No Stars seen from Space?

[zorgon]

No Stars seen from Space?

I have heard all the arguments why no stars appear in certain NASA photos, yet I was never satisfied with the answer...  especially in the Apollo surface pictures. I want to do a thread about those separately and also talk about the Apollo Hills, but this thread is about the mystery of the stars

I looked around for some time to find a film like the following video from NASA. This one is perfect because not only does it show stars, but has what I wanted most, a recognizable constelation so there is no question that we are seeing stars.

Now what makes this film also useful is that it is filmed with the low resolution black and white camera and even when the camera points at the bright moon, you can still clearly see the stars.

The constellation is Orion, a very recognizable feature indeed and you can even see four stars in the sword



Orion for comparison...



OH and BTW just ignore the door shaped UFO zipping by.... this post is about the stars

[zorgon]

Originally posted by SkepticPerhaps at ATS it was my understanding that our atmosphere bouncing the light from the sun was the cause of there being no stars. If that's true then without an atmosphere stars would be visible anyway.

Yes that is quite true... and here you have it direct from NASA themselves...

Stars and the Solstice Sun


Composite Credit & Copyright: Jerry Lodriguss (Catching the Light)

Explanation:

If you could turn off the atmosphere's ability to scatter overwhelming sunlight, today's daytime sky might look something like this ... with the Sun surrounded by the stars of the constellations Taurus and Gemini. Of course, today is the Solstice. Traveling along the ecliptic plane, the Sun is at its northernmost position in planet Earth's sky, marking the astronomical beginning of summer in the north. Accurate for the exact time of today's Solstice, this composite image also shows the Sun at the proper scale (about the angular size of the Full Moon). Open star cluster M35 is to the Sun's left, and the other two bright stars in view are Mu and Eta Geminorum. Digitally superimposed on a nighttime image of the stars, the Sun itself is a composite of a picture taken through a solar filter and a series of images of the solar corona recorded during the solar eclipse of February 26, 1998 by Andreas Gada. 

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day - 2007 June 21

Now then why would that work on Earth, but NOT work on the Moon?



Sir Patrick Moore asks the alleged Apollo 11 crew "could you actually see the stars?" - 00:51  - Nov 21, 2006

[zorgon]

Originally posted by Blaine91555 at ATS
Pleeeease Zorgon! You understand cameras and photography better than that. :@@: Why are you posting like you don't?

What I understand is that at least one or two of the brightest stars would be visible at the very least especially since the stars would be much brighter with no atmosphere (as many claim is the case on the Moon )

What I understand is that the people on ISS are not bad at catching stars despite a bright object in the image... like let's say an Aurora?


Space Shuttle photo of homogeneous arcs over the South Pole. Credit: NASA

In this one they are over SNOW (Winter in Canada), which is bright and reflective, more so than the Moon. The round circle is the Manicouagan Impact Crater, Quebec, Canada


Credit LPI/NASA

Now here is another one...



Those images have a bright object and still several of the brightest stars are easily visible.

So why is this different on the Moon?  You can come up with all sorts of camera excuses, but the fact is that from Earth orbit even with a snow covered Earth below reflecting sunlight...

YOU STILL SEE STARS

So at the VERY LEAST we should see stars in the images taken from the command module as it orbits the Moon



Added this cool wallpaper as it is related to this page...



[http://www.desktopedia.com/bulkupload/Dual%20Screen/Aurora%20in%20Space.jpg]Download available here  Aurora in Space wallpaper[/url]

The Aurora Page
Various views of the Aurora from the final frontier.

Lights Below: The Aurora from Space

[zorgon]

Originally posted by DaMod at ATS
This is not my photo but I have taken some like it.

If you lengthen the exposure on your camera in a perfectly dark sky and aim it at the center of the milky way you get this.



If a camera can do that (because it essentially captures light) then how come there are no stars in space where there is no atmosphere to block you?

[zorgon]

  Exuberant1

Here is an image wherein a star (Orion ?) can be seen just below the fiducial immediately right of center:



*Just ignore the fact that the sun is also in the shot with a star... 

Originally posted by PrisonerOfSociety
Those spots of light are from lens flare.

The other picture you posted shows two such instances; one "just below the fiducial immediately right of center", as you so eloquently put it, but the other is just above the rock on the left (not so eloquently put  

The first image I posted was from a NASA server - this is what they said about it on their own site:

"Traverse photo taken between Station 2 and the LM. Orion is just below the fiducial immediately right of center."

Both images have lens flare in them, but I am referring to the stars which are also present.

Nice Try! 

[zorgon]

Originally posted by DaMod at ATS
That vid really hit home with me.

Not verbatim

"These three astronauts just acheived the most incredible feat ever accomplished by the human race, but look how sad and nervous they look...."

Yup they sure do.

I know if I went to the moon and lived to tell about it, I would be the most excited guy that ever lived....

[zorgon]

Originally posted by PrisonerOfSociety at ATS
Surely, one of the most beautiful pictures they could of ever taken would be the Earth (from the moon) with the right aperture setting and ISO showing the Earth floating in a sea of stars.

Is there such a picture?

NASA photoshoppers would not be able to replicate the intricate detail of the cosmos as it would only take one blemish in the wrong place for it to raise eyebrows. Hence, they just mask out the background from their water-tank, or wherever they staged it.

Regarding the Patrick Moore/astronauts video, saying "i don't recall", well that is pretty damning evidence. Something so wonderful would burn on your retinas for a lifetime, would it not?

[zorgon]

Originally posted by free_spirit at ATS

Here is your answer by an astronaut himself during a Columbia shuttle mission. Yes the astronauts see stars as well as satellites, space junk etc. all the time EVEN at daytime but NASA doesn't want the world to see these images anymore like in the old missions,  they don't want the world to see what is really happening up there and this is A FACT.

Check the Columbia astronaut making the historical statement from space clarifying the old myth created by NASA.

Original link. 

Columbia astronaut reporting seeing stars

Eventually NASA broadcast black and white images specially at night time during the recent missions and you can see stars and satellites very clear and also a variety of lights and objects moving in different directions but these transmissions are becoming more rare. It's clear NASA doesn't want to get in trouble trying to explain so much things shown in space like in the old times so they simply darken the space view all the time by fixing their cameras and closing the lens to a short range.

[zorgon]

Originally posted by Cyberbian at ATS
Why would you not be able to see light from stars because there is a light source in another direction, in space?

If the background of the star is black then you should either be able to see the star, or it would have zero chance of being visible from the Earth.

The Earth's atmosphere blocks about 99 percent of the light!

So stars should be 100 times brighter in space, not dimmer. There is nothing to diffract or scatter the light in space.

The duration of an exposure is relative to the aperture size. What matters is how much light has reached the film or sensor.
If there is overwhelming foreground light, aperture or duration will not change the relative proportion.

If it were truly a matter of length of exposure because there was too much light back scattering off the shuttle in the picture; then a long exposure would burn out all the detail of the shuttle, which is clearly not the case.

I might buy some of the back scatter argument for a lunar picture where dust can be suspended in the low gravity. But not for a shuttle in space.

  Provide an example where the camera is panned from showing the brightness of the shuttle and no stars, to an angle without the shuttle with stars. It should be an easy position to prove!

[zorgon]

Originally posted by kenyon420 at ATS
Just checking out the site for NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance mission, where they have a photo of an Apollo 11 astronaut and there are clearly stars in the back ground.



http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/gallery/Apollomoonflag.gif

It kind of flipped me out since I thought everyone agreed that there where no stars in the apollo images, I thought people just had a different opinion on why there where no stars!

But then I went to another NASA gallery of Apollo 11 images there was exactly the same image without stars, WTF!!!!!!



http://history.nasa.gov/ap11ann/kippsphotos/5875.jpg

I think they just make it up as they go along!!!

[zorgon]

So if NASA says on the one hand  "No stars on the Moon..." then on the other hand says "You can see all the stars if the atmosphere on Earth was "turned off"... Is it any wonder we say Never a Straight Answer?

Heck even the NAVY Clementine pictures of the moon show stars and Venus

[zorgon]

Originally posted by easynow at ATS
Stars are much much brighter out in space,

here's a daytime, Sun blaring , image taken from the X15 and clearly shows stars :wow:


Colorado River Valley, from X-15 at 210,000 feet

http://www.sierrafoot.org/x-15/scan21a_large.html

[zorgon]

Originally posted by GaryN
ONLY longitudinal waves travel in a vacuum, so you can not see stars from space, or from the surface of the moon, or from the surface of any planet with no atmosphere unless you use a diffraction grating, which Hubble does. So, if you were in space, or on the Moon, could you see the Sun??

So... you have been in space to test this theory of yours? If ONLY longitudinal waves travel in space, then how do the other waves GET to the Hubble so it can use its diffraction grating? Better rethink your 'science' eh? :up:

OMNI: What's the best part of being in space?

Musgrave: The view of the heavens: the stars are brighter and you see the entire celestial sphere. On an EVA, your helmet is fairly panoramic. But if you don't think about having these experiences they won't happen to you.

So I guess Astronaut Story Musgrave is lying then huh?

[zorgon]

Originally posted by OrionHunterX

Originally posted by zorgon
I have heard all the arguments why no stars appear in certain NASA photos, yet I was never satisfied with the answer...

Orion and other constellations clearly visible from space.
Credit:  NASA - STS-35.

NICE!!!  See? there ya go... Never A Straight Answers says "no stars" in one story,  then shows us stars. Such comedians those NASA guys... a billion laughs on our dime


Aurora in Space with Orion STS 59 Credit: JPL/NASA

[zorgon]

NASA: PROOF of image tampering

NASA adds black sky...



Images numbers are provided so I will take some time to find them and duplicate the results