John Lear's Moon Pictures on ATS

Any guesses? Tower with shadow? Rock formation? 10 points to the winner.

i am new to this thread so bear with me:

is john lear actually saying that there were "saucers" on the moon!?!?!?

what can be better that that

ATS is a great damn site

thanks for sharing sir

As a lifelong amateur astronomer I can honestly say that it's been a long time since something has hit me with a WOW factor like this!

Thanks so much John and Springer!

How am I going to timesheet this? I have urgent work deadlines... and then I read this post.

These images are great.

Good score, go get the MVP award young man.

Thanks very much Springer and Mr. Lear for the incredible photos.

I do believe there is a lot of undiscovered/undisclosed stuff on our moon.

I also believe you guys know of some anomalies in these pics and you aren't sharing just yet

In any case, I did find this piggy in the rocks... Even ancient moonfolk needed bacon... mmmm



No disrespect, just a little moon humor

Ummm actually no he didn't. He said he would let us look around for awhile first

See that's how rumors start... bust into the room and shout a statement like that LOL

So I think he did, indeed, say it.

[edit on 14-9-2006 by firebat]

Someone very wisely mentioned the topic of scale a little earlier. On any photograph for analysis scale is probably the most important factor if you are to gain any remotely meaningful understanding of what you are looking at.

John Lear has helpfully pointed out that the first four photographs were taken from an altitude of approx 49km, (around 28 miles), and the fifth from more than double that altitude. Now this doesnt help too much because we still dont know the area covered by the photographs and so the scale we are looking at, but it is reasonable to assume that the dimensions of any discernable features you may believe you see will be measured in kilometers rather than metres. Someone with a far better idea of the geography of the Moon than me may be able to make a stab at the approximate area covered.

For example, please bear in mind that we still cannot produce photographs from any lunar orbiter that can resolve enough detail to show any of the Apollo landing sites.

Hahahah zorgon got owned. Okay , so i see some pictures of the moon. Where are the pictures of these so called 'Saucers' ? Whats so special about the moon anyway??

Too me it just looks like a desolate wasteland. John could you fill me in as to why I should be excited about these photographs?

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Mod Edit - removed triple nested quote (which makes reading a pain)



[edit on 14-9-2006 by masqua]

Here's something from copernicus3, (from the upper left quadrant of the original image). Looks like it could be interesting.



When all the photo's are recombined it looks like a huge strip mine, complete with access roads. If they're not access roads, they must be river beds. Oh wait, there's never been any water on the moon.

[edit on 9/14/2006 by mythatsabigprobe]

retro reflector, maybe.just a guess.

I agree with crowpruitt.

Measuring The Moon's Distance

A hair on the film or on the scaner
edit to add:
The "shadow" could be a surface feature, like many other shadows in the same cropped picture

[edit on 14/9/06 by Apass]

It cant be a retroreflector.

As an earlier poster mentioned we cant get a photo of high enough resolution to show the Lunar Landing Module never mind a samller object like the retroreflector.

Thanks to Mr Lear and the wonderful ATS staff for putting up these pics.
Its fantastic to have such great people on here.


I finally now know that the moon's not made of cheese!!!!

If I take image no. 5 there are some 'tube' like features that look as though someone has removed what could have 'tube' habits or tunnels as we have seen on images of Mars???

Please just point us in the right direction. A lot of us are at work and simply haven't got the time to keep flicking to these to check another few inches.

Have to confess so far, I agree with everyone, nice pics - definitely shows the moon, and its clearly made of rocks and dusty stuff.

;-)

Here's a quick composite of the first 4 pics, overlayed into a single image. It loses a lot of the detail, but it gives a good idea of the overall landscape. In putting the images together, I did notice there is some change in scale for pics 3 and 4 as compared to 1 and 2, and there seems to be some slight distortion in pic 4.

Anyway, for what it's worth:


Landscape Composite

I just updated the "Specs" of the photos which John had sent me weeks ago but I just missed.

I searched all the emails he's sent me again and BING* there it was...

The original post is updated and here's the stuff again:

Four of them labeled Copernicus 1 through 4 are from Lunar Orbiter 2 H-162; Spacecraft Altitude 45.9 kilometers, camera tilt 69˚20’; Frame Center Data: LAT: 5˚30’N, LONG: 20˚00W, sun elevation 24˚40’. Framelet Bearing: N86˚40’W.

Springer...

Nice work SKMDC1