Moon Landings: Did They Happen or Not?

[Cosmos]

Only when on the 'lunar' surface. Here's a snip of an over exposed sun from the Gemini missions and with levels adjusted.
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The spiky sun appears, when the camera settings are applied correctly you get this no need to adjust any levels, 10 spikes and a chain pentagonal lens flares. Typical of 1960s camera tech and happens today with digital SLR cameras with a 5 blade aperture. Provided you have a single bright light, the result is the same.
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This image was taken by Gene Cernan during the Gemini missions, one purpose of these missions was to hone space photography skills. Cernan was also commander of Apollo 17 and below is an example of his work, levels adjusted AS17-136-20762, AS17-136-20764 and AS17-136-20819.
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Seems that Commander Cernan solar photography skills had diminished somewhat since his Gemini days! Where is the sun in these photos? I can see a disc shaped flare of varying shades, very different to my previous example: Faint horizontal and vertical lines but no sun. There's a short chain of flares but they're circular, not pentagonal and they point to where the source of light is which which seems to lie beyond the image's edge. If these images were overexposed there should still be 10 spikes radiating from a bright center because these images were taken through a lens that had a 5 bladed aperture. An aperture that could be cranked down to f/45, making it essentially a pinhole camera that could negate any overexposure and provide a dazzling depth of field but Commander Cernan wasn't up to it. None of them were, despite having extensive training and the guidelines glued to the top of their cameras. All we have is one single image in over 20000 snaps taken on the moon and in orbit!

Notice that the original arguments you presented are still seriously (in fact, pretty much totally) undermined by the two simple and pretty obvious statements/sentences mkrnhr presented:

That's an over-saturated image of the sun, not an image of the sun.
Here's a non-saturated picture I took yesterday with a pocket digital camera (through binoculars..):
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There is a center to limb darkening. It's not evenly illuminating.

When the image is over-exposed, the sun appears larger than it is as in this shot:
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But now you are arguing that some pictures can't be overexposed images because of the spike forms of the overexposed sun and/or the lack there of. Then you continue further down the "there must be something wrong" "rabbit hole", by statements like this:

All we have is one single image in over 20000 snaps taken on the moon and in orbit!

Ok then, I guess we have to address that one as well:

Let's just stay on earth for a moment and notice what most people have done and still do if they take pictures of anything (especially with older cameras/equipment): They purposefully avoid having the sun in the photo, because, well, they want to avoid an overexposed image! In other words: Unless you want to purposefully make a picture of the sun, most likely, the overwhelming majority of pictures taken by anyone on earth purposefully avoid having the sun in the shot. Which means, that on average, we can assume that pretty much anyone who has ever taken pictures on earth has only a very tiny percentage of photos that have the sun in it (if at all). And people on earth are also likely to throw pictures out that have a sun in it, because well, the image is too overexposed.

Furthermore, if we now go out of earths atmosphere, people usually also want to make sure to not have the sun in any picture EVEN MORE SO, because of this pretty simple/obvious fact:

While the Apollo astronauts took many photos of the Earth and lunar surface, they took no images of the Sun. Without the Earth's atmosphere protecting their cameras from harmful solar radiation, our star is able to destroy any imaging equipment.

And, as it turns out, the Apollo guys did actually take a number of pictures with the sun in it, probably more by accident and carelessness than anything else. And, they and/or NASA did in fact not publish or maybe even destroy some of those images, not because of a "conspiracy", but because of exactly the same reason you do it on earth: the image is too overexposed.

Also, notice that the last quote above, by another simple and obvious deduction, strongly points to the possibility that the reason for why the sun (or rather, the overexposed image of it) appears "so big" in some of the pictures you presented, is also very simple:

If you take a picture of the sun in space and/or on the moon, the image is much more overexposed, and thus it is likely, that the overexposed image of the sun is much bigger compared to earth, where the intensity of the light is filtered through layers of earths atmosphere.

 

[XPan]

Seems that Commander Cernan solar photography skills had diminished somewhat since his Gemini days! Where is the sun in these photos? I can see a disc shaped flare of varying shades, very different to my previous example: Faint horizontal and vertical lines but no sun. There's a short chain of flares but they're circular, not pentagonal and they point to where the source of light is which which seems to lie beyond the image's edge. If these images were overexposed there should still be 10 spikes radiating from a bright center because these images were taken through a lens that had a 5 bladed aperture.

When the flare is like in the above photos (i mean the smaller light blobs), kind of slightly oval, (or roundish) - albeit usually gets more squished towards the edges of the frame) - it means that the aperture was wide open (so no aperture blades where in the light pathway and therefore no spikes can ever appear - no matter how many blades the lens has).

 

[Brewer]

Notice that the original arguments you presented are still seriously (in fact, pretty much totally) undermined by the two simple and pretty obvious statements/sentences mkrnhr presented:

Hardly, 2 images with barely any context. Anyway, was out deer hunting early yesterday morning and after a thrilling stalk and a clean kill I skinned and cleaned my prey. By the time I'd finished the sun was well and truly up I followed your advice and shot it as well.

With my phone of course, its 5.3MB. The field of view is 85 degrees, its 5100 pixels diagonally and the sun is about 150 pixels in diameter. One degree is 60 pixels so the sun covers 2.5 degrees of sky and is 5 times bigger than it should be. It's normal, the atmosphere refracts the light as will the lens but it's nowhere near the size of the lunar 'suns'! Today I snapped the sun through a dark green welding mask lens and you can see that much of the flaring has vanished as you can see in these before and after images.

Its shrunk from 150 to only 48 pixels or 0.8 of a degree so its almost its natural size. Zoom in on the sun and measure the inner circle. Its 30 pixels, 0.5 of one degree, its the sun! Impossible to achieve with Apollo 'suns' despite their high resolution!

But now you are arguing that some pictures can't be overexposed images because of the spike forms of the overexposed sun and/or the lack there of. Then you continue further down the "there must be something wrong" "rabbit hole", by statements like this:

It was the nature of the technology, provided examples. Here's a contemporary example of a nicely exposed sun and earth, 10 spikes and pentagonal shapes, 5 bladed aperture. Just like Gemini and nothing like Apollo!

Furthermore, if we now go out of earths atmosphere, people usually also want to make sure to not have the sun in any picture EVEN MORE SO, because of this pretty simple/obvious fact:

It's a TV camera, somewhat different to a film camera. One's electrical, the other chemical and the cameras had adjustable shutter speeds and apertures. Simply by adjusting these you can get decent exposures! Like they did in the Gemini missions.

Bean and mission commander Charles Conrad carried the first colour television camera to the lunar surface but within minutes the transmission was lost after Bean accidentally pointed the camera at the Sun.

Interestingly, watching the TV and film footage some astronauts were quite happy to walk around with their sun visors open and exposing their eyes and face to an unfiltered 'sun'!

And, as it turns out, the Apollo guys did actually take a number of pictures with the sun in it, probably more by accident and carelessness than anything else. And, they and/or NASA did in fact not publish or maybe even destroy some of those images, not because of a "conspiracy", but because of exactly the same reason you do it on earth: the image is too overexposed.

Yes as part of a pan but they completely avoided it during surface photography in Apollo 11. I've looked at most of them, that's how I know AS15-87-11745 is an outlier. Most have something indicating a bright spot in the center visible without enhancement. However some are positively psychedelic!

They often have wonky and duplicated fiducials within and adjacent to the discs and lines that only appear within the disc. Dirt and dust motes that only seem to contaminate the sun. Even found what looks like a cursive lower case 't'! As for NASA, they have published them, 40 years later, photoshopped. Some people wondered where these gems were and requested they be released.

If you take a picture of the sun in space and/or on the moon, the image is much more overexposed, and thus it is likely, that the overexposed image of the sun is much bigger compared to earth, where the intensity of the light is filtered through layers of earths atmosphere.

Earth's atmosphere causes much of the flaring, excellent medium for scattering light. That's why the sky is blue. Moon has none, the only flaring you see could only be caused by the cameras and of course, dirt on the lenses.
Quiz time, these two 'suns' are the same image, one's the 'original scan' and the other was photo shopped in 2015

Can you picked the shopped one? Anyone know why they did it?

 

[Brewer]

When the flare is like in the above photos (i mean the smaller light blobs), kind of slightly oval, (or roundish) - albeit usually gets more squished towards the edges of the frame) - it means that the aperture was wide open (so no aperture blades where in the light pathway and therefore no spikes can ever appear - no matter how many blades the lens has).

Thanks! Indeed, interesting that by A17 they hadn't learnt how to use the aperture setting! In your experience can the shape of the light influence the shape of the lens flare? Take this example here AS17-134-20413, this is a very common feature of Apollo lunar photography

We can see a Tesla logo shaped flare followed by squashed circle then a large faint pentagon, indicating that the aperture was in use. In the other example get the round flares, a larger but well defined pentagon and a huge pentagon to the latter's upper right. This indicates that the aperture is partially closed but there's no neat chain of pentagons. What causes the Tesla logo flare? I've asked elsewhere but I get conflicting answers, some say its natural, some say the large offset pentagons are earthshine or light reflecting off spacesuits or lunar terrain. Others say the Tesla logo copies the shape of the spotlight they used to define the shadows and the and the large offset pentagons are from the fill lights. Who knows? What I do know is that Apollo photography is brimming with weird artifacts and inconsistencies that were often shopped and cropped out.

 

[Brewer]

Whoever posted the Apollo images obviously saw a need to doctor some of them as demonstrated by these 2 snips.

They're two snips of two versions of the same photo but one's been documented as photoshopped on September 23 2015 at 23:18:54 GMT. The other is the 'original'. There is an obvious difference between the two and someone thought changes needed to be made. However they both share bizarre horizontally sliced lens flare around the 'sun'. Can you tell me which one is the original and which is the photoshop? Thanks.

If anyone's wondering, the image on the left is the 'original scan' and the other is the Flickr version photoshopped in September 2015. However the original shows evidence of being fiddled with. Note the neatly cut circular lens flare which has, thanks to the 2015 shopping has been nicely defined slicing through the lower quarter of the 'sun'. This is inconsistent with all the flares of this type in the Apollo record and should extend the border of the film, not neatly guillotined in 'mid air'.
The small circular flare nearest the 'sun', where did it go in the original, was it ever there in the first place or was it added later? Looking at the previous image it should be there and interestingly, without enhancement there's evidence they fiddled with this one too! Visible in the snip on the left, there's an obvious line and some mismatched flaring highlighted by the horizontal red oblong. There's also 2 duplicated and wonky crosshairs in the red circles. This is a very common feature of up 'sun' 'lunar' color photography, I've sought answers from Hasselblad, photography fora and 'experts'. The answers are varied and sometimes abusive. I think it's part of their sloppy faking techniques.

So where's that little flare gone? After adjusting the levels in GIMP it came to light! It was there all the time and sometime in the second quarter of 1971 some mischievous lab tech smothered it with a 'sun' that appears to be lifted from one of the Gemini photos! You'll also notice the duped crosshair and a misaligned edge not present in the previous and following photos. which is probably the edge of the overlay they used to enhance the 'sun'. It's obvious they weren't at all concerned about the dodgy edges and an even dodgier truncated lens flare because they could've easily cropped these out if the images were ever published. Airbrushing would've taken care of the crosshairs.
Thirty or so years later space enthusiasts were wondering where all those 1000s of unpublished photos were and as a public entity NASA had to deliver and deliver they did, after a vigorous photoshopping! In this image's case they altered it quite dramatically both times, a lot trouble for such a mediocre photo. Would've been better off just losing them like they did with other media, along with the technology to take them to the moon. Still I'm grateful to those who doctored these images so poorly, its enjoyable presenting them to the 'experts'!

 

[The Mechanic]

I see nothing wrong with that cut off lense flare to be honest. A lense flare can be cut off like that because it is basically a reflection of light that could be entering the lense at a steep angle where it can be easily cut off bij the lense housing or something like that, thus resulting in a cut off reflection as well.

 

[Brewer]

I see nothing wrong with that cut off lense flare to be honest. A lense flare can be cut off like that because it is basically a reflection of light that could be entering the lense at a steep angle where it can be easily cut off bij the lense housing or something like that, thus resulting in a cut off reflection as well.

Thanks for your input. If that's the case then it's an outlier. When it's not a massive bright orb the 'sun' can look somewhat normal and encircled by a pale gold flare, usually when it's close to an object. In almost every case the crosshairs a duplicated, often distorted. It even occurs once around the reflection off the hull of the CSM.

It should continue to the borders and most of the time they do and sometimes they go beyond. Which shouldn't happen, there's a frame within a traditional camera that sharply frames the image and blocks all but the brightest light from bleeding through but it seems rather inconsistent in Apollo lunar photography as these three consecutive images from Apollo 15 demonstrate.

It appears the 'sun' became problematic when it was close to the edge.
The one thing that may create this sliced flare is the reseau plate, a glass plate that's etched with small crosshairs and is in direct contact with the film. It may cause the stepped flaring you see in many 'sun' images.

The image on the right is an enhanced snip of AS12-46-6763. You can clearly see there's a lot going on, I'm not sure the glass plate would do this, it shouldn't because it was solely designed to imprint precise crosshairs on the film for the purpose of measurements etc. If it affected the images that much it could render the camera useless.
Anyway whatever causes those flares, fact remains, they were doctored back in the day and photoshopped several decades later and the lunar 'sun' looks nothing like the sun from earth or LEO! Further reading here.