Unusual Apollo pics, video and transcripts

Originally posted by ppk55
I'm not understanding this. Its a nasa.gov domain.

That doesn't really mean anything. It's up to the people who run the various sites, some choose to touch up photos for aesthetic reasons, others don't. That's why it's good to use more than one source for Apollo images.

Are you telling me a US government site touches up photos like the one above ?

There's nothing wrong with touching up a photo for aesthetic reasons. Touching up a photo doesn't automatically mean there is a sinister movtive behind it. I do it to all my photography. Just about every magazine touches up photos to some degree.

Again, go to the other sites I gave links to. They do not have the same touch ups at all.

More perplexing is WHY would they need to do this to the sky ?

That, I honestly don't know.

reply to post by ppk55


So are the shadows the right way round on this picture ppk55 you really need to learn more about PHOTOGRAPHY AND EXPOSURE dont you

Hi PPK,

Sorry I can't post often or at length - I've got a 2-year old who has earned the nickname "A-Bomb". He keeps me busy.

Re: Retouching, I'm sure you realize that virtually every photo you have ever seen in a magazine or newspaper or textbook has been altered somehow. Usually it has been cropped to center and/or isolate the desired subject of the image.

Among the Apollo pictures, the most famous is, of course, AS11-40-5903. here it is on the Wikipedia page (and, in case you were wondering, I have seen identical version in official NASA publications and websites). When you compare it to a less-adjusted version, you can see why it needed work: the image is tilted and so badly framed that it cut-off the top of Aldrin's PLSS, including the antenna. We almost lost the top of the helmet, which would have ruined the shot, from a standpoint of aesthetic appeal. Notice that in addition to rotating the image and centering on Aldrin, the Wiki photo has also added black "sky" to the top of the image to aesthetically improve the centering, and also airbrushed-out the reseau crosshairs.

Does this mean that AS11-40-5903 is "fake"? Of course not. It is an authentic document of an historical event. It has simply been altered to remove distracting imperfections. Come to think of it, I'll bet this image has had less work done than your average Playboy centerfold.

Since you ask about the sky, it's pretty easy to see that a uniform black is going to show any and every bit of dust or lint on the scanner when converted to digital form. I have seen Apollo scans that do show specks, and I always find myself thinking, "Whoa, dirty scanner. Why didn't they get rid of that? Lazy archivist..."

I do know of one archive that has uncorrected scans. Because it hasn't had the contrast & color adjusted, they look kind of washed-out, and any scanning imperfections are still there. The good news is that you can request downloads of the highest-resolution scans available of NASA images.

Gotta chase A-Bomb. Later!

Originally posted by ppk55
spaceflight.nasa.gov...
history.nasa.gov...

And yes, I checked the image on history.nasa.gov ..
and it appears the same.

They are not the same.

This is the photo from the Spaceflight site, resized to fit the thread.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/c69d23e26489f6e4.jpg[/atsimg]

This is the photo from the History site, resized to fit the thread.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/cf4725272399e9d1.jpg[/atsimg]

And I don't see anything strange in the photo.

PS: I think that using the replace colour command gives a more precise way of adjusting the image.

PPS: and here is that Real Media video, converted to Flash video.


What you call the "siren" sounds like a problem with the transmission.

reply to post by ArMaP


You're right ArMaP, the 2nd image appears as you posted.
I must have selected the same file when importing into photoshop.
My mistake and apologies. The 1st photo has still be altered though and it's on a NASA site.

What worries me with all this is, if one image is questionable, then how do we know which is correct ?

My original post was about the flag in this image. To me the bottom of it looks photoshopped.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/1f780d1bdeee.jpg[/atsimg]

This is from a high res image at
eol.jsc.nasa.gov... (you can't directly download, you have to submit a request, then it gives you a link)

While I'm at it ... I've tried and tried to work this one out from Apollo 15. I must be missing something, but for the life of me, I can't work out how
there are no rover tracks between the wheels in this image.

Didn't the rover have to either drive forward, or in reverse to get there ?
Either way there'd have to be tracks.
This is prep for EVA2 so they must have parked it there after EVA1.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c57c62708583.jpg[/atsimg]

There's no wind to blow dust over the tracks ... so ?
edit: source history.nasa.gov...

Here it is with more contrast

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0efbd3027638.jpg[/atsimg]

[edit on 13-5-2010 by ppk55]

reply to post by ppk55


It looks like the tracks have been obscured by bootprints.

Sorry mate, but this is not a good example of the missing buggy tracks phenomena.

reply to post by ppk55


Are you suggesting this must have been in a studio because in a studio vehicles don't leave tracks? About the Photoshopping, Photoshop or similar software didn't exist yet when the landings happened. So any image retouching must have happened recently. You just need to find a source from before the existence of photo editing software. Maybe in a library.

Originally posted by ppk55

While I'm at it ... I've tried and tried to work this one out from Apollo 15. I must be missing something, but for the life of me, I can't work out how
there are no rover tracks between the wheels in this image.

Didn't the rover have to either drive forward, or in reverse to get there ?
Either way there'd have to be tracks.
This is prep for EVA2 so they must have parked it there after EVA1.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c57c62708583.jpg[/atsimg]

There's no wind to blow dust over the tracks ... so ?
edit: source history.nasa.gov...

Here it is with more contrast

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0efbd3027638.jpg[/atsimg]

[edit on 13-5-2010 by ppk55]

Rover + astronaut = weight.
vs
astronaut = weight.

Rover should give deeper tracks due to the weight and not a astronaut.

Boogie car for testing.?

reply to post by ppk55


First of all, the picture has been cropped, as usual. I guess if NASA tweaks a photo it's a horrible crime, but if an "Apollo Debunker" alters a photo, it's okay. You'll notice that the sun is directly behind the photographer and the tracks are at a right angle... this means that the tracks are obscuring their own shadow. (In other words, the shadow of the track walls lie inside the track.) The ground is also a bit over-exposed and washed out.

Originally posted by -PLB-
reply to post by ppk55

 

Are you suggesting this must have been in a studio because in a studio vehicles don't leave tracks?

I'm just saying, it's strange there's no trace of tracks between the wheels regardless of a few footprints. Try getting that result with your car on the sand.

One more Apollo 16 image which has bugged me for ages.

1. The wires look like they are anchored into the dirt
2. There's an object way down the back with no shadow
3. The big shadow in the foreground looks wrong for the object casting it.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f1aa09b35311.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a077bfaae2f5.jpg[/atsimg]

There's a higher res version of the whole pic here which you really need to look at to see the details with the wires and the anchor points.

i1028.photobucket.com...

source: history.nasa.gov...

reply to post by ppk55


So what are you trying to prove then? Those shadows would not be possible on the moon, but would be possible in a studio? About those wires, they just sank a bit in the loose soil.

Originally posted by ppk55
What worries me with all this is, if one image is questionable, then how do we know which is correct ?

We don't.

From what I have seen, the NASA sites that show those questionable images are the ones that show a more public relations like face to the public; those that show a more scientific face do not have those questionable images. That's one of the reasons the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth is my favourite.

But I would like to add that the sites that show more questionable photos are the ones from people that say that they do not trust NASA.

My original post was about the flag in this image. To me the bottom of it looks photoshopped.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/1f780d1bdeee.jpg[/atsimg]

What makes you think that? I don't see anything strange on that photo.

Originally posted by ArMaP
What makes you think that? I don't see anything strange on that photo.

I think the bottom edge of the flag is too crisp. There's something about some photos that the human eye can tell is just not right.

For instance, in another example of wires under the dirt, this clumping of dirt just looks wrong. It looks almost as if the dirt has moisture in it. Something just looks artificial. Almost as if it's been designed to hold the wires in place.

To go completely conspiracy if you needed to maintain continuity between shots, this would help keep those pesky wires in exactly the same place.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/538ad004c93c.jpg[/atsimg]

full frame sources: history.nasa.gov... history.nasa.gov...

edit: just a few more that look odd.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/30120e7009a2.jpg[/atsimg]

source: history.nasa.gov...

and one more from Apollo 17 ...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/38402fa0f45b.jpg[/atsimg]

source: history.nasa.gov...

[edit on 16-5-2010 by ppk55]

Originally posted by ppk55
I think the bottom edge of the flag is too crisp. There's something about some photos that the human eye can tell is just not right.

It may be just a result of JPEG compression, it uses some tricks to help achieve a higher compression.

As you can see in the image below, the JPEG compression created a slightly darker border around the colour rectangles to make us notice the difference better.

(the image was resized to 200% with pixel resize to make the artefacts more noticeable)
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/c6bb26a262bce358.jpg[/atsimg]

For instance, in another example of wires under the dirt, this clumping of dirt just looks wrong. It looks almost as if the dirt has moisture in it. Something just looks artificial. Almost as if it's been designed to hold the wires in place.

As I have said many times to many people, it doesn't look like it has moisture, it looks like a completely dry, extremely fine dust, like Portland cement.

Nothing unusual to someone that's accustomed to see that type of material.

Originally posted by ppk55
What worries me with all this is, if one image is questionable, then how do we know which is correct ?

What do you mean by "questionable"? The whole point of my previous post was that just because a photo is altered, that doesn't make it "fake". Aesthetic corrections are very, very common.

Originally posted by ppk55
My original post was about the flag in this image. To me the bottom of it looks photoshopped.

I'm not sure I'm following you on this one. Is it because of the tool on the back of the rover that seems to be sticking-up in front of the flag? If you look at the previous photo (AS17-134-20381), which was taken from a slightly different angle, you can see that the sunlight on the flag wrinkles is the same.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/e13515e63cd1.jpg[/atsimg]

The illusion in 20382 is just a coincidence caused when the vertical elements lined-up.

Perhaps you are referring to the startling depth-of-field? This not only looks odd in 2-dimensional photos, it also threw-off the astronauts while they were there. In a nutshell, we tend to judge distances based on reference objects of an approximately known size (such as a house on a hillside). On the Moon, there are no such reference objects; a boulder 1-meter high at 100m looks like a 10-meter boulder at 1000m. Also, here on Earth the atmosphere subtly washes-out objects in direct proportion to its distance:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/d363d85d9d04.jpg[/atsimg]

On the Moon, you don't get this effect, so like you see in AS17-134-2082 and others, each succeeding rise of the rolling terrain looks just as clear as all of the closer ones.

Here is my favorite illustration of the distance phenomenon. In this Apollo 16 clip, John Young & Charlie Duke are working in front of a large boulder. Guess how big the boulder is? At ~2:00, they start loping towards it:

Really crappy RealVideo link



[edit on 16-5-2010 by Saint Exupery]

reply to post by Saint Exupery


I can't view the realvideo link at the moment, but is it a video of "House rock"? If so, here's a youtube version.



It's a really neat clip though. I recall reading about many situations where the astronauts had a hard time judging the distance of various things.

reply to post by jra


Yes, that's it - and your video is much clearer than mine, which is from ALSJ.

Seems there's another case of rover tracks missing. (see previous post above). If the astronauts can make a footprint, why does the heavier rover not make tracks ?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/56b541e61121.jpg[/atsimg]

a larger image of this at i1028.photobucket.com...

or the source history.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by ppk55
Seems there's another case of rover tracks missing. (see previous post above). If the astronauts can make a footprint, why does the heavier rover not make tracks ?

It does leave tracks. And there are plenty of photos showing the LRV tracks. But when they stop at a geology station. The astronauts walk all around the LRV, getting there tools, which tends to cover up the tracks near it.

Some examples:
history.nasa.gov...
history.nasa.gov...

Pay attention to the astronauts feet the next time you're watching some Apollo videos. You'll notice they tend to kick up a lot of regolith at times.

Originally posted by jra
The astronauts walk all around the LRV, getting there tools, which tends to cover up the tracks near it.

Why aren't their footprints around the areas in question ?