Newbie
I recently read an article published by an HB stating that there is some footage of Apollo 11 where one can see blue sky through the windows. I have never seen such footage (one begins to doubt their existance). Has anyone else heard of this or seen it?
Vulcan Administrator
This RealVideo clip (courtesy of a past visitor to this bulletin board) shows the lunar module windows with a bluish tinge. The website proprietor claims that this shows that the mission never left Earth orbit. I think it has more to do with the way sunlight comes through the windows.
http://www.darkstar1.co.uk/sun.rm
(This is a couple hundred k, so be patient if you have a dialup line.)
Newbie
Um, Ok, that was kind of weak. Would it be fair to say that the footage was taken while they module was still orbiting Earth? They didn't go directly to the moom did they? If memory serves they orbited Earth a time or two before continuing on to the moon.
Vulcan Administrator
Except for Apollo 9 (which never left Earth orbit), the astronauts would not have been in the lunar module until they were well on their way to the moon. While they're in Earth orbit, the lunar module is still attached to the third stage and inaccessible.
Newbie
I would really like to find a good explanation for this. There is a HB who is holding fast to this "evidence" and I would like to present him with some real scientific evidence to explain this.
Order of Kilopi
Easy. It's "new car smell". No. Seriously.
"New car smell" is the gaseous product produced by newly manufactured polymers and resins that go into making a new car. These gases often deposit on the windshield and show up as a hazy film. After a while the substances "cure" and stop outgassing. The "new car" smell goes away.
Anyone who has recently replaced a windshield can attest to this. The cements and gaskets used to seal the new windshield in place also similarly outgas, and this shows up as a sort of gook or film on the windshield. It's easily cleaned off with window cleaner. Consult a car dealer for proof of this phenomenon.
The Apollo command and lunar modules used similar construction techniques: gaskets and sealants. Only with the double-pane windows, the insides of the two surfaces could not be wiped clean prior to launch. There's really no way around this; the film doesn't develop until after the window is assembled so you can't just change the process. The CM and LM were also equipped with window heaters -- defrosters -- to ward off condensation. If you turn these on the gaskets outgas even more.
Besides, it doesn't really impede vision. You can see just fine through it, but it scatters sunlight. The film appears blue because blue light scatters more readily than red -- the same reason the sky is blue.
The broad answer is that the window glows because there's some sort of contamination on it. I've listed one possible source of contamination. Another is condensation. A third, applicable chiefly to the CM, is contamination from the launch escape system (LES) attached to the boost protective cover (BPC). This was a cone-shaped shroud attached to the escape tower. When it was no longer needed it was jettisoned by releasing the attachments and firing the motor. The motor used the same fuel as the space shuttle SRBs, and so produces a lot of residue. On at least one mission this combined with moisture trapped on the windows under the BPC and then dried in spots. There are photographs of this.
If you pay attention to footage from the ISS or the space shuttle you see that the earth does not glow uniformly blue as seen from orbit. Further, the "clouds" some hoax believers claim are visible are quite obviously the reflections of sunlit objects in the cabin.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JayUtah on 2001-11-28 16:42 ]</font>
Order of Kilopi
This RealVideo clip ...
...is of course from Apollo 13. So not only do you have scattering associated with outgassing gaskets, but also condensation from breathing. The Apollo 13 LM was a very humid environment.
Even though the glass panes might have been in direct sunlight, they transmit most of the light that strikes them. They won't get very hot. And in the electricity-poor Apollo 13 spacecraft they won't be using luxuries like defrosters.
In a normal Apollo mission the crew does an orbit and is off to the moon. Say, two hours in low earth orbit. After TLI the earth shrinks very rapidly. Most of the distance is covered in the first few hours after the TLI burn.
You wouldn't normally find the crew in the LM in the translunar coast phase. The consumables of the LM were to be saved for the landing and sojourn. The crew enters once to check it out, and then it remains shut up until they reach lunar orbit.
You will, of course, find film footage and photography that shows similar glare on the CM windows. You should expect to.
Established Member
I don't mean to sound uncharitable, but with such a mountain of evidence that Apollo did get to the moon, one single piece of 'evidence' wouldn't even make me think twice, no matter how damning it seemed. I would simply declare, arbitrarily I'll admit, that there must be a reasonable explanation and leave it at that. Unless of course I felt like going through the mental gymnastics required to come up with the aforementioned explanation.On 2001-11-28 11:47, orion2061 wrote:
I recently read an article published by an HB stating that there is some footage of Apollo 11 where one can see blue sky through the windows. I have never seen such footage (one begins to doubt their existance). Has anyone else heard of this or seen it?
But it's late here...
Newbie
Oh, don't get me wrong Rat, I fully believe we went to the moon. But I get such a thrill disproving the HB point by point. I want to be able to scientifically disprove any "evidence" they put forward.
Order of Kilopi
I agree with Orion2061, it's sometimes just fun to solve the mystery.
Rat: I would simply declare, arbitrarily I'll admit, that there must be a reasonable explanation and leave it at that.
Yes, and that's what the reasonable historian would do. The historian doesn't become suspicious of the big picture when the consistency of his sources drops below 100%. The study of history is, from a certain perspective, the management of discrepancy and uncertainty. The inability to explain every jot of every scrap of evidence does not cast material doubt on authenticity. There is plenty I cannot explain in the Apollo record.
Entrenched hoax believers will indeed get hung up on single bits of evidence. This is because they are motivated to believe the theory not because of the evidence in favor of it but for some other reason. For example, many harbor strong anti-government sentiment. Others are fascinated by all controversial beliefs such as UFOs and crop circles. These people cite the evidence to give a veneer of rational thought to a belief that's held on other grounds. Refuting the evidence does not materially alter the belief.
But there is another class of hoax believers who are simply taken in by the various misleading arguments. These are typically just people who don't have the specific knowledge to explain the so-called anomalies for themselves. They respond well to thoughtful refutations.
Newbie
I agree with your explanation Jay. If you look at these pictures taken the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal web site you can see the blue tint on lots of pictures especially when the picture is of bright objects.
Most obvious in this picture:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/as11-44-6574.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/as11-36-5389.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/as11-36-5390.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/as11-44-6598.jpg
Just a few taken from Apollo 11. Many many more on this site.
Established Member
My first post here!
On the piece of alleged footage, there is sunlight coming through the window in question. If we think about this, we realise that the sun cannot be coming through the same window as the blue of the Earth, because the sun lights up the Earth. The angles are all wrong for this anomoly to be true.
Vulcan Administrator
My impression of the thought processes of a lot of fringe believers is something like the following:On 2001-11-29 12:01, JayUtah wrote:
Entrenched hoax believers will indeed get hung up on single bits of evidence.
1. Come up with a conclusion from a single bit of evidence.
2. Consider that conclusion as definitively and inarguably established and use that conclusion and another bit of evidence to deduce something else.
3. Repeat step 2 until you arrive at whatever conclusion you're after.
Established Member
Possible Explanation.
One thing I do know about is Video and Film of that Era. Video camaras of that time, has some serious issues. One they were bulky, not in weight but in size, as in basics there were the reverse of a tv screen.
Basically without going in to long explainations of why, films, and more so, video of that time were especially sensitive to blue's. It the major reason that special effects of that time were filmed with a blue screen. I've been to events where older video camaras were in use, and there was a dull blue curtian as a back ground. Much to my surprise the TV monitors showed the dull dingy blue as a lurid vivid blue. In essence the picture was not showing it as it truely was. Most of the rest of the colors were ok, but the blues were definately enhanced so to speaked.
I asked a camaraman about it later, having not seen this with color film quite that bad.
The optics of the camaras, use glass, of which lets more blue light pass the others (Much like water in the ocean), Also the sensors are more sensitive to the blue spectum, do the the shorter waves lenghts (which translates into electronics into faster EM modulation, which produces slightly increaced signals over the other wavelenghts). Also He explained how dificult it is to 'tune' the camaras to pick up all light correctly. In fact Camcorders still have some of this problem, even film does.
So they tune them, ingnoring blue, so the other colors will show correctly. If they were to filter out the blue's intensity, then white would appear yelowish, oreange would move to brown, etc...
After looking at that Clip, and blowing it up to 8x resolution i noticed a few things.
First of all, that glass is THICK, probably on the order of 5 inches. Any glass that thick would appear to have a blue greenish tint. Which if you look at that color it does appear more seven up bottle blue-green, then the lurid blue of our air. The sun was Also hiting the glass at an angle. Glass can carry light edge on, which is what fiber optics are based on, if the glass has impurities in it, which the space glass had metal in it for strenght, these metals will effect that light making the glass glow faintly. Which considering the thickness, and the angle of the light, i'm surmissing thats exactly whats being seen there. If you tone done the blueness for the camaras's sensitivity to blues, you get the EXACT color of 7 up bottle glass. With the exeption of the Waters of Guam or the Kaman Islands, most of our air, and oceas apear a lurid blue.
They only time i've ever seen sky look 7 up bottle green, the Jarrell F5 tornadoe plaoghed through Texas. So unless they had that lander outside during an F5 Tornadoe which i highly doubt is likely, then whats being seen if light refracting of the impurtities within the glass, and it appreas bluer then it should because of video of that time being more sensitive to that color.
Hope this helps you somewhat.
Order of Kilopi
[quote]
On 2001-12-06 23:28, dgavin wrote:
One they (video cameras) were bulky, not in weight but in size, as in basics there were the reverse of a tv screen.
The studio models were, being a three-tube system, but the hand-held models taken on Apollo were not. They used one vidicon and a spinning color wheel. These were based on an existing Westinghouse product, not necessarily specially designed for Apollo.
It the major reason that special effects of that time were filmed with a blue screen.
No, not the major reason.
Petro Vlahos invented color-difference blue screen chroma keying process for MGM to use on Ben Hur (1956). He had previously invented a sodium-screen (yellow) chroma keying process for Disney, which continued to use the process well into the 1960s (e.g., Mary Poppins, 1964). Coincidentally Vlahos was award the Acadamy Award in 1964 for the blue-screen process.
However, other compositing and keying systems were also heavily used up until the mid 1970s when the industry began to standardize on the blue-screen process.
Douglas Trumbull used front- and rear-projection heavily. His preferred key method was simply to shoot the foreground against a black background. (2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968; Silent Running, 1971.)
The choice of blue as the key color was motivated by two principle technical factors and one legal factor. The legal factor was that he needed a different color than the one he'd suggested to Disney. Technically, blue is the best complement to human skin tones of the primary photographic colors. This makes it easy to extract a good matte when live actors are the foreground elements. The blue layers of the contemporary emulsions also contained the tightest grain, allowing for more detail in the matte.
Green is used by some people today because it has better spill characteristics than blue, and also because a missing blue layer worked better in the optically produced foregrounds. As a matter of technical fact, both opto-chemical and digital color-difference matte extraction processes can use either blue or green as the key color.
Much to my surprise the TV monitors showed the dull dingy blue as a lurid vivid blue. In essence the picture was not showing it as it truely was.
Well, not entirely. It's true to say that the photographic processes of the 1960s and 1970s appeared to reproduce blue colors more vividly than others, but it's not as true to say that's how the color "truly" was. The human eye is less responsive to blue than to other colors. That means blue objects viewed directly by the eye do not appear as vivid as objects of other colors.
Photographic elements do not have the same gamut restrictions and so capture and record blue more even-handedly than the human retina, or as you've noted, even more aggressively. Similarly, display devices such as television screens can have overly aggressive blue-biased gamuts (to attempt to make up for the known sensory gamut of the human eye, or naturally due to electronic effects) and so can boost the blue more than it should be.
In fact Camcorders still have some of this problem, even film does.
Sure, but we're much more adept at color balancing than we were.
It was interesting to visit the set of Star Trek: Voyager and see the difference between the colors of the scenery and costumes as they actually are, and as they are recorded on the film and presented on my television. The colors are much more vivid in real life.
First of all, that glass is THICK, probably on the order of 5 inches.
No. The glass on the spacecraft was not that thick, but it was double-paned. The panes may appear to be five inches apart, but they are not five inches thick.
these metals will effect that light making the glass glow faintly.
Undoubtedly. Glass is colored by adding metal impurities. Also, there were various coatings on the glass to affect its optical and thermal properties and these may have chromatic side effects.
Established Member
The sunlight coming through the window kills the argument dead anyway. You can't have sunlight and the sunlit face of the Earth in the same window anyway.
Established Member
How much of the earth was lit?On 2001-12-07 21:39, johnwitts wrote:
The sunlight coming through the window kills the argument dead anyway. You can't have sunlight and the sunlit face of the Earth in the same window anyway.
Anyway, we can see the nearly full moon while it is daylight, on earth, so the geometry is possible--just reverse moon for earth.
Order of Kilopi
Yeah, but that's only going to be when the moon is relatively low in the eastern sky and the sun relatively low in the western sky (or vice versa), isn't it? So, I don't think you could have direct sunlight shining in the same window through which you're looking at the moon, just atmospherically refracted sunlight.On 2001-12-09 17:38, GrapesOfWrath wrote:
How much of the earth was lit?On 2001-12-07 21:39, johnwitts wrote:
The sunlight coming through the window kills the argument dead anyway. You can't have sunlight and the sunlit face of the Earth in the same window anyway.
Anyway, we can see the nearly full moon while it is daylight, on earth, so the geometry is possible--just reverse moon for earth.
(Should "sun" and "moon" be capitalized in that sentence?)
Established Member
I dunno. If your window is flat, facing south (in the northern hemisphere in the winter), the sun will strike it no matter what time of day. If the moon is visible, you'll be able to see it out the window, no? If the window is flat, looking up, even the season doesn't matter.
I still haven't viewed the video clip, but my astro s/w says that first quarter moon was on July 22, 1969--the day that Apollo 11 lifted off from the moon. The Earth would have been waning gibbous from the moon, and the astronauts would have been in the sunlit portion of the moon, so, apparently, the geometry could have been OK.
Order of Kilopi
Yeah, I suppose that's true . . . I'll look out my southern window in the afternoon in a couple weekends and tell ya what I see! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]
BTW, John's post was suggesting that you wouldn't have blue Earth and direct sunlight coming through the same window at the same time if the spacecraft were in LEO. He's saying that the direct sunlight is proof that the blue is not simply the Earth rotating nearby. That the Apollo astronauts would've been on the lit portion of the Moon is thus irrelevent -- the question is whether the window would've looked like it did if they were in LEO.
Established Member
I still haven't seen the actual photo--is the Earth "full?" If it's in low earth orbit, you're not going to see the full earth anyway, right? So, if it were nearer the terminator, the window view could see both direct sunlight and sunlit Earth.
Order of Kilopi
There's no Earth detail or anything to make out. From what I remember (I don't have RealPlayer on this PC, so I can't watch it again), it's a video shot and the window of the capsule (which is only visible in a handful of frames) appears to be brightly lit with a bluish light -- hence the HB's claim that the craft was simply in LEO and the whole mission was faked . . .
John's reference to the sunlight coming through the window is something I'd need to see the video again in order to specifically identify or describe . . .
Established Member
Finally saw the clip--but of course it is Apollo 13, as JayUtah points out. The view of the windows is not very informative. Does anybody have anything related to the OP?
Newbie
I hate to add more to this thread but I have come across another insignificant but laughable detail that HB's point to. It seems that there is a picture showing an overturned Coke bottle? Has anyone seen this one?
Vulcan Administrator
The claim I've heard is that this was only visible on Australian television, since that's the only place in the world that got the "uncensored" images. I could be wrong, though - if anyone's seen the alleged picture, I'd be interested in hearing about it.On 2001-12-10 10:57, orion2061 wrote:
I hate to add more to this thread but I have come across another insignificant but laughable detail that HB's point to. It seems that there is a picture showing an overturned Coke bottle? Has anyone seen this one?
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.
Established Member
I think it was the Adelaide tracking station that picked up the first Apollo 11 TV transmissions from the lunar surface. Nobody but one Australian woman claimed to have seen a Coke bottle, and parts of her account don't add up. The most compelling thing to me is the quality of those transmissions that would have made it all but impossible to distinguish a Coke bottle from any other cylindrical lump of material.
Vulcan Administrator
Well, obviously, the transmissions were deliberately reduced in quality to keep them from showing anything incriminating, such as the aforementioned Coke bottle!On 2001-12-12 15:14, DaveC wrote:
The most compelling thing to me is the quality of those transmissions that would have made it all but impossible to distinguish a Coke bottle from any other cylindrical lump of material.
(I may be joking but some people seem to believe this.)
Order of Kilopi
Well, obviously, the transmissions were deliberately reduced in quality to keep them from showing anything incriminating, such as the aforementioned Coke bottle!
(giggle). Sure, that's why they did the same stunt over and over and over again, each time increasing the quality and quantity of television coverage.
First rule of illusion: never repeat a trick.
According to the conspiracists, not only did the illusionists repeat the trick five more times, they made sure the audience had a more revealing seat each time.
Don't you just love hypotheses in which people have to behave irrationally or stupidly in order for them to be true?
Order of Kilopi
When stupid and irrational people are making the claims, it hardly surprises me that they don't seem bothered by their purported conspirators behaving stupidly.
"Duh... how else would they behave... huh huh!"
Established Member
Here's one for the photographic experts: -
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a13/AS13-62-8885HR.jpg
In this picture, we can see the blue effect caused by sunlight scattered by the pane of glass in the right LM window.
QUESTION: Would a longer exposure and larger camera aperture amplify this effect to the point where the entire window seems to be bathed in blueish light, as seen in this Apollo 11 photo?
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/as11-36-5389.jpg
This scattering effect only seems to occur when the camera is setup for interior scenes. Were the f-stop settings for the internal views (cabin, astronauts) significantly different from what was used for the external views (Earth, Moon)?
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