the Photoshop effect. The original source negatives are unavailable for scrutiny by independent examination. What we have to go on are the officially images posted on the website at http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/ image library.

I have looked through all the carefully edited photographs and what is striking is the lack of information which would place the astronauts at the following landing site

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.html
Landing site: Sea of Tranquility.
Landing Coordinates: 0.67409 degrees North, 23.47298 degrees East
(Source: National Space Science Data Center)

that is except for the possibility of the photo shown at

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5903HR.jpg

see notes below from NASA website.

In addition to investigations of the intrinsic characteristics of the Spot, it is necessary to verify that geometric factors are all correct. A check of Starry Night shows that, at 0414 UT on 21 July 1969, Earth was 59.5 degrees above the western Tranquility horizon at an azimuth of 270.6. The sun was 14.3 degrees above eastern horizon at an azimuth of about 88.1 degrees. Consequently, an image of Earth, if any, would be near the line of Buzz's shadow at a place on the visor where a vertical tangent to the visor surface is tilted back about 30 degrees. A labeled detail from AS11-40-5875 ( 74k ) shows that this condition is met near the top of the visor.

The information in the notes is actually quite revealing. It confirms the starry night analysis I performed more than 2 years ago and now NASA it appears have accepted the Starry Night model. But of course this information is used to counter the argument put forward by conspiracy theory hoax believers (These people are generally regarded as sad lonely liberals who would believe anything, which would suit their own views of the world).

I have sampled enough of the officially released photographs and have performed the following analysis. Using Photoshop I have inverted the image to get back to a Negative state. I have then tried to detect any information in the photograph in the Blackened Sky (now completely white). Apart from one or two multi pixel anomalies (usually about 2-8 pixels in size) there is no data in the black sky. RGB gives 255,255,255 over the whole sky views for all the released photographs. I can only assume this data has been deliberately removed by NASA. This has ensured that no star referencing can be made which could be at odds to the Starry Night model. The stars were removed many years ago, a sudden re-appearance would cause too many problems today. Any photographer who has scanned old negatives knows that the main problem is noise, dirt and fading. There is no noise on black sky areas. As for Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy pages (Phil Plait was a NASA employee at one point, I was aware of this site prior to your link) has done a fine job of presenting information to counter the hoax theory using simplified language. I believe that Phil Plait is an astronomer. He is not an engineer, I suspect he knows very little about control systems engineering and has some physics knowledge. His attitude is extremely condescending. The first issue of stars not being captured on film is dubious so say the least. This would lead into a technical discussion about the camera qualities i.e. single or multipoint exposure metering, lens qualities etc and the film stock of the period in 1969. Apparently there also is no fogging of the film due to radiation effects.

70mm Hasselblad Electric Camera (this was a commercially available camera)
The standard lens is an 80 mm f/2.8, and 250 mm f/4 and 500 mm f/8 telephoto lenses are provided for photography of distant objects
Viewing angle of 38 degrees by 38 degrees for the 80 mm and 13degrees by 13 degrees for the 250mm lens.

To summarize, If some photographs of the stars using a slightly longer exposure (the view of the stars from the moon would have been utterly spectacular - you can ask Phil Plait about that one) had been deliberately attempted by the astronauts then this whole issue would have been settled many, many years ago. I am sure someone at NASA would have realized this so as to prove the astronauts were actually there. These star mapping photos do not appear in the official record.

I have also attempted to look at the sun shadow angles, this is difficult to do with the NASA photographs, but in all the photographs were I have attempted this the sun angles are always higher than they should be for the Astronauts EVA

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5872HR.jpg
Sun angle is measured at 31 to 32 degrees + or - 7 degrees computed from the Solar Wind collector device.

We must remember that

EVA at begins At 2:56 UTC on July 21 Suns angular seperation from horizon is 13 degrees 40 minutes (data obtained from Starry Night)
EVA ends after 2hrs 31 minute which would be 05:27 UTC suns angular separation from horizon is 14 degrees 54 minutes (data obtained from Starry Night)

Therefore the sun angles in the NASA photographic Library are at least one standard deviation statistically from the Starry Night Model.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5917HR.jpg no dust in the LEM leg pad, this should be covered in dust no matter what Phil Plait says. Try standing a few feet away behind one engine of a Lear jet. That apparently only has a few pounds/square inch static pressure also.

The main problem is that electronic imaging, can be so deceptive. It can allow the complete manipulation of the truth.

Do you like my amplifier - It is a mythical creature - it only exists in the imagination of my computer - its extraordinary how computers have advanced since the Apollo AGC.



Can you see me in the reflection of the first valve - Only Joking.