Hasselblad and Moon landing hoax?

[lei_chen]

I just watched a TV special about how the moon landing by the Apollo

astronauts in the 60's were a hoax. I don't quite understand all the

arguments. But one point they raised was quite interesting. They

stated that the only source of light on the moon was the sun. However

they showed several back-lit pictures where the foreground was quite

clear, as if they were lit with another source of light. They had the

camera designer from Hasselblad who said he couldn't explain the

apparent discrepancies, as the cameras were not designed (nor were

there any) strobes or flashes on the missions. Any one else seen

those pictures and could offer their opinions?

[ernie_gec]

Lei:

 

I saw the same show. Most of the conspiratorial tone of the editing & background music was ratings driven nonsense.

 

I'd be willing to bet that any complete version of the interview with the Hasselblad guy would have offered the rather ordinary possibility of reflected light from a source off camera??? Like a hill in the background???? But that wouldn't be exiting.

 

One interesting thing I did puzzle over was the fact that some of the photos, upon close examination, seem to have objects in the picture that mask the reference lines of the Reseau plate. For example, an astronauts arm hides the reference lines. This could only happen, as I understand it, if the man's arm was between the negative and the glass plate, which is impossible. I still haven't figgured out that one.

 

oohhhhh...

[keith_nichols3]

I suppose some fill light could have been reflected into the shots by the highly reflective costume worn by the guy with the camera. The single point that I remember from that TV show was the shadows going in various directions, which would not occur if the sun were the key light. Remember the movie based on the hoax premise?

[Rob F.]

No, I don't remember this movie. What was the title?

 

Could reflected Earthlight have been one of the other light sources?

 

If the Apollo program was a hoax, then the failure of Apollo 13 would presumably have been a hoax as well. That would have been a lot of trouble to go to for no apparent reason. Merely corroborative detail?

[brian_turner2]

I saw that too! Aside from all the other discrepancies, the objects

that appeared to conceal parts of the Rousseau plate crop

marks was the most interesting point of their argument.

(although the flag waving around frantically raises some

questions, too???)

 

However, a friend of mine has an old "coffee-table" style picture

book of official NASA photos from the moon. We thought, "Man, if

we find pictures in here like the ones they were showing on TV,

maybe there IS something to it!". All of them have the little

cross-hair marks in them, but we couldn't find any that had

objects in front of them.

 

I agree, the Hasselblad tech guy did seem to be there more for

sound-bytes than anything else. An actual technical investigation

of the properties of the photos would bore most people to death.

[oliver_s.]

As Keith pointed out, the EVA suit surface is highly reflective. Then, there might be the landing vessel. Plus, in any situation, the ground itself, certainly sufficient to "fill" the shadows.</p>Oh yes, the flag... could its "waving" have been induced by vibrations when its pole was inserted into the soil? There was no air, and only one-sixth of earth gravity, to dampen the motion. Then, covered Reseau plate crosshairs: I don't remember any of them; if they seem to be hidden by objects, could the "objects" be reflections? Regarding the famous non-parallel shadows: AFAIK the preferred lens was a 40mm; try a super-wide angle on earth and check how shadows seem to fall.</p>Just two cents rom your local Man in Black.

[morthcam]

The movie was "Capricorn One", and was about a staged mission to Mars.

Reviewed and available at Amazon.com (but it wasn't that good, really).

 

Meanwhile, back to your regularly scheduled conspiracy theory......

[andrew_schank]

Seems to me that if a show were done well enough on TV, with testimony from bought and paid for "experts", they'd probably convince a good deal of people that the Earth was flat without too much trouble.

[victor_lioce]

First the flag. As I seem to recall, the flag had some type of springs or spring-like fibers in it to make it stand out since there would be no atmosphere to blow it out straight. The only movement I remember seeing was when he was putting the flag pole into the ground. Did I miss something else?

 

Second, what's to say that the images weren't doctored by those perpetuating that the lunar landing was a hoax? Also, what about the guys who died in in the launch pad accident. Another supporting factor that if it was all a hoax, why would they go to that effort to make us believe that people died on the launch pad?

 

I think as long as there are things questionable, there will be people calling things a hoax. Look at all the hoax virus emails that go around, and people believe those are true, just because a friend sent it to them, and it came from another fiend. Most people I know don't bother to check it out for accuracy. Yet, something as big as landing on the moon is immediately percieved as being a hoax! Go figure!

[victor_lioce]

First the flag. As I seem to recall, the flag had some type of springs or spring-like fibers in it to make it stand out since there would be no atmosphere to blow it out straight. The only movement I remember seeing was when he was putting the flag pole into the ground. Did I miss something else?

 

Second, what's to say that the images weren't doctored by those perpetuating that the lunar landing was a hoax? Also, what about the guys who died in in the launch pad accident. Another supporting factor that if it was all a hoax, why would they go to that effort to make us believe that people died on the launch pad?

 

I think as long as there are things questionable, there will be people calling things a hoax. Look at all the hoax virus emails that go around, and people believe those are true, just because a friend sent it to them, and it came from another fiend. Most people I know don't bother to check it out for accuracy. Yet, something as big as landing on the moon is immediately percieved as being a hoax! Go figure! So what does all of THIS have to do wit MF Photography? Other than the association with a Hassy camera?

[ulrik_neupert]

This hoax story is nothing but nonsense. Apart from pictures the astronauts brought stones back from the moon. Believe me that the abundance of certain isotopes inside these rocks produced by irradiation with galactic and solar cosmic rays cannot be duplicated by man or be found in meteorites. I have the feeling that this discussion is now off topic. Sorry. BTW they used mainly the 60mm Biogon lens on the Hasselblad Lunar Surface Camera. Ulrik

[simon_gammelin]

Those who liked the show may be interested in this obituary for the

head of the Flat Earth Society, who believed the moon landing was

indeed faked (in Arizona):

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/25/national/25JOHN.html?searchpv=site02

 

.,

[rendy_cheng]

Bring the moon rocks back to earth does not mean _human_ landed on the moon. It is much easier to design a vehicle without people inside. I never take a picture on moon so I don't know all the details. But that flag thing...... If the flag moves due to the operator's hand, we should see a _wave_ moving from pole to the edge of the flag cloth. This is how vibration travel in a median. From the video shown on TV, the edge of the flag just move while the operator's hand is quite steady. This is same as someone applied a point force at end of the flag. The only explaination I can think of is the operator happen to introduce a motion which matches one of the harmonic frequency of the flag that cause a large motion at the tip/edge of the flag. (like a first flapping mode)

 

rendy , aerospace engineer Ph.D.

[thomas_diekwisch]

Can't believe anybody even seriously considering this. Reminds me of revisionists, or, more recently, the amnesia in light of the Florida election scam.

[richard_cochran]

I saw a bit of the TV show too. They complained that none of

the photos showed stars, despite the lack of atmosphere on the

moon. However, those photos were taken in unobstructed sunlight,

at or very near the "sunny 16" exposure. If you go out on a very

clear starry night and take a "sunny 16" exposure, with a normal to wide-angle lens, you won't see any stars on the negative. No film

has enough contrast range to handle stars and sunlit moonscape

in the same photo using a normal to wide-angle lens.

<p>

If stars had shown up on the Apollo lunar surface photos, I

would consider it evidence that they had been faked.

<p>

I don't have expertise to evaluate many of the conspiracy theorists'

claims, but I can easily dismiss this one and a couple of others.

And I've seen them explained repeatedly over the years. Yet

the hoaxers continually cling to obviously false "anomalies".

Open-minded rational folks would abandon the "no stars in the

sky" argument once they did the simple experiment that proved the

stars should NOT appear in the lunar surface photos. I can only

conclude that these aren't open-minded rational folks.

[sam_mahmoud]

For anyone who is interested, here are some links.

I won't duplicate any of their content here because,

other than the question about exposure of the stars

and wehter a Hasselblad was used, I don't really see

what it has to do with medium format photography:

<br><br>

<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/02/19/nasa.moon/index.html">http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/02/19/nasa.moon/index.html</a><br>

<a href="http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast23feb_2.htm">http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast23feb_2.htm</a><br>

<a href="http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html">http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html</a><br>

[miguel_gonzalez]

I do have a question that is more geared towards the photography side. If they indeed had cameras and film in space, how did they keep the radiation from exposing the film? I understand that the camera body and back can be designed to keep radiation out, but once the dark slide is out, the only thing between the film and the radiation is either a cpam shutter or a leaf shutter made of thin blades. I'm not sure of the design of the camera, but either way, how did they do it? Especially since the conspiracy theorists said that the radiation would have killed the astronauts anyway. How can they even enter photos as evidence? The angles of light did get me though, and I do have a picture of one of the astronauts climbing down the ladder on the LEM and there is a definite flash twinkle on the heel of his boot. I dunno? I'm pretty sure that the hard core photogs here are pretty tired of this since it's not "photography" related, but it was nice participating. Thanks,

Miguel

[duane_kucheran]

1.) Remember that the LEM was covered with gold to also reflect light and it's pretty big with many flat surfaces to direct the fill light into strange places.

 

2.) NASA has probably released somewhat dodged and burnt prints to make it easier for the public to see what happened so one has to wonder if some of the artifacts are caused by manipulation. I have a book at home ("Full Moon" I think) that has prints made by a photographer from internegs instead. It would be interesting to see if they have some irregularities.

 

3.) I'll bet the Reseau marks disappear because of bleed thru in the film. ie., for standard intensities, the Reseau marks block the light reaching the film and you get a dark mark on the print. If the object is very bright (say a directly illuminated suit), light will ooze around the mark and will also bounce back and forth thru the emulsion and expose the blocked part anyway. If you have a film with a soft shoulder (not TMAX) the neg will block up and the Reseau mark will disappear.

 

4.) the strongest radiation is around earth in the Van Allen belts. This is due to the concentration of the solar wind by the earth's magnetic field. The moon doesn't have a strong magnetic field so they only had to deal with the unconcentrated solar wind. Below a certain threshold, reciprocity failure reduces the sensitivity anyway. The film would have been far less sensitive than any semiconductor device in the computers/radios/radar units and AFAIK they did not have a hit (but I don't have the complete mission logs)

 

"No need to invoke conspiracy when stupidity explains so much"

 

Cheers,

 

Duane

[miguel_gonzalez]

I'm not sure what that last comment means, but it doesn't sound very nice. I thought this was a more civil website than that. I'm very dissappointed.

[duane_kucheran]

Miguel, I'm terribly sorry and I apologize to you if you were offended by the last quote. May I convey my deepest apologies to you for the misunderstanding?

 

I wish I could remember who first said that statement. It just sounded so good and appropriate that I had to repeat it here. Ooops.

 

Humbly yours,

 

Duane

[miguel_gonzalez]

All is forgiven my friend.

We are all brothers in photography.

Forgiven and forgotten. Have a good evening.

Miguel

[Rob F.]

"once the dark slide is out, the only thing between the film and the radiation is either a cpam shutter or a leaf shutter made of thin blades."

 

But, Miguel, the lens elements are also in front of the film. Wouldn't they contribute to blocking most of the radiation? I'm no expert, but surely they would block particle radiation; and as for gammarays and other wavelengths, is it possible they are too far away from light wavelengths for the lens to pass?

[pete_andrews]

I hate to contribute to this stupid argument in any way, but I can assure Rob F that cosmic particles pass through ANYTHING. A mile or so of water might slow them down a bit, but a few millimetres of glass and metal ain't gonna stop them, no way.<br>Even the earth's atmosphere, it's magnetic field, and the Van Allen belt doesn't stop all of them.<br>At the university where I work, we often set up a large spark chamber to show to students. This goes off, on average, several tens of times a minute; each bright blue spark-track clearly showing the path of a cosmic particle. This is right here, on earth.<br>Every square foot of the earth, every day, is bombarded by dozens of particles that pass clean through whatever they hit. You, your fridge, your car, your camera, everything. (That Lead hat you're now thinking of buying won't help one bit.)<br>In theory, ANY film, down here or in space, should be peppered with little dots and tracks, but that just doesn't happen. The film slowly accumulates an overall fogging, that's all, and that happens just a bit more rapidly in the vacuum of space, as if the film was aging several times faster.

[miguel_gonzalez]

hey Rob,

Yeah, Pete has a good point. I hate that this issue is so addictive

and I know most of us will be glad when it's over but.... I may not

be an Einstein or anything, but I've never seen an x-ray technician

wearing a glass vest when doing their work. Usually, lead is the

preferred material because it's most dense in thin layers while

still being a manageable weight. This is what 6 years of college

taught me. Of course, I studied to be a school teacher, not an

astro or nuclear physicist.

Stop this discussion, please, it's killing me because i can't stop

replying to it!!!!!!

[jim_sabo]

The sunny 16 rule was mentioned wrt the stars not showing. Since the moon has no atmosphere, I'm guessing that it might be the sunny 22 rule. Does anyone know what sunny 16 would turn into without an atmosphere?

 

If I wanted to put a flag on the moon, I'd have a rod at the top and a weight in the bottom. Once excited, this pendulum could swing for quite some time, and on film would look like a flutter.