Moon hoax - Photographic claims

Assertions by Dr. Gerardus Bouw Astronomer For NASA	Responses by Dr. Neville Jones Physicist Against NASA
There is a belief, officially taught to Cuban school children and held by some New Agers, the Hare Krishnas, orthodox Moslems, the Flat Earth Society, and now increasingly circulating among Christians, that the United States faked the Apollo moon landings. Many are the claims made by the promoters of the belief, and some of them seem quite convincing. Although space will not permit a detailed account of the claims and counterclaims, we can categorize most of them into several categories and look at a handful of particulars. Most arguments are photographic in nature. After careful examination of photos and NASA videos of all the moon landings, we conclude that there is no evidence that the moon photos and videos were faked.	There is quite a clear bias here, right from the opening paragraph. We have doubters labelled as New Agers, Hare Krishnas, Flat Earthers and communists. In his magazine, "The Biblical Astronomer," 8(83), 4, 1998, he has also dismissed those who question NASA and its claims as being "wanderers." There will be no such bias in this review, although I note in passing that Cuban schoolchildren are seemingly better educated than their Americon cousins.
In order to analyze the claims made by the doubters, I examined, with remote control in hand, all of NASA's video tapes about the Apollo missions. The comments below are not made from inexperience. From 1959 through 1976 I developed and printed my own photos and slides. For black and white prints I used of Ansel Adams' zone system photography, where one exposes for the shadows and develops for the highlights. I learned color printing in 1965 when I worked all summer for Dr. Larry Helfer of the University of Rochester. We were looking to enhance subtle color differences in the lunar mare (lava) beds by taking color photos of the moon and printing them to enhance the color contrasts of the moon. The whole summer was spent taking and printing telescopic photos of the moon at all phases. I continued color printing, when I could afford it, for several more years. Also, I worked six months in the processing lab of a portrait studio, where, among other skills, I learned toning. In more recent years I've enhanced photos by computer. For samples of that, see the eclipse photos posted on the Biblical Astronomer web site and photos which appeared in past issues of the Biblical Astronomer which dealt with the face and pyramids of Mars. In the course of all that, I learned photographic techniques such as dodging, which keeps shady or dark areas of a photo from getting too dark; burning in, which brings out details in over-exposed areas, keeping them from looking washed-out; retouching, staining a negative to remove dark spots and blemishes from prints; and enhancing and reducing, techniques to rescue underexposed and overexposed negatives or prints. About the only thing I didn't do was airbrushing, the opposite of retouching, but I've done that with computer prints. Lately I've been working with the computer color correcting and restoring faded color photos from the 1950s. In short, I do know a little bit about what can and cannot be done with photos in the lab and by computer. No sooner had the first lunar module landed on the surface of the moon than a chorus of voices, most of them communists, pronounced the whole Apollo program a fake. Certainly given the poor quality live video presented on world television at the time, there is no way to tell the difference. They used slow-fading photoreceptors which made it look like background objects shone through the astronauts' bodies, at least until the memory of the receptors faded. But NASA did not stop with that original video. NASA released still photos and video tapes of each of the lunar landings. Based on these released photos, two men in particular have made a living from the negative view. They are Bill Bryan of Oregon who, in 1982, wrote a book called Moongate, and Ralph Ren who wrote two books in the mid-nineties: Was It Only A Paper Moon? and Did NASA Moon America?. Are they right or wrong in their claims? Let's see what we can garner from the videos, still photos, and technology.	The developing and printing techniques talked about are relevant where there is reasonable contrast over the exposure. On the Moon, there would be extreme contrast, so much so that areas would either be burnt out completely or not exposed in the least. There is no way that such images could be corrected as implied, to the degree necessary to produce such sharp photographs. (By the way, I did outdoor and studio portrait photography, both colour and black and white, together with video photography for over ten years. I, too, have developed my own films, colour negative and positive, and black and white negative.) Anyone with any real experience would plainly see that the images coming from NASA are simply faked, studio shots, perfectly exposed and composed, where the level and type of studio lighting is completely controlled and metered. The astronuts did not even have an exposure meter! Neither did they have a viewfinder! Anyone with experience of the Hasselblad 500EL, such as myself, will tell you that guesswork would not produce magazine after magazine of perfectly exposed and composed images. They will also tell you about the telltale signs of hotspots (indicating the proximity of highly directional light source) and infill (indicating the use of standard portrait reflectors). There was no protection of the Hasselblad for extremes of temperature (Kodak Ektachrome, the film type used, crinkles up at well below the supposed temperature on the Moon), nor against radiation, which would have caused irreversible fogging on all images. His comment, "given the poor quality live video presented on world television," is a little misleading, because television networks were not allowed any 'live' feeds at all. They were actually broadcasting pictures off a large screen. The images on that screen were produced by NASA. In absolutely no way can one claim that the television broadcast was of a live event.
If the landing and lunar surface activities were done on earth, there should be evidence of the presence of air. After all, to create a near-perfect vacuum for a stage set covering the scope of the lunar landing area is incredibly difficult, not to mention expensive. The videos were examined for evidence of air circulation. The Apollo 11 video is not much help there, but Apollo 12 shows the dust blowing out from under the rocket engine as the lunar module (LM) landed. The dust moved in straight, radial lines away from the touch-down point. There is no evidence of swirling as would be the case if there were air. That is, it didn't behave like the cloud of dust and flame raised by a rocket launch from earth. True, the scale is smaller here, but the principle is the same. Except for hitting certain rocks, the dust blows straight out. When the engine turned off, the dust dissipated immediately instead of slowly circulating and settling to the surface. The lunar rover video was also examined for evidence of air circulation in the dust kicked up by the wheels. The dust kicked up in rooster tail fashion which traced out the expected parabolic shape. On earth dust swirls and stays up for a long time such as one may have seen behind a vehicle driving down a dusty road. Apollo 15 turned the video camera of the lunar excursion module (LEM) towards the lunar module to film the takeoff. When the return craft took off, there was no billowing exhaust as would be expected if filmed in air, nor was there any evidence of condensation or steam. The flag did twist but stayed up. Besides, to keep from damaging man and machine, the thrust builds up slowly so that most of the thrust and thus the exhaust blast takes place too high above the surface to disrupt the dust. The contention is that thousands of pounds of thrust should have produced a sizable crater. Again, most of the deceleration occurs well before landing. For the landing to be gentle enough for survival, a minimum amount of thrust is needed toward the end, near the surface. (I seem to recall that it took one pound of fuel per second to keep the lander falling at constant rate, which is to say, to be able to hover over the surface.)	He states, under "no evidence of air," that, "The dust kicked up in rooster tail fashion which traced out the expected parabolic shape." However, after having watched James Collier's video, "Was It Only A Paper Moon," I do not understand how he could have missed the undeniable evidence of air. Unless, of course, he has been watching NASA footage that has been 'enhanced,' just as the 'C' was airbrushed off the famous rock picture. (Just a thought here, why would NASA be touching up old photographs anyway?) Within the same section, he states that, "some hoax advocates [say about the LM takeoff that] there should have been a huge flame which would destroy the LM platform and flag." He may be right, but I have never heard this claim before. His next comment, however, is just plain rubbish: "Besides, to keep from damaging man and machine, the thrust builds up slowly so that most of the thrust and thus the exhaust blast takes place too high above the surface to disrupt the dust." Anyone who has seen this 'thunderbirds'-style takeoff will recall the phenomenal rate of acceleration off the supposed lunar surface, and, of course, the exhaust must be pushing on something. So we are told that there is enough dust to leave zillions of footprints, but that this layer was not blasted away in all directions upon firing the engine! I do sometimes wonder about Dr. Bouw. I have also watched Ralph Rene (whose book, "NASA Mooned America," is well worth reading) very effectively demonstrate the disruption caused by a hand-held leaf blower on a pile of gravel, as well as the almost impossible movement of his fingers in a glove pressurized to 5 psi above vacuum.
There is a fable common to modern man which claims that all shadows in a vacuum are pitch black. For some reason these folk assume that without any air there would be no light to brightening the shadows. Thus they presume that the fact that we can see details of the astronauts and the lander in the shade means that the photos must have been taken in the presence of an atmosphere. Now it is true that if we have an object alone in space, such as an asteroid, for example, the night side is as dark can be. But shadows on the sunlit side need not be so dark. The same is even truer for a large object such as the moon. On its surface, small rocks which receive little light from the surrounding surface will have dark shadows and show little if any detail on a typical photo. A taller object, such as an astronaut or lunar module, will catch light from more of the surrounding surface and will not be absolutely dark. Consider how bright the full moon appears at night. In actuality it is a bright as a granite rock at noon. Now just the small amount of moonlight we see from a full moon provides enough light to be able to read by. Imagine now that brightness multiplied tens of times over and you have a realistic picture of what the dark side of the lander or astronaut would look like. Indeed, since there is no air to scatter the light on the moon, the shadows would be slightly brighter on the moon than on earth. Since the light would emanate from all around the horizon, there would be no shadows cast by the light from the lunar landscape. Then, too, there's earth shine. The earth as seen from the moon is much, much brighter than the moon as seen from the earth. The light from the earth would also contribute to brightening the shadows on the moon, but not nearly as much as the light from the lunar landscape. So we conclude that the absence of an atmosphere does not make the shadows on the moon so dark that one can't see features in them.	Next, under "no dark shadows," he claims that, "There is a fable common to modern man which claims that all shadows in a vacuum are pitch black." What?! This is an interesting tactic that I only realized a year or so back, by watching an awful pro-Apollo television programme. In that programme, the self-styled defender of Apollo made some outlandish claims about what people who doubted his god believed. He then set about debunking the claim. To the general viewer it must have seemed very convincing 'proof' that the programme-maker's view was correct. What a genius. But hang on a minute, who exactly made the alleged claim that he was so effectively debunking? Certainly I knew of no one. The NASA worshipper was making it and then debunking it himself. There is some scattering of light off the surface, which is what Dr. Bouw then goes on to discuss in all but name, and there would be a small amount of 'earth shine', but nowhere near enough to ensure that we always got a good picture of the stars and stripes. Also, on several photographs, such as one of Aldrin supposedly coming down the ladder, there is a quite distinct hotspot, as would be caused by, for example, a studio light.
Some critics of NASA's lunar landings maintain that the shadows on the surface of the moon are not aligned and show evidence of multiple light sources. They claim that all shadows should be parallel since the light arrives in a near-flat plane. But such a claim does not hold in practice. I checked the shadows of a tree-lined lane and found that they are not parallel. All the shadows point towards the sun. True, in a narrow field of view (through a telephoto lens or binoculars, for example), the shadows will look parallel, but in reality they point to the sun. This phenomenon is called perspective, and artists and architects know all about it. Evidently the NASA critics don't; or they choose to ignore it. If there are still doubters among our readers, consider another related phenomenon called which occurs when the sun shines through a hole in a distant cloud. The resulting sun rays are anything but parallel. They each trace back to the sun. What about the shadows of the rocks? The rocks are irregular in shape, and so is the surface. Rocks lying on the rims of small depressions will cast longer shadows over the depression than they would be on a flat surface. Rocks lying next to a rise will have short shadows. Irregular peaks and vales on the rocks and surface will cause one to misjudge the lengths and directions of shadows. It is very difficult to judge the parallelism of shadows on an uneven, cratered surface. Based on that alone I found no evidence for multiple light sources. Indeed, multiple light sources would cast multiple shadows and no one claims multiple shadows to be found. More anon.	He continues his ridicule of those that question the Apollo programme, by claiming that we do not understand perspective. A further outlandish claim that Dr. Bouw uses to reinforce his disdain is: "Consider another related phenomenon called [?] which occurs when the sun shines through a hole in a distant cloud. The resulting sun rays are anything but parallel. They each trace back to the sun." Do they? In that case, the Sun would be just above the clouds.
There is a series of photos which shows astronaut Buzz Aldrin climbing down the Apollo 11 lunar lander's steps (Figure 2). He is descending in the shadow of the lander, yet one can see details of the lander and his suit seems bright as if it's in direct sunlight. One hoax advocate claimed that it would take a three hour exposure to make the photo so bright. The claim is that the area had to be illuminated by stage lights. Actually, the higher up one goes off the surface of the moon, the more of the moon's surface comes into view and the more of its reflected light hits from the surrounding moonscape. It is not surprising then that Aldrin's oxygen pack (which looks like a white backpack) which is pointing skyward, is darker than its underside which catches the light from the lunar surface. Now it could be argued that that's consistent with the flood-light speculation, too; but in that case we should see the shadow cast by the flood light. In none of the photos is there any evidence of a shadow cast by the hypothetical fill-light. If the lunar landing photos were shot in a studio with flood lights and fill lights, there should be multiple shadows in many of the photos. As it is, there is no evidence of such multiple shadows. Besides, why is the lunar landscape, also supposedly lit by floodlights, overexposed in that photo? Studio lighting would make the landscape and the lander the same brightness. A related phenomenon is the one seen in the cover photo. The lunar landscape seems to be bright near the center of the photo and then seems to fade in brightness as one gets to the edges of the photo. One only finds this in photos where the astronauts are prominent. Their white suits outshine the lunar surface and so one sees a differential reflection from the dust on the moon. The dust reflects light that hits it directly more than it reflects light which hits at an angle. Think of it this way. As the light hits a dust particle in a deep dusty surface obliquely, the reflected light is absorbed or scattered in different directions by neighboring dust particles. This is why in short exposures such as ones in which the white astronauts are prominent, the darkening is prominent. In photos where the astronauts are less prominent, the fading is barely noticeable. Of course, a professional photo printer will "burn in" the image by letting the enlarger light shine through a small, coin-size hole in cardboard while constantly moving the card, lengthening the time that the enlarger light falls on the shaded area, thus making it look brighter on the print. It is evident that such techniques have been used on some of these prints.	Then consider what he says about backlighting: "If the lunar landing photos were shot in a studio with flood lights and fill lights, there should be multiple shadows in many of the photos." Dr. Bouw has clearly no experience of studio photography. Master and slave lights would not produce multiple shadows, even if one had the slaves as bright as the master, which is unusual, but possible. For example, if you are taking a photograph of a girl in a studio you would not light her in the same way as you would a man. You would want to have quite strong and fairly even lighting, to bring out her beauty and skin tone. For a man, the standard method is to produce a rugged appearance by heavy lighting on one side of his face, such that you obtain a triangle of light on the cheek opposite the light source. But for a woman, you generally want an evenness of light to emphasize a smooth skin, with some difference in intensity to give the picture warmth and a sense of reality or interest, if you like. If I were photographing a brunette, say, I would use either three or four big studio lights. There would be the master light, positioned either to my right (illuminating the left side of her), or to my left (illuminating her right side). There would be a slave on the other side of me, set to half to three-quarters master intensity, a powerful light to illuminate the backdrop and a hair light, positioned not far above her head, with a snoot attachment. That is four powerful lights. How many shadows would I expect to see? None. The only evidence you would have in the picture that more than one lamp was used is the fact that there would be two distinct lights in her eyes. If she were wearing a space visor, then I could just remove one of those lights at the processing stage and you would be left with no evidence at all. Furthermore, a gold or silver or white reflector is not a light, but is specifically for filling in otherwise dark areas. In either case, I would not expect multiple shadows. It is therefore preposterous to imagine that the professional photographers used by NASA would leave multiple shadows because they used multiple light sources and reflector boards. Some photographs have shadows running in different directions, that is true, but I would put this down to the superposition of images, not multiple light sources.
"Why are there no stars in the lunar sky?" ask the hoaxers. After all, if there's no air on the moon then one can see stars in daylight. Certainly the statement is true, but that doesn't mean that you should expect to see any stars in the photos. To demonstrate the truth of this to yourself, take one of these three photos on a starry moonless night. 1. Take a picture of the starry dark night sky with the flash on. The photography shop won't print the blank negative, so you'll have to look at the negative to see that there are no stars there. 2. Again on a starry night, take a photo of someone under a street light. You'll see no stars in the sky. 3. If you don't have an automatic camera, set your exposure time for 1/125 second at f/8 and take a photo of the stars. This is the exposure time which roughly corresponds to the settings used on the moon. If you think that the atmosphere dims starlight a lot here on earth -- which it doesn't if the stars are any distance above the horizon -- go ahead and set your f-stop all the way open, place your camera on a tripod, and shoot for a quarter of a second. You'll still not see any stars. Even if you exposed the film for several seconds you won't notice the stars unless you happen to have one of the very brightest or a planet in the viewfinder. You'll have to expose the film for fifteen to sixty seconds to record any more than a few stars. So we see that the lack of stars in the photos argument is bogus.	"That the lack of stars in the photos argument is bogus" does not explain why they simply did not photograph the stars from the lunar surface. The Hasselblad 500 EL has far slower stops than 1/125s at f/8. Photographing the stars would have been child's play on the Moon, compared to getting such crystal sharp images of the flag and the "United States" sign.
In this article we have looked only at the major claims made by those who think that NASA faked the moon landings. Only a few of the lesser claims were examined and some, like the angle of the flag and the burned-in image of the American flag on the lander, I've ignored altogether. These are too easy to counter. In general we found that hoax advocates are ignorant of photographic printing techniques, photo enhancement techniques, and computer photo enhancement techniques. They also lack a basic understanding of modern astronomy and selenology (study of the moon's surface and rocks), no, not enough to properly state what astronomy and selenology have to say about the moon, and thus certainly not enough to offer intelligent critique. My most pessimistic appraisal of the moon hoax phenomenon is that it is designed to capitalize on the current dissatisfaction among the general American public with its cowardly, government leadership, cowed by a handful of satanic men in high places (Ephesians 6:12). Increasingly American Christians are being taken in by this hoax, and they get quite belligerent if you disagree. On the whole, American Christianity spends its money and acclaim on things and people who make merchandise of them by telling them what they want to hear, and by selling them worldly goods in "christian" wrapping paper. Lord, have mercy on us.	I have skipped the van Allen belts, Moon rocks and the like, because his position is based solely upon his belief in NASA claims, and because I wish to focus attention upon his photographic errors. Dr. Bouw concludes with, "In general we found that hoax advocates are ignorant of photographic printing techniques, photo enhancement techniques, and computer photo enhancement techniques. They also lack a basic understanding of modern astronomy and selenology (study of the moon's surface and rocks), no, not enough to properly state what astronomy and selenology have to say about the moon, and thus certainly not enough to offer intelligent critique." I hope that this small appraisal of his article will show up his assertions for what they are - incorrect, ignorant and misleading.

Acknowledgements

Dr. Bouw's opinions are as expressed on his website: www.geocentricity.com (as at 24.03.2005).