The Sky Was Black On The Moon?

reply to post by ppk55


Great post!

According to wiki, the albedo of worn asphalt is 0.12, the same as the moon.
en.wikipedia.org...

So really the surface of the moon isn't that bright.

Also, where they landed, the Sea of Tranquility is one of darker spots of the moon. Therefore the value could be even lower than 0.07.

Close to the albedo of the fresh asphalt which is 0.04.

[edit on 22-4-2010 by Deaf Alien]

Originally posted by Deaf Alien
reply to post by ppk55

 

Great post!

According to wiki, the albedo of worn asphalt is 0.12, the same as the moon.
en.wikipedia.org...

So really the surface of the moon isn't that bright.

Also, where they landed, the Sea of Tranquility is one of darker spots of the moon. Therefore the value could be even lower than 0.07.

Close to the albedo of the fresh asphalt which is 0.04.

[edit on 22-4-2010 by Deaf Alien]

I second Deaf Alien's accolade

ppk55 a big

I mean I find it sooooo weird that people are accepting no stars as normal....

The Stars should have been visible to the naked eye... The astronaughts had enough time to look up for christ sake....

I wonder if there has been some kind of subliminal put out to brainwash people into accepting this because I can't believe normal intelligent people could not question "the reason no stars visible is because it was daytime on the moon"

I mean if not brainwashed then you'd have to be some kind of an idiot to not realise this is total bunkam!!

Korg.

I never really knew the truth about this subject..can we see the stars from space and moon or not? I do know, the water in the earth's atmoshpere magnifys the light, much the same way a straw in a glass cup with water in it does. But when you look at lets say...space shuttle missions, yuo see the astronoauts working outside in orbit and all..but just blackness all around them. SAme thing in apollo missions to the moon. yeah weve all seen the earth rising over the moon, pictures of moutnians with blackness of space inbackground..but wheres the stars?
Hell, even spacecrafts that have gone to jupiter, to neptune!!! have showed no stars in the background.

Originally posted by ppk55
To the people below, I'm sorry you're wrong.

And I'm afraid your answer is simplistic, and wrong too.

The moon is one of the least reflective objects in our solar system.
The term is Albedo. The moons is 0.07-0.13, earth is about 0.37.
Snow is 0.9. This means the moon is about 9 times darker than snow.

Is that a linear or logarithmic 9x...?

That albedo figure is actually about the same as old, worn, grey tarmac. And that's actually quite bright when lit by sunlight, with the added lack of atmosphere to help. But is it that simple? No, as the lunar regolith is unlike any tarmac you've ever seen. There are other complications, like heiligenschein. Look it up. It's not hard to learn about.

And what were the astronauts doing? ..wearing? ..next to?

Their eyes WERE adapted to a brightly sunlit scene. The surface albedo is largely irrelevant when you are standing next to a light colored spacecraft with swathes of reflective foil, and you are in (and next to) a white spacesuit(-ed astronaut), the equipment is largely white or reflective, etc.

What do you think your eyes will adjust to??? The dirt, or the stuff you are working on/with, and your fellow explorer and the spacecraft? It's just common sense. And it sounds like you got your illumination education from a Youtuber who shall remain nameless.

Also, where they landed, the Sea of Tranquility is one of darker spots of the moon. Therefore the value could be even lower than 0.07.

Handwaving. And contradicting yourself - above you quoted 0.07 as the lowest figure - so how could it be lower? Or did you forget to include important words like "average", and a full discussion on what albedo actually means? If you claim the figure in that region is lower than 0.07, then tell us what it is and show the maths relating that to the general illumination level of the ENTIRE scene. And while doing so, address the above issues.

BTW, when you adjust a camera, do you set it to cope with the highlights? Do you know what incident light metering is, and how it relates to these issues?

... you have much to learn...

In a nutshell, its darker up there than it appears.

You've been there, have you? Which mission was that?

Having no atmosphere would also help greatly.

Sorry, you completely gave away your lack of knowledge there. The attenuation is minimal, and most certainly not 'great'. Again, I challenge you to supply a supported figure for the 'greatness' - I'm not doing it for you - YOU go away and find out exactly how much attenuation is caused by the atmosphere, and then come back and defend that claim with some numbers.


It'll be fun.

What about this article from NASA themselves...

Can You See Stars in Space?

QESSTION: - Can You See Stars in Space? Is it true that in space a person is not able to see stars all around them like we do here on Earth?

ANSWER: - No, I hear that in space the stars look wonderful, bright (although not twinkling) and very clear. What has probably caused some of this confusion is that in the typical photo or video image from space, there aren't any stars. This is because the stars are much dimmer than the astronaut, Moon, space station, or whatever the image is been taken of. It is extremely hard to get the exposure correct to show the stars. Luckily, the human eye handles the different light levels much better than a camera does. Dr. Eric Christian (July 2001)

Dr. Eric Christian is no nut job either...

Here is his home page... Dr. Eric Christian

My current position is at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC. I am Program Scientist for the Solar Terrestrial Probes in the Earth-Sun System Division (ESS) at NASA Headquarters, and I'm also the Discipline Scientist for Heliospheric Physics.

Seems that common sense prevails after all!!

Peace Out,

Korg.

[edit on 22-4-2010 by Korg Trinity]

By the way, let's see if we can get anyone off their backsides and doing some really useful research.. Here's a simple little challenge for you.

(For those who live in/near a big light-polluted city, sadly this might not work so well. But next time you're in the 'real' world, where there are dark skies and you can see stars...)

1. Wait for a nice clear night.

2. Go outside and let your eyes adapt, and just soak in the view (this step is optional, it's just for effect..)

3. Now go back indoors into a room where you can see some of the sky through a window. It should be a room that has very bright lighting, like a kitchen. Ok, now turn the lights on, and wait about ten seconds for your eyes to adapt to the bright environment...


Now, what do you see out the window?

On the Moon, we are talking about MANY, MANY MAGNITUDES greater illumination from the Sun (I can give you the figures if you like..) and astronaut's eyes that are adapted to that illumination. And they have no easy way to either look up, or to shield their eyes from the incoming light from their helmets. LOOK at the helmet design - tell me how you would use white gloves to shield your eyes from any sunlight? Good luck with that.

And again, WHY the heck would they bother? Yes, stars look quite pretty in space if your eyes are adapted down, but these are astronauts, remember - they've seen that view plenty of times before.

For those keen to do more research, if you have a reasonably competent camera that has manual settings, try this. Set it manually for a daylight exposure, say 1/125 sec at f5.6, ISO 100. (Photographers will know I'm actually being quite generous with those settings.)

Then take a shot of your night sky. Post the result here, with exif.

Any stars in the image? Why not, do you think?


More here:
www.clavius.org...

BTW, Korg, what was it that you didn't understand in that quote? (BTW, where's the bit about being on the lunar surface in daytime?)

This is because the stars are much dimmer than the astronaut, Moon, space station, or whatever the image is been taken of. It is extremely hard to get the exposure correct to show the stars. Luckily, the human eye handles the different light levels much better than a camera does.

Yes, the eye can indeed handle the light levels, given time to adjust.

That's why, UNLESS YOUR EYE CAN ADJUST, you won't see the stars. Go look up "night vision adaptation", and then come back with your newfound knowledge.

Originally posted by CHRLZ
Luckily, the human eye handles the different light levels much better than a camera does.

BTW, Korg, what was it that you didn't understand in that quote? (BTW, where's the bit about being on the lunar surface in daytime?)

This is because the stars are much dimmer than the astronaut, Moon, space station, or whatever the image is been taken of. It is extremely hard to get the exposure correct to show the stars. Luckily, the human eye handles the different light levels much better than a camera does.

Yes, the eye can indeed handle the light levels, given time to adjust.

That's why, UNLESS YOUR EYE CAN ADJUST, you won't see the stars. Go look up "night vision adaptation", and then come back with your newfound knowledge.

I think your bolded the wrong bit....

the part that is relevant is...

Luckily, the human eye handles the different light levels much better than a camera does.

I am agreeing with you about the eye actually, though I'm saying that what the astronaughts describe is NEVER being able to see the stars... In fact not even attempting to do so.

All the best,

Korg.

Opps made a wrong post .. my bad got too excited

[edit on 22-4-2010 by ppk55]

Originally posted by ppk55
Opps made a wrong post .. my bad

got too excited

[edit on 22-4-2010 by ppk55]

Ahhh Come on you just wanted to bump the thread lol

Seriously though, I'm just doing some research about the three Astronauts Buzz, Collins and Armstrong... I feel their responses and their actions after the event are very interesting...

Will report in when I've finished.

Peace Out,

Korg.

One would think that we are advanced enough in photography even in the 1960's-1970's that they would have gotten some awsome pictures of the stars, being we were out of the Earth's atmosphere. That is what Hubble Telescope is all about. Not to mention they had six days of travel in space for each moon mission. That's a lot of time. I do remember an interview where Buzz said that the stars were far brighter standing on the surface of the moon than they are on Earth.

reply to post by ppk55


There seems to be some people on here that just dont see what happens around them.

For the PEOPLE who think the moon is not very bright answer this then
look at this picture

zimmer.csufresno.edu...

We can see it during the daytime even on a bright summers day
CAN YOU SEE EVEN THE BRIGHTEST STAR (EXCLUDING THE SUN ) NO

Look at these examples! Because they were posted by me yesterday DID you bother to even look at the sites they were on.

www.annedarlingphotography.com...

home.flash.net...

The Moon picture above f5.6 1/400 s at iso 200 (NO STARS IN PIC)

The Big Dipper above f5.6 20 seconds iso 800

ISO 800 IS 4X FASTER THAN ISO 200 SO IF MOON PIC HAD BEEN TAKEN WITH ISO 800 EXPOSURE TIME WOULD HAVE BEEN 1/1600TH OF A SECOND

20 SECONDS FOR STAR PIC SAME FILM SPEED SAME APERTURE
1/1600TH OF A SECOND FOR THE MOON.
YOU DO THE MATHS

The Moons surface is a hell of a lot brighter than the stars is it not!!!!!!!

Its the relative brightness of the Moon compared to the
Stars that counts IS THAT SIMPLE ENOUGH for the people with NO photographic experience.

This is just in case its not sunk in yet!

Link to exposure value chart LOOK AT THIS AS WELL
Scroll down to the TABULATED EXPOSURE VALUE

en.wikipedia.org...

TAKEN FROM THE TABLE

Light sand or snow in full or slightly hazy sunlight (distinct shadows)a 16
Typical scene in full or slightly hazy sunlight (distinct shadows)a, b 15

Now for the Moon taken from the table

The Moon,c altitude > 40°
Full 15
Gibbous 14
Quarter 13
Crescent 12

Whats that SNOW ev 16 Moon ev 15 to 12

Now PLEASE STFU about the Moon and NO stars.

If you cant understand it now WELL...... DONT CONSIDER A CAREER
AS A PHOTOGRAPHER

I await your comments EVEN STUPID ones

[edit on 22-4-2010 by wmd_2008] missing letters

[edit on 22-4-2010 by wmd_2008]

Originally posted by TamtammyMacx
One would think that we are advanced enough in photography even in the 1960's-1970's that they would have gotten some awsome pictures of the stars, being we were out of the Earth's atmosphere.

It has nothing to do with being advanced in photography. It's simply about leaving the shutter open for a long enough period of time. To get stars to appear with the kind of film they used, you'd need a good 30 seconds or more to get them to begin to appear. But with an exposure like that, the lunar surface would be incredibly over exposed. Plus you can't hold a camera still for that length of time.

However they did get photos of the stars from Lunar orbit using a special high speed film (Kodak 2485, 16,000 ASA film)

That is what Hubble Telescope is all about.

To get images like those from the HST. You'd need exposures taken over the course of many tens of hours.

Seems like a tripod and 30 seconds was all a bit much for the 1st ever moon landing.

I was just reading that the human eye has about the equivalent of 800iso... so considering the surface of the moon is like worn ashphalt and happens to be one of the least reflective surfaces in the solar system, wow it seems strange you couldn't just look up and wait a bit and see at least some of the brightest stars... To see none is quite strange.

Originally posted by jra
It's simply about leaving the shutter open for a long enough period of time. To get stars to appear with the kind of film they used, you'd need a good 30 seconds or more to get them to begin to appear.

Why don't you people stop arguing about this and simply ask the astronauts about this in person. That was how I developed my opinion on this matter.

Wow they sound so believable.
www.youtube.com...

Originally posted by Truth1000
Why don't you people stop arguing about this and simply ask the astronauts about this in person. That was how I developed my opinion on this matter.

** what's also amazing is .. no matter how many times this clip is watched the youtube viewed number just doesn't go up ... try it ! **


[edit on 22-4-2010 by ppk55]

It is amazing how much they tell you when there are no cameras around.

reply to post by Truth1000


they can tell you whatever they like, but still it wont make it true.
segunda linha

Exactly who COULD provide ANY answer that would convince you of anything.

When you have a closed mind, why bother asking for answers that you intend not to believe anyway?

Originally posted by ppk55
Seems like a tripod and 30 seconds was all a bit much for the 1st ever moon landing.

I was just reading that the human eye has about the equivalent of 800iso... so considering the surface of the moon is like worn ashphalt and happens to be one of the least reflective surfaces in the solar system, wow it seems strange you couldn't just look up and wait a bit and see at least some of the brightest stars... To see none is quite strange.

Originally posted by jra
It's simply about leaving the shutter open for a long enough period of time. To get stars to appear with the kind of film they used, you'd need a good 30 seconds or more to get them to begin to appear.

Its all explained here just in case you missed it or is it that you want to ignore the info given as it conflicts with what YOU CLAIM!

Look at the link to ev table as you claim to be a cinematographer EVEN YOU should know about that OR DO YOU.


www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Korg Trinity


I think he means glare. There's no glare unless the light has something to bounce off of, ie, no glare in a vacuum but extra glare when you have tears in your eyes. That's why it's odd that the astronauts couldn't see the stars, there's nothing to obscure them. The only explanation so far given that might be plausible is that the astronauts eyes adjusted to the bright moon landscape and this meant the less bright stars were invisible, but that just seems such a weak argument. The stars from the moon would logically be extremely bright, brighter than stars on Earth look even in the darkest, most remote location. I just don't think the astronaut's eyes would have set their filters so high that stars wouldn't register without going practically blind.

Very perplexing!