If the MOON reflects sunlight, why are the moon landing photos so DARK?

Originally posted by GaryN
What about the far side of the Moon? Looking into the instruments used to 'image' the far side, it appears they all use IR and UV spectography and a laser altimeter, therefore are not photos. I was going to ask why there are no videos of the far side, but it seems there are!


I need to have my ideas bashed around as at least I learn something along the way!

I was about to flame you for making way-wrong blanket statements, but then I read the last line of your post. Thanks for clarifying. Whatever works!

Japan's "Kaguya" probe took a whole lot of HD videos of the Moon, many (~half? of the far side. All of them were taken in visible light and color.

Enjoy!

reply to post by Unity_99


Water on the Moon is solid ice, and can never turn liquid. The Moon's "atmosphere" is only traces of elements, it's almost pure vacuum. Just because some other moons in the Solar System have liquid water or an atmosphere doesn't mean that our Moon does. Besides, Titan and Europa are pretty much unique in that respect.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

The sunlight was apparently bright enough to burn out the Apollo 12 video camera:

Yes, because the camera was so sensitive that even the light produced in the Moons ionosphere at a time when some conversion of the Suns x-ray and UV light is producing that distorted white spiky thing they call the Sun. The images of the Sun from the ISS EVAs looked much the same as those of the Sun taken on the Moon, which is because the ionosphere at ISS altitude is probably much like the ionosphere close to the Lunar surface, and some conversion will occur even if only unbound electrons are present. The Vidicon based consumer video cameras were easy to destroy if you pointed them at the Sun, and the SEC tube they used on Apollo video cameras was more sensitive than the Vidicon. Why would you use such a sensitive detector if the Lunar surface was so bright?
@delusion

I'm only following the kindergarten version of this theory, but how would we get any pictures from space? Like the ones sent back from probes of the outer planets? Or Hubble?
And wouldn't images taken through other spectrum's still be considered 'light'?

You have to look at each instrument on these probes to see how they work and what wavelengths they can detect. They use ultra-sensitive sensors and long exposures, and spectroscopy, so your eyes, or a regular camera would see nothing at all out there. Yes, other spectrums from which they make their false colour images are still considered light, but again, your eyes couldn't see what the instruments can detect.
@wmd_2008

You claimed no picture of the Sun etc could be taken from orbit from the ISS but when shown that was wrong you change the subject!

You haven't shown me a picture from the ISS that looks like the Sun does from Earth through the ND filter, which is what it should look like. You are avoiding the simple truth.

You also now claim stars are 10x brighter in space TOTAL AND UTTER RUBBISH!!!!

Your'e funny wmd, but obviously my sarcasm was over your head. All the astronomers I've asked say the stars will not be noticably brighter from space, so Mitchell was a) outright lying b) using his superman vision c) affected by a cosmic ray shower d) totally nuts. And he never thought to take a picture of the Sun, Moon, or stars when he was bored out of his tree, and had some of the best cameras and film in the world to play with?

If what you claimed was true some stars would show up on pictures like this.

Nice image, but I think you know that the exposure time would be too short to show stars.
@wildespace

Daedalus crater (Apollo 11)
www.hq.nasa.gov...
Chaplygin crater (Apollo 13)
www.hq.nasa.gov...

What colour is the Lunar surface? Under Sunlight it should be a reddish brown. Don't forget that the processing of the film is just as important as the exposure settings used to take the image, and then there was a lot of post-processing on their IBM/360 mainframes, so the images eventually released are probably a far cry from what was seen by eye. The source of illumination on the Moon is not a white, full spectrum light, which is why those images of the astronauts on the Moon that look just perfect, colour wise, were either using the xenon navigation lights on the lander to provide the white light, or the shots were taken in a studio on Earth. With Kubrick in attendance, no doubt!

Just wanted to point out something: there are lots of windows on the ISS. Most of them face the Earth, but at least 4 of them (2 in Kibo and 2 in Zvezda) face sideways, offering a wider view of space.

I have never seen or heard talk of Sunlight or Moonlight coming through those sideways facing portholes. There are 2 portholes in the sleeping cubicles in the Russian module, yes, looking sideways, but have you ever heard them talk about the magnificent views? I haven't. They have lots of cameras onboard, but no photos?

(Contined from previous post)
@Saint Exupery

Japan's "Kaguya" probe took a whole lot of HD videos of the Moon,

You need to look very carefully at the instruments they use to get these images. Unfortunately many people just believe what they are told. Colour with these instruments means a combination of any 3 wavelengths, and with JAXA they used 2 IR and 1 UV channel for many of the shots, wavelengths your eyes could not see. When they say visible light they mean about 400-750nm, but within that range are a lot of spectral lines of ionised elements, as the instruments are used mainly for spectroscopic detection of minerals with commercial value. Your tax dollars are really being spent to provide very valuable information to the Corporations who will be first into space with the technology to mine these resources. The last thing they are out there for is to take pretty pictures for virtual tourists on Earth.

THE LIVING MOON
Lunar Mining Possibilities
The Minerals and Their Value
Clementine
(funded by the Department of Defense)
www.thelivingmoon.com...

@wildespace again

The Moon's "atmosphere" is only traces of elements, it's almost pure vacuum.

I always wondered why the ice doesn't sublimate, isn't that what happens in freeze drying even in a partial vacuum?

Originally posted by GaryN
What colour is the Lunar surface? Under Sunlight it should be a reddish brown. Don't forget that the processing of the film is just as important as the exposure settings used to take the image, and then there was a lot of post-processing on their IBM/360 mainframes, so the images eventually released are probably a far cry from what was seen by eye. The source of illumination on the Moon is not a white, full spectrum light.

Why should the lunar surface be reddish brown, and why the source of illumination on the Moon is not full spectrum white? How did the astronauts take images of the sunlit lunar landscape stretching for many miles? Why doesn't the Moon appear reddish brown to us (apart from when it's eclipsed)?

Originally posted by GaryN
I always wondered why the ice doesn't sublimate, isn't that what happens in freeze drying even in a partial vacuum?

Ice sublimates when it gets warm enough. In the freeze drying process, a certain amount of heat is applied to cause sublimation.

Ice is very common throughout the outer Solar System, and survives on the Moon and Mercury in places where the Sun can never reach.

Originally posted by GaryN
(Contined from previous post)
@Saint Exupery

Japan's "Kaguya" probe took a whole lot of HD videos of the Moon,

You need to look very carefully at the instruments they use to get these images. Unfortunately many people just believe what they are told. Colour with these instruments means a combination of any 3 wavelengths, and with JAXA they used 2 IR and 1 UV channel for many of the shots, wavelengths your eyes could not see. When they say visible light they mean about 400-750nm, but within that range are a lot of spectral lines of ionised elements, as the instruments are used mainly for spectroscopic detection of minerals with commercial value.

Those videos were filmed with HDTV video cameras, primarily for PR. They wouldn't have been using IR or UV filters. www.selene.jaxa.jp...
If you insist they were, show me the documentation. What about the Apollo astronauts looking at the Moon as they orbited it? They described the lunar surface, and obviously had to see it to take images of certain features. Astronaut William Anders described the far side of the Moon: "The backside looks like a sand pile my kids have played in for some time. It's all beat up, no definition, just a lot of bumps and holes."

reply to post by wildespace

Why should the lunar surface be reddish brown, and why the source of illumination on the Moon is not full spectrum white?

I would think iron oxide, but I see from the mineral map that it is concentrated in some large patches, on the near side anyway. I see in the still images from the Apollo landers that from shot to shot the surface can change colors quite dramatically, but I don't know if that would be from Earthshine changes (over ocean/forest etc) or if it was from processing. There certainly are images where the moon looks reddy-brownish though.
static.ddmcdn.com...
Judging from the Earth, the Sun was pretty high up, so that should give a fairly true hue to the surface. MAybe they were right over an iron oxide patch? But that's the thing about most of the images we get from space though, they have all been played with and processed no end. I'd like see a raw image from a digital camera set on full auto, from a lunar orbiter, and see what it looks like, and what the camera used for exposure settings. I'd accept that as being true data.
This one is from Apollo 11 when they were leaving orbit.
www.flickr.com...
As for the spectrum, I think that will change constantly, as the majority of the light on the nearside Lunar surface is from Earthshine and not the Sun, and that Earthshine will change colour. Earthshine on the Moon however, IMO, is not a reflection from Earth, but is from the same process that allows us to see the Moon, UV, maybe even X-ray fluorescence in the ionosphere.

Those videos were filmed with HDTV video cameras, primarily for PR. They wouldn't have been using IR or UV filters.
If you insist they were, show me the documentation.

I'll look into that, you may be right, but (conspiracy on) how do I know those were from the HDTV? The 'movies' they made from the spectrographic cameras look very similar sometimes, depending on how they choose the false colours.(conspiracy off)

Most of the Selene videos, like this one, will not work on my rig, can someone else try them please?
jda.jaxa.jp...#
Main Page:
jda.jaxa.jp...
My machine works fine on other wmv files.

Why doesn't the Moon appear reddish brown to us (apart from when it's eclipsed)?

Because we are not directly seeing the moon, you are seeing a fluorescent glow created in Earths atmosphere by the UV 'light' from the Sun ionising hydrogen around the Moon, and giving off UV planewaves, from the point source array process. Any transverse light, which is visible if you are closer to the Moon, would have faded out by the time it reached us, and I remember one of the Apollo astronauts saying they could not see the Moon until they were about 50,000 miles away, which was over 2 days out from Earth.
The Moon at different wavelengths:
Left to right: radio, microwave, infrared, visible, ultraviolet and x-ray.
oldblog.orbitingfrog.com...
Hyperspectral vision might be nice, but would get a little confusing I think.

Originally posted by GaryN
Most of the Selene videos, like this one, will not work on my rig, can someone else try them please?
jda.jaxa.jp...#
Main Page:
jda.jaxa.jp...
My machine works fine on other wmv files.

I tried this one:

jda.jaxa.jp...#

There's a screenshot from the beginning of the video, then in the lower right there's a preview link with windows logo which opens windows media player, that preview plays fine on WMP 11.

I don't see a download link to the full video, probably because the note says "For the media, educational and commercial use" and I'm none of those. It would be interesting to see if the download link appeared if I accessed the site from an "edu" domain, but from my location, the place which would apparently show the link to the full video is blank.

When I looked for some large videos from JAXA before, I found they weren't available to us "gaijin", what the Japanese call us "aliens" or foreigners. I could only find those by going to the Japanese page rather than the English page, so JAXA are definitely discriminating against English speakers by not offering them the same download options on some English pages as on the Japanese pages. But the preview isn't bad, I'm not sure what you're looking for in it though. It's video of what the moon looks like from a satellite orbiting the moon.

reply to post by GaryN


I'm really confused as to why you would think this in the first place.
What led you to this hypothesis?

Is the theory that they couldn't have gone to the moon because the pictures are visible light ones, so they must have faked it all? Do you think they knew this before the Apollo 11 mission?
And all pictures of the moon that are real are taken with other spectrums than visible light?
And also every picture taken by the Voyager probes doesn't use visible light, and neither is any picture taken by Hubble possible if it uses only visible light?
Do you think they know this and are deliberately covering it up?
Are all claims of pictures from the Hubble cameras taken in visible light lies?

These pictures were claimed to be taken in visible light from hubble. Are they faked?
www.universetoday.com...
hubblesite.org...
hubblesite.org...
Or these probe images of Saturn?
cseligman.com...

It's just a bizzare theory that I'm struggling to understand your rationale for. It's kind of a cool theory sure, but what's the piece of evidence that makes you believe it in the first place?

reply to post by GaryN


You can find lots of Kaguya videos at jaxachannel on Youtube. Here's one to get you started: www.youtube.com...

How do I know they are from HDTV cameras? Well, apart from the official information on JAXA website, only HDTV video cameras could take such high-framerate videos at such large resolution. The multi-band and spectroscopy imagers on Kaguya took still images, had fairly narrow field of view (just 0.23 degrees for the sectral profiler) and were pointed straight down at the surface. www.selene.jaxa.jp...
You mention 'movies' they made from the spectrographic cameras, can you link ot any please?

You stated that the Moon should look reddish brown, but when asked for an explanation only wave your hand and point to some of the Apollo images that have the reddish cast to them. It's a well-known fact that the original colour film from the Apollo missions has various coloration; some magazines are dominantly blue, others red or magenta. Here's an example from Apollo 11: www.hq.nasa.gov...
Another magazine, however, has no such colour cast: www.hq.nasa.gov...
This colouration can be attributed to the different film emulsions, the aging of the film, or some other technical reasons: www.hq.nasa.gov...

The most important thing is that the astronauts didn't report the Moon being predominantly red or any other colour. They report it as 'mouse gray', 'mouse brown,' 'concrete,' 'asphalt.' There are some coloured minerals strewn around, and the astronauts reported a patch of orange soil. The iron oxide content gives certain areas reddish tinge, and titanium oxide gives other areas dark blue tinge. www.nasa.gov...

But overall, the Moon doesn't have a dominant, easily discernible colouration.

P.S. if the light of the full moon we see comes from Earthshine, where does the light that illuminates the night side of the Moon come from? en.wikipedia.org... Why is there such huge difference between these two kinds of illumination?

reply to post by GaryN


Sorry but lets start with you theory of light you said this!!!!

Originally posted by GaryN

Most 'light' I believe is travelling in the vacuum as planewaves, which our eyes can not see, at any wavelength. It requires gratings to convert the wave fronts to the transverse EM our eyes, or a regular camera that mimics our eyes can see, but in the case of being able to see stars from Earth, it is the ionosphere which provides the method of creating the transverse waves.

YOUR basic statement above claims that a human or a camera CANNOT see light at ANY WAVELENGTH in the vacuum of space unless it's through the ionosphere !!!

THAT'S what your theory is!!!!

Therefore based ON that theory this picture should be impossible to take



According to your theory the camera would not see the lander,the Moon or the Earth.
Please explain to everyone looking at this thread HOW this picture could be captured.

lol

ever take a dark picture during the day on earth ?

WE'RE ALL LIVING A HOAX

lololololol

Judging from that object in the background, The colors look properly adjusted, to me.

On the Apollo Missions, they were doing those ground surface experiments and as the astronauts were hammering those metal stakes into the surface you can clearly hear the "tang tang tang" as the hammer struck the metal rod.

The moon DOES have an atmosphere and is why it reflects so much. There is no vaccuum on the moon.

Every Comet that enters the solar system gets blasted by the solar wind and has ice/gasses blown off of them as their "Tails" are created. Some of those gasses get pulled into the moons gravity field just as they are pulled into ours.

Originally posted by Pervius
On the Apollo Missions, they were doing those ground surface experiments and as the astronauts were hammering those metal stakes into the surface you can clearly hear the "tang tang tang" as the hammer struck the metal rod.

The moon DOES have an atmosphere and is why it reflects so much. There is no vaccuum on the moon.

phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu...

There is an atmosphere on the moon composed mainly of noble gases and hydrogen, but the pressure is lower than that in the best vacuum systems on earth.

Semantics. If it's a better vacuum than the best vacuum on earth I won't argue with calling it a vacuum. But there is a negligible atmosphere so I won't argue with calling it an atmosphere.

Regarding sound from the hammer, sound can travel through solid objects too, so it doesn't require an atmosphere. I suggest sound from the hammer probably didn't travel to a significant amount through the moon's atmosphere, but the handle of the hammer could have transmitted the vibrations to the pressurized suit and once there the sounds can travel through the air in the suit to the microphone.

reply to post by delusion

Is the theory that they couldn't have gone to the moon because the pictures are visible light ones, so they must have faked it all? Do you think they knew this before the Apollo 11 mission?

I never said they didn't go to the Moon, (though how they got there is another matter!) and in fact my theory was based on those images from the FUVC device that I am sure must have been on the Moon to acquire the images that it did. They knew about the lighting conditions on the Moon alright, that's why they practised landing and surface operations using goggles fitted with ND filters that allowed as little as .002% light transmission. They were in the desert, so that's .002% of a pretty bright location, but equated to a 100 watt bulb about 9 feet above their heads. The lux values are very low, but the human eye is an amazing device for sure, and can see well at some very low light levels, though colour vision quits long before the absolute sensitivity is reached. Thats why you don't generally see colour in Moonlight, or the colours are all muted.

And all pictures of the moon that are real are taken with other spectrums than visible light?

No, there is visible light on the Moon, but it is produced quite close to the surface by the action of solar UV interacting with the electrons in the Lunar mesosphere, you can't really call it an atmosphere, to 'thin', but there are sufficient electrons for some visible light to be produced. Some of the films were very high speed and UV sensitised, as can be seen from images like Aristarchus, that appear to glow. Also some of the astronauts were seen to have glows around them while on the surface, detected in UV.

These pictures were claimed to be taken in visible light from hubble. Are they faked?

No they are not faked per se, but when they say visible light, it is rather emissions from 'glowing' elements that fall into the visible light range, 400-750nm. But, these are specral lines, and you need spectroscopy to make them visible to our eyes. Your eyes can not detect the planewaves, the instruments can. This diagram lists the spectral lines of Hydrogen, which is the most often used as it is the most abundant element. You see the Balmer series is mostly in the visible spectrum range, but again, your eyes could not detect it, the instruments can. They then assign 'false' colours to the images they aquire, which are all monochrome, that is, the instruments do not detect colour. They are black and white, if you like.

It's kind of a cool theory sure, but what's the piece of evidence that makes you believe it in the first place?

The lack of images from the ISS or Space Shuttle or other orbital missions that have never shown the Sun or Moon, when NOT looking sideways through the Earths ionosphere. I have a thread, a bit long now, on the Thunderbolts site where, if you are interested, you can see how I tried to work through it all, stumbling along the way no doubt, but I think I'm almost there:
www.thunderbolts.info...
Good questions though!

@wildespace

(Just a quick reply at the moment, will get back to you with more ASAP.)

You can find lots of Kaguya videos at jaxachannel on Youtube. Here's one to get you started: www.youtube.com...

There is something not right about that movie. The moon is moving very slowly under the camera, and yet the Earth rises quite quickly. Also the Earth seems to jiggle sideways and does not seem to rise smoothly. Maybe an optical illusion, but I'd say it looks very fake, not raw footage. Seems they have to mess with everything to make it look right.

You mention 'movies' they made from the spectrographic cameras, can you link at any please?

Maybe I was thinking of the Chandrayaan-1 'movie'. (Try finding images for that mission though, there is next to nothing available though they took tens of thousands of images.)
www.youtube.com...

There are a couple of very large 'videos' from Selene on this page:
wms.selene.darts.isas.jaxa.jp...

The Earth from NASA's Discovery Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3). They could make a movie from stills from that instrument too I suppose.(slow to respond but does load)
photogallery.indiatimes.com...

reply to post by GaryN


What's happened can you not MAKE up some good excuse for this yet.

www.abovetopsecret.com...


Please explain this picture using YOUR theory of light YOU seem to want to avoid this I wonder why!!!!!




Also this will give you something to chew on regarding your theory!

www.scientificamerican.com...

New experiments demonstrate that photons not only switch from wave to particle and back again but can actually harbor both wave and particle tendencies at the same time.

Originally posted by GaryN
They knew about the lighting conditions on the Moon alright, that's why they practised landing and surface operations using goggles fitted with ND filters that allowed as little as .002% light transmission. They were in the desert, so that's .002% of a pretty bright location, but equated to a 100 watt bulb about 9 feet above their heads.

Do you have any source to support that? Sounds like complete hear-say.

Originally posted by GaryN
No, there is visible light on the Moon, but it is produced quite close to the surface by the action of solar UV interacting with the electrons in the Lunar mesosphere, you can't really call it an atmosphere, to 'thin', but there are sufficient electrons for some visible light to be produced.

Even if visible light were produced close to the lunar surface, it would reflect back into space and make the Moon visible from any distance, wouldn't it? What about electrons in the Sun's atmosphere/corona, wouldn't they make the light visible as soon as it leaves the Sun?

Originally posted by GaryN
No they are not faked per se, but when they say visible light, it is rather emissions from 'glowing' elements that fall into the visible light range, 400-750nm. But, these are specral lines, and you need spectroscopy to make them visible to our eyes. Your eyes can not detect the planewaves, the instruments can. This diagram lists the spectral lines of Hydrogen, which is the most often used as it is the most abundant element. You see the Balmer series is mostly in the visible spectrum range, but again, your eyes could not detect it, the instruments can.

I'm sorry but this is ridicuous. Spectral lines that fall into the visible range can be seen by the human eye. You see them during chemistry experiments (like burning different chemicals) and you can see them through a telecope with a narrowband filter on the eyepiece. Sodium vapor street lights emit Sodium's spectral line, which can be blocked by a suitable narrowband filter (astronomers use it to cut out light pollution).

Originally posted by GaryN
The lack of images from the ISS or Space Shuttle or other orbital missions that have never shown the Sun or Moon, when NOT looking sideways through the Earths ionosphere.

This seems to be the overriding factor for your peculiar beliefs, rather than any scientific basis. How will a photo of the Sun, taken from the ISS through an ND filter directly overhead, change your beliefs? Many questions presented to you in this thread still stand, for example: how did the Apollo astronauts see the LM through the windows of the command module on their way to the Moon?

Originally posted by GaryN
Maybe I was thinking of the Chandrayaan-1 'movie'. (Try finding images for that mission though, there is next to nothing available though they took tens of thousands of images.)
www.youtube.com...

There are a couple of very large 'videos' from Selene on this page:
wms.selene.darts.isas.jaxa.jp...

The Earth from NASA's Discovery Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3). They could make a movie from stills from that instrument too I suppose.(slow to respond but does load)
photogallery.indiatimes.com...

The images in the Chandrayaan-1 video are from the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) which operated exclusively in the visible range.

The SELENE videos you linked to are from the Terrain Camera which, if I understand correctly, used only the visible spectrum. And, as I mentioned before, it wasn't pointed almost horizontally like the HDTV cameras were.

reply to post by wildespace

Do you have any source to support that? Sounds like complete hear-say.

One pdf is available here
ntrs.nasa.gov...

Search these numbers to find them, had difficulty linking them.
AN INVESTIGATION OF EARTHSHINE LIGHTING CONDITIONS. FOR LUNAR-SURFACE OPERATIONS.
19680001705_1968001705.pdf

Lighting and contrast
19790072477_1979072477.pdf

Even if visible light were produced close to the lunar surface, it would reflect back into space and make the Moon visible from any distance, wouldn't it?

No, reflected light is transverse, and will fall off with the inverse square rule. I read that the Apollo astronauts, or one of them anyway, said they could not see the Moon until they were well over 2 days out from Earth, at around 50,000 miles. When close to the Moon, the cameras with colour film will work, and of course you can see the surface and objects on it, just as we can on Earth. Further away they used the high speed, UV sensitised B/W
film, I think.

I'm sorry but this is ridicuous. Spectral lines that fall into the visible range can be seen by the human eye.

Absolutely, where you have an atmosphere, but that light again will fall off quickly in the vacuum. I don't dispute the Northern Lights are visible too, but to see the same type of thing on Saturn, Hubble uses the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph device.

This seems to be the overriding factor for your peculiar beliefs, rather than any scientific basis. How will a photo of the Sun, taken from the ISS through an ND filter directly overhead, change your beliefs?

Just to convince me that it CAN be done. If the same image, using the exact same settings as the Earh based camera did, shows the same thing, then I'll shut up! A picture of the Moon from the ISS, using full auto, should show similar exposure settings as my camera does from my location.
And we should not be able to see Mars or Mercury (very low albedos) from Earth, by eye, looking like bright stars, given their angular size, so what makes them shine like they do?

Originally posted by GaryN
One pdf is available here
ntrs.nasa.gov...

Search these numbers to find them, had difficulty linking them.
AN INVESTIGATION OF EARTHSHINE LIGHTING CONDITIONS. FOR LUNAR-SURFACE OPERATIONS.
19680001705_1968001705.pdf

Lighting and contrast
19790072477_1979072477.pdf

These documents talk about possible EVAs during the lunar night, when there is no sunlight but the surface is illuminated by Earthshine (sunlight reflected off Earth). They say there will be enough ambient light from Earthshine to require minimal artificial light. They also mention that the tests with the ND filters were very limited; it wasn't a full-blown training for the Apollo astronauts. The last pdf (about contrast) simply suggests the best Sun angles under which to perform landings, so that terrain features are better visible.

There is nothing in those 3 documents to suggest that they thought that light conditions on the Moon were dark. In fact, the astronauts on the Moon had their sun visors down most of the time. Now, why do you think they did that? For the same reasons people wear sunglasses on a sunny day. www.myspacemuseum.com...

Originally posted by GaryN
No, reflected light is transverse, and will fall off with the inverse square rule.

But sunlight is extremely bright, so even with the Moon's low albedo and the inverse square rule, there is enough light reaching us from the Moon. You make it sound like the inverse square rule makes light disappear pretty quick after it leaves the Moon, but that's not the case.

Originally posted by GaryN
I read that the Apollo astronauts, or one of them anyway, said they could not see the Moon until they were well over 2 days out from Earth, at around 50,000 miles.

They couldn't see it because they had their engine pointed towards the Moon. They could see the receding Earth, of which they took many photos. www.hq.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by GaryN
Absolutely, where you have an atmosphere, but that light again will fall off quickly in the vacuum. I don't dispute the Northern Lights are visible too, but to see the same type of thing on Saturn, Hubble uses the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph device.

Since the subject was about the visible-light images taken by the Hubble, consider that for these it uses a CCD with broad red/green/blue filters. Some of the light it captures comes not only from ionised emission lines but also light from stars reflected by the interstellar dust, as well as light from stars and galaxies themselves.

Originally posted by GaryN
And we should not be able to see Mars or Mercury (very low albedos) from Earth, by eye, looking like bright stars, given their angular size, so what makes them shine like they do?

The extremely bright sunlight.