John Lear's Moon Pictures on ATS

reply to post by HaveSeen4Myself


I have no idea of what photo that could be.

Maybe Internos can help, he is the best at finding photos.

Summary so far.

In late Nov 1966 the NASA Lunar Orbiter 2 mission photographed the Moon. The most popular photograph (as highlighted on the NASA website today and in the media at the time) was a "stunning" oblique photograph of Copernicus, dubbed as "one of the great pictures of the century".
nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov...

The photographs were made publicly available, and sometime after that John Lear purchased a copy of that famous picture from some unidentified NASA contractor, and received a 16x20" negative. Around 2004 he had prints (positives) made from this negative. Bob Lazars then scanned the 16x20 print in four sections, presumably on a simple home scanner given that it took 4 passes and there were minor scale differences (according to the person who merged the images for posting here).
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Springer posted the scans here in in September 2006 and began this thread. Some people see anomolous features in the scans, some do not.

The images were originally made with 60's technology on sections of 70mm film (from lunar orbit), then scanned in strips and transmitted to earth by radio as video images (analog). Here the video was reconstituted and printed in "framelet" strips on 35mm positives. 26-86 (depending on resolution) of these strips were combined to recreate full images.
nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov...

There were 2 cameras on board; I will guess that this image was made by manually montaging strips from the HR (high resolution) camera after the above processing, given the obvious strips in the image with different exposures. (The framelets were separately scanned but from the same photo, so there should be no exposure differences). This added some more processing steps (with 1960's technology).

Then this master montage image was presumably copied again, and sent to some contractor who then made further copies for the public. The image in question here was one of NASA's crown jewels so it was probably ordered more than most, explaining why John Lear would have happened to purchase this particular image decades before getting a print made and happening to notice that it had interesting anomolies. John Lear had a print made, Bob Lazars scanned it in sections, Springer uploaded.

There were a good number of processing steps involved here between 1966 and 2006. It's a great achievement that the image is as good as it is, but it's not exactly like we are seeing a direct scan of a Hassleblad image.

More analysis in another post.

(previous anonymous post summarizing the history of the 4 images from Lunar Orbiter 2 - the ones in which some perceive anomolies - is from me).

Let's follow up on the hypothesis that this image was made from a montage of HR image strips (the highest resolution option).

The image was made from approximately 120 km (46 km height at roughly 70 deg obliquity) - obviously at that oblique angle the distance varies across the picture. As nobody has located the features on a standard lunar map yet, we don't know the scale. The original maximum "resolution" would likely be either around 2.5 meters (from the best resolution of HR and MR straight down expanded by the obliquity), but that is based on best resolution possible with the 1966 satellite lenses and densitometer spot size, NOT the pixels of Bob Lazars scanner after many analog electronic or optical processing steps, none of which increased real resolution.

We could estimate the pixel resolution by noting that the HR image strips looking straight down as 46 km had a field of view of about 4.2x16.6 km. The 4.2km dimension would have been trimmed down by overlapping strips to make the composite image we see, but let's assume that virtually the full width of the HR images was used in the montage (best case - ie: nothing was lost by having to discard fragments of imperfectly aligned strips to the left and right of the trimmed image). 16km wide with no obliquity times the obliquity factor would make the overall image (at center distance) around 40 km wide. More further away, less closer in, of course. Given that some of the ends of each strip probably had to be discarded in the montage and matching process, the real number is probably smaller.

As the GIF scan by Bob Lazars would have been around 6000 pixels wide, that would give a midpicture scale of about 6 meter/pixel, of the largest images uploaded by Springer. Given the uncertainties above, the best estimate I'd make is 4-10 meters/pixel - but it certainly could be outside that range (eg: with more cropping than I'm assuming).

Note that this is not the image "resolution" (related to minimum resolvable object size) - just the pixel scale. If Bob had scanned it at twice the pixel density - the pixel scale would have changed accordingly, without any likely increase in real resolvable detail.

Suppose this image came from the MR camera instead of a montage of HR camera images (and that the obvious strip boundaries are from the framelet scanning in the satellite). This would remove the montaging steps described above. The footprint of the MR camera images (straight down) was 32x37km, or about twice that of the HR strips maximum width. Let's just call it 10-20 m/pixel, in the largest GIFs posted.

One problem with this latter is that the MR images had 26 framelet strips, about twice as many as the uploaded images. The image may have been cropped more than assumed above.

My suggestion is that people locate all suspected anomolies in the largest GIF images, and post the pixel dimensions of the feature in pixels. Then we can give size estimates by multiplying by, say 15 m/pixel (assuming MR camera) - acknowledging that we could easily be off by a factor of four or more (depending on whether the image came from the HR or MR camera, on the amount of cropping, and on whether the feature is closer or further than the middle distance of the image). It's more possible to be smaller than 15 than larger, as the HR camera or more cropping both reduce the m/pix scale.

Even if this leaves considerable uncertainty, it's better than not knowing meters from kilometers.

I'd be glad to have somebody check my figures. Given the dominant error uncertainties, I've not bothered with computing to three signficant figures here(like 69.33 degrees vs 70 degrees or 45.9 km vs 46 km, etc).

Have fun, kids!
reasoner

Hmm. I posted two long posts describing and analyzing the image from Lunar Orbiter 2 (with the perceived anomolies). The first was posted anonymously, and thus went into a moderation queue; the second was posted under this username and was displayed right away. I'll repost the anonymous (earlier) one now. Could the moderators delete the anonymous one from a few minutes ago?

--------------

Summary so far.

In late Nov 1966 the NASA Lunar Orbiter 2 mission photographed the Moon. The most popular photograph (as highlighted on the NASA website today and in the media at the time) was a "stunning" oblique photograph of Copernicus, dubbed as "one of the great pictures of the century".
nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov...

The photographs were made publicly available, and sometime after that John Lear purchased a copy of that famous picture from some unidentified NASA contractor, and received a 16x20" negative. Around 2004 he had prints (positives) made from this negative. Bob Lazars then scanned the 16x20 print in four sections, presumably on a simple home scanner given that it took 4 passes and there were minor scale differences (according to the person who merged the images for posting here).
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Springer posted the scans here in in September 2006 and began this thread. Some people see anomalous features in the scans, some do not.

The images were originally made with 60's technology on sections of 70mm film (from lunar orbit), then scanned in strips and transmitted to earth by radio as video images (analog). Here the video was reconstituted and printed in "framelet" strips on 35mm positives. 26-86 (depending on resolution) of these strips were combined to recreate full images.
nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov...

There were 2 cameras on board. Given the stripping in the image, it could either have come from the MR (medium resolution) camera with those strips being the on-satellite scanning framelets, or it could have been made by manually montaging strips back on earth, from the HR (high resolution) camera after the above recombining of framelets into full images. This latter would have added some more processing steps (with 1960's technology).

Then this master montage image was presumably copied again, and sent to some contractor who then made further copies for the public. The image in question here was one of NASA's crown jewels so it was probably ordered more than most, explaining why John Lear would have happened to purchase this particular image decades before getting a print made and happening to notice that it had interesting anomolies.

Completing the chain of processing steps: John Lear later had a print made, Bob Lazars scanned it in sections, Springer uploaded at GIFs.

There were a good number of processing steps involved here between 1966 and 2006. It's a great achievement that the image is as good as it is, but it's not exactly like we are seeing a direct scan of a Hassleblad image. A variety of artifacts could have been introduced: micrometeorite hits or processing chemical splashes or minor analog video noise or dust and hairs on the negative, to handling tongs in earthbound photo processing. The processing at NASA was quite adequate for the purposes of the picture, which did not include microexamination of every part of this image. (I don't believe this includes one of the Apollo landing sites which they were more concerned about - it's part of the larger moon mapping effort).

Pixel resolution analysis in another post.

Originally posted by reasoner
The original maximum "resolution" would likely be either around 2.5 meters (from the best resolution of HR and MR straight down expanded by the obliquity),

That should have said 2.5 meter or 20 meters (1 or 8 meters when looking straight down from 46 km distance times roughly 2.5 for the obliquity and 120 km distance of this image).

Again, in case you are reading just this fragment, the above is talking about the maximum resolution of the optical and scanning system in the 1966 satellite, not about the pixel scale of the 2004-2006 scan by Bob Lazars. Read the full posting for my estimates of the latter.

reasoner

Originally posted by reasoner
The image was made from approximately 120 km (46 km height at roughly 70 deg obliquity) - obviously at that oblique angle the distance varies across the picture. As nobody has located the features on a standard lunar map yet, we don't know the scale. The original maximum "resolution" would likely be either around 2.5 meters (from the best resolution of HR and MR straight down expanded by the obliquity), but that is based on best resolution possible with the 1966 satellite lenses and densitometer spot size, NOT the pixels of Bob Lazars scanner after many analog electronic or optical processing steps, none of which increased real resolution.

First of all the 'four images' you talk about are 4 sections of ONE image... cut in order for them to be downloadable by most people. As to the feactures being located on a 'standard lunar map' this photo (the four pieces of LO 2 162) are COPERNICUS Crater... the fifth picture is the same area taken by LO 5 from a higher angle.

The first three missions, dedicated to imaging 20 potential Apollo landing sites, were flown at near equatorial orbits as close as 22 miles above the lunar surface. The fourth and fifth missions were devoted to broader scientific objectives, and were flown in high altitude polar orbits.

On a typical Lunar Orbiter mission, the photographic system provided high-resolution pictures of 4,000 square miles of the Moon's surface with enough clarity to show objects the size of a card table.

From ITT the defense contractor who made the camera systems
www.ssd.itt.com...

but let's assume that virtually the full width of the HR images was used in the montage

Lets not assume anything of the sort as we KNOW how the images are processed and scanned...

This is ONE photo



This is how that image was processed on board the orbiter... the original is now moon dust...

As the GIF scan by Bob Lazars would have been around 6000 pixels wide, that would give a midpicture scale of about 6 meter/pixel, of the largest images uploaded by Springer. Given the uncertainties above, the best estimate I'd make is 4-10 meters/pixel - but it certainly could be outside that range (eg: with more cropping than I'm assuming).

You really need to stop assuming... the info was given in this thread many times. The original scan was not in gif but in bmp and the full size bmps have been linked to several times in this thread. Springer posted the gifs not the bmps

reasoner

Your reasoning is faulty

Originally posted by reasoner The image in question here was one of NASA's crown jewels so it was probably ordered more than most, explaining why John Lear would have happened to purchase this particular image decades before getting a print made and happening to notice that it had interesting anomolies.

Again all you are doing is assuming

We actually have quite a collection of both negatives and original copies of Lunar Orbiter images... John only showed two in this thread. And since then they have been scanned from the originals by Mercury graphics onto disk at 600 dpi which basically allows two images onto one disk...

Here is one sample... LO-IV-6H2



But its a moot point as this thread is old... John is gone and most of the links are dead from the old server. And with the new image policy here I won't have time to upload images to ATS media and my website so I won't be posting many images anymore.

Pity really... because I am expecting good things when the McMoon tapes are released

Some thoughts about interpreting the images.

It's VERY easy to imagine seeing things in images like these, especially from a single image. Aerial photo interpreters (geologists, surveillance, scientists) tend to need multiple images from different angles or at different times before treating "barely visible maybe" features as more than processing glitches or human imagination.

The problem for conspiracy believers is that lack of corroboration from other photos, rather than casting doubt on the earlier hypothesis, tends instead to be taken as "proof" of a cover-up. Essentially, their hypotheses often jump all the way to being "proven" (to their own satisfaction) through the process of automatically discounting any and all conflicting evidence, with the side effect of also "proving" the existance of a cover-up conspiracy. This makes these hypotheses essentially "unfalsifiable" and therefore outside the fields of science or rational investigation.

It is literally impossible to ever "disprove" ANY hypothesis under these standards, as any counter-evidence can be explained away by either conspiracy, or by invoking magical technologies without any limitations. The government (or rather, all technologically advanced governments on this planet in collusion) is alternately incompetent in accidentally releasing critical evidence, or super-competent in being able to secretly mine the moon.

I do not discount the possibility of UFOs etc, but I find the standards of evidence and reasoning among many believers to be so low that it's hard to sift the real evidence from the trash - even without any deliberate deception. If there are deliberate misinformation agents from the conspiracy planners, their job must be incredibly easy; I don't know why anybody would need to be paid to spread disinformation when well meaning and sincere but credulous believers are spreading so much distraction for free.

This opinion may get me banned or something, but I intend no disrespect to the motives of those interested in anomalous phenomena. I'm here because I am curious and intrigued as well, and I appreciate all the good efforts others have made; and some investigators are very rational and thoughtful. The above is not meant to be a blanket description of everybody's approach, only my observation of a not-rare approach within the conspiracy community.

I spent some time posting two long messages in an attempt to be constructive and helpful to people's analysis here by summarizing the image source and path to getting here, and by estimating the pixel scale for others to use in their exploration. I'm not trying to harm the effort but to help it.

Yet, frankly, I don't seen any smoking guns in these images. At best there are some minor curiosities which if found in other photos would be worth consideration. Your milage may vary, obviously.

I'm not sure if John Lear is serious, or is having a blast pulling your legs. He can say really hilarious stuff that belongs in the Onion, like that a given anomaly is a four story parking garage because of the ramp, and that it could otherwise be a bank; and that no cars were visible because it was Sunday-equivalent on the moon - and most people don't recognize that they are being had. I somewhat wonder if he posted the images just to find out what people would "see in the clouds", and to see how far he could pull your legs before you caught on.

Oh, well - I do send best wishes, and appreciation for your willingness to look under the rocks and perhaps find something important. I am just as skeptical of all sides, and certainly do not trust goverments to automatically tell the truth! All sides deserve skeptical but polite consideration.

reasoner

wondering if you even read the posts above your last one


The 'parking garage' was a 'looks like' comment not that is was a parking garage

DOH

Hi, Zorgon,

It's interesting that because I so carefully make explicit my major assumptions rather just treating them as unquestionably true (alas far too common), you treat that conscientiousness as a fault. I state my assumptions as such - so we can together refine the results as we have more facts.

Do you get that when I say something along the lines of "assuming the image was from the MR camera, we can calculate this result, while by assuming the image was from the HR camera we would calculate that result instead" the whole point is that I am explicitly hypothesizing rather than considering the assumptions as proven?

Anyway, let's work together. Help me refine the calculations and description. What you have posted so far is not really contrary to what I wrote, if you look more closely. You are contradicting things I didn't actually say.

For example, I stated that the original high res GIFs of the lunar orbiter 2 image came from scanning a 16x20" print in sections; I am quite aware that the 4 GIFs of the LO2 image were scanned from one print. Did you notice that I suggested that the full image width (would have been) about 6000 pixels? That's because the approximately "half image width" GIFs posted are around 3000 pixels wide. If Bob Lazars had used a 16x20" capable scanner at the same dpi, the image width would have been around 6000 pixels; instead we got two images wide (and high) at around 3000.

I didn't state either way whether the images passed through a BMP format stage between the scanner and the GIF images, because I didn't know or care about that detail; I was calculating scale and the image has the same number of pixels in BMP or GIF format.

Your image of a mailing tube gave the approximate date that John Lear received a different image from a NASA contractor (tho it would have been completely consistent with my account of the main image in question from LO2, that he purchased it sometime after the 1966 mission but long before the negative was printed "a couple of years" before the 2006 upload.) It's mildly corroborating.

I was never doubting John's story about acquiring the image from a NASA contractor, etc - that you have other lunar images from NASA is great, but not relevant to the description and analysis of that particular image. I am focussing on analyzing the image (split among 4 GIFs) in which people have perceived most of the anomolies. Getting some idea of the scale of those anomalies in that particular image is the point. If somebody else wants to calculate the estimated pixel scales of other images, with or without interesting features, I welcome them doing so.

When you say the image you posted is a single photograph, I presume you mean it comes from a single exposure on the 70mm film camera in the orbiter. In other words, given the aspect ratio, that would imply that it came from the MR camera rather than the HR camera. And that in turn is actually the scenario I was favoring, in suggesting that we use 15 m/pixel figure calculated from the single-exposure MR camera hypothesis.

I appreciate the confirmation. So we can ignore the calculations from a possible HR image and use only the MR based ones: satellite camera resolution max about 20 m, pixel scale of Lazars' scan around 10-20 m/pixel near the middle of the image from 120 km distance.

I came to this old thread because it is still referenced elsewhere as crucial evidence from John Lear. I admit that I only read a few hundred of the 4000+ comments, so there is undoubtedly interesting info buried in the thread which could be incorporated into the analysis; I would appreciate your help in incorporating that in order to get a better analysis.

If you can find any assumptions in my calculations which is off, please post about it and we can refine the calculations. Or if you find a flaw in some step of my reasoning, let's try to fix it together.

reasoner

Originally posted by zorgon
The original scan was not in gif but in bmp and the full size bmps have been linked to several times in this thread. Springer posted the gifs not the bmps

I haven't seen any of those links (but it's easy to miss something in a thread this size), could you please tell us least who post those links?

Even looking through your 55 pages of posts is easier than looking through all the 268 pages.

Originally posted by reasoner
The image was made from approximately 120 km (46 km height at roughly 70 deg obliquity) - obviously at that oblique angle the distance varies across the picture. As nobody has located the features on a standard lunar map yet, we don't know the scale. The original maximum "resolution" would likely be either around 2.5 meters (from the best resolution of HR and MR straight down expanded by the obliquity), but that is based on best resolution possible with the 1966 satellite lenses and densitometer spot size, NOT the pixels of Bob Lazars scanner after many analog electronic or optical processing steps, none of which increased real resolution.

Originally posted by zorgon
First of all the 'four images' you talk about are 4 sections of ONE image... cut in order for them to be downloadable by most people.

Yes, I covered this elsewhere; I described that sectional scanning and in fact explicitly calculated based on it.

Originally posted by zorgon
As to the feactures being located on a 'standard lunar map'

Sorry for any confusion, I can elaborate my brief comment. What I mean is that we have not located the corresponding major features (eg: peaks) of the LO 2 image in question on any known-scale lunar map. If we had a carefully scaled image from some other source with a few of the same peaks visible, we could count pixels on both images and from that compute the pixel scale of the LO 2 image in question. We know the general location, but not to per pixel precision on a calibrated moon map. Therefore I had to instead estimate scale based on camera and orbit parameters of the LO 2 mission.

The first three missions, dedicated to imaging 20 potential Apollo landing sites, were flown at near equatorial orbits as close as 22 miles above the lunar surface. The fourth and fifth missions were devoted to broader scientific objectives, and were flown in high altitude polar orbits.

The above is just a simplified overview. Yes, the orbits of the first three LOs were as low as 22 miles (as well as far higher), but we more relevantly we know the image in question was taken from 45.9 km according to John Lear, which is what I used in my calculations.

On a typical Lunar Orbiter mission, the photographic system provided high-resolution pictures of 4,000 square miles of the Moon's surface with enough clarity to show objects the size of a card table.

This is again just a simplified "oh wow" level summary for the public. What I used for resolution calculations was the more detailed spec that at minimum altitude the HR camera could resolve about 1 m ("a card table" being something the public can understand). However, the MR camera from which this image came had only 8 m resolution at that distance, per NASA. However, this oblique view at 69.3 deg would have been about 2.5 times further way, hence my calculation of approx 20 m resolution in the middle of the particular image in question.

but let's assume that virtually the full width of the HR images was used in the montage

Originally posted by zorgon
Lets not assume anything of the sort as we KNOW how the images are processed and scanned...

Read my description of the 70mm originals, the scanning densitometer framelets, the 35 mm positives, and the recombination process. I posted a reference to the NASA docs as well. If you have more relevant information about the image processing and scanning, please share it, or if you know of a posting which went into more technical detail than my analysis, please share that. I think what I used was sufficient for pixel scale calcs.

You haven't actually contradicted anything I've said. You either confirmed it or posted some fuzzy less technical summary of the more precise information I used; so let's work together.

reasoner

This is a small (5%) version of the biggest lo2_h162 image I have.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/545fe00b4cfe.jpg[/atsimg]

The full size version is available here, if anyone wants this 27,6 MB, 9854x19752 pixels image.

Originally posted by reasoner so let's work together.

No thanks... as I said John is no longer here and I don't have time or inclination to upload all my work to ATS media to post images

Besides we have been through all this many times during this thread

But please by all means go ahead


To ArMaP:

Thanks... nice version... source?

reply to post by zorgon


I say, if ATS had been a bit more partial to their guests, this may not have been the current state of affairs.

It brings me no small amount of pain to watch the decline and fall of the greatest conspiracy site in the world.

reply to post by zorgon


I allways forget where I got that image from, but this time I created some metadata on the file itself with the source, so next time I can answer as soon as I see the question (although it would be better if I had posted the source in the post itself).

I found it here, in the middle of the page.

Okay thanks ArMap... I though that was the same one..

That is Tom's website... who was Access Denied here and was banned...

Somewhere in this thread we did a comparison between his copy and our copy

Originally posted by zorgon

Originally posted by reasoner so let's work together.

No thanks... as I said John is no longer here and I don't have time or inclination to upload all my work to ATS media to post images

I'm obviously new here, and there must be something about the local culture which I don't yet understand.

I was trying to add something useful to the understanding of the Lunar Orbiter image in which many people perceive anomalous features - a documented and reasoned estimate of the scale. If others have made that calculation "many times" already, I apologize for missing that - could you perhaps point me to their calculations so I can compare and learn?

However, you appear to be saying that if John Lear has left this forum, all further analysis of his evidence becomes pointless. That doesn't yet make sense to me. Is the point here to analyze and understand evidence, or is the purpose all about fostering social interactions with the OP?

I never asked you to upload your images and don't see how they would be relevant, unless you wanted my help in attempting to calculate pixel scales on them as well (which has'nt come up; I was more hoping I could demonstrate the approach once for others to apply to other images). If you have some especially interesting images with data on the camera and location (or which can be found from NASA), I would consider helping; but I haven't asked for more work!

It's obvious that personality interactions influence discussions here (eg: the emotional heat in some disputes), but I considered that normal "noise" in the system, rather than the purpose per se. Is analyzing evidence worthwhile based on the evidence itself, or it it just an excuse to interact with the presenter (like John Lear) and worthless once they are gone?

If on the other hand you are saying that the consensus here today is that there is and was nothing of interest in the lunar orbiter images so nobody would care about further analysis, like pixel scale, then I would understand. But what does John Lear's withdrawal have to do with it? My calculations of pixel scale don't dispute John (in fact the are based on his credible specs for the images), so it's not like he needs to "defend" anything.

So, are the lunar orbiter images now considered by most folks here as worthless or still worth analyzing?

Is there anybody who today still believes they did see something
of genuine importance in Lunar Orbiter images, such that having an idea of it's apparent size would be valuable?

reasoner

Originally posted by reasoner
I was trying to add something useful to the understanding of the Lunar Orbiter image in which many people perceive anomalous features - a documented and reasoned estimate of the scale. If others have made that calculation "many times" already, I apologize for missing that -

No apology necessary. New people come here all the time. I merely point out that I don't have the time to 'work together' and for other personal reasons have little interest in pursuing this thread actively at this time...

Please continue to add input I am sure there are others here still interested despite the fact John no longer participates

There is no stars on these pictures. Film scanning even with the most sophisticated ones (which I am familiar with, up to 5 microns pixel size in aerial survey films) are not dust free. What you see are particles of dust, scratches, noise and artifacts produced by the recording equipment, or at the moment of image acquisition or during the scanning process. Also, when are you people going to understand what is exposure settings in photography !!! With a light subjet, the diaphragm closes and you can't pick up low light tiny object. If you are still skeptical, please view all images related to this:
www.spaceflight.nasa.gov...