Moon landing

[Oddball]

Watch these videos....There is footage out the windows of the LEMs of the landing sites and the areas around them....

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pdi+touchdown+

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Notice at 9:28, they are moving 160 ft/s. But if you look at the Moon's horizon, it barely appears to be moving.

Either they are mistaken or lying about their speed, or the Moon is pretty big, and the horizon is pretty far away.

 

[TNHarley]

Watch these videos....There is footage out the windows of the LEMs of the landing sites and the areas around them....

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pdi+touchdown+

That video won't play

 

[Oddball]

That video won't play

Hmmmm.... It's a list of results....Try looking up "PDI to touchdown"....The live action from all the landings are shown there.

 

[TNHarley]

Hmmmm.... It's a list of results....Try looking up "PDI to touchdown"....The live action from all the landings are there.

I will. Thanks.

 

[1srelluc]

 

[Bob Blaylock]

So I was just watching the videos of the moon landing and I noticed something. The curve of the moon is only about 100 yards or so. While I know the moon is significantly smaller than the earth, seeing the curve at around that small distance doesn't make sense.
Anyone here to fill me in on that?

It occurred to me right away that if the camera being used had a wide-angle lens, the effect would likely be to somewhat exaggerate the curvature, in the manner that you are observing. So, I Googled the specifications for the camera taken on the first Moon landing.

It was a specially-modified variant on a Hasselblad 500EL, with a 60mm lens. The normal length for a lens on a Hasselblad, or any other camera that uses that film format, would be 80mm, so yes, this was a somewhat wide-angle lens, about comparable to a 37.5mm lens on a camera that uses the standard 35mm film format, or a 24.2mm lens on a modern DX-format DSLR.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

So I was just watching the videos of the moon landing and I noticed something. The curve of the moon is only about 100 yards or so. While I know the moon is significantly smaller than the earth, seeing the curve at around that small distance doesn't make sense.
Anyone here to fill me in on that?

On taking another look at your OP, I see you are referring to video, rather than still images. That would be a different camera, entirely. Let's see what I can find on that…

Looks like those cameras used several different lenses, including at least one wide-angle lens, and several narrow-angle lenses. No “normal angle” lenses, it seems. You're probably looking at video shot through the wide-angle lens; so what I said about that with regard to the Hasselblad would apply here, as well.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

I found this....

The pictures from the Apollo moon landings may appear to have a short distance to the horizon due to a combination of factors related to the lunar landscape and the way photographs are taken. Here are some reasons for this perception:

1. Wide-Angle Lenses: The cameras used during the Apollo missions often had wide-angle lenses, which can distort the perception of distance. Wide-angle lenses can make objects in the foreground appear larger and closer than they actually are while simultaneously capturing a broader field of view.
2. Lack of Atmosphere: The Moon has no atmosphere, unlike Earth, which means there is no atmospheric haze or scattering of light to create the perception of depth in the same way we experience on our planet. This absence of atmospheric effects can make the lunar landscape seem flatter and closer than it actually is.
3. Flat Terrain: The Apollo landing sites were chosen for their relatively flat and unobstructed terrain to ensure the safety of the astronauts during landing and takeoff. As a result, the landscape around the landing site appears relatively featureless, which can make it challenging to gauge distances accurately.
4. Human Perception: Our brains tend to use familiar cues and objects to estimate distances. When viewing lunar photos, there are often no easily recognizable objects or landmarks, such as trees or buildings, that we can use to judge distance accurately.
5. Focal Length and Perspective: The choice of camera focal length and perspective can influence how distances appear in photographs. The shorter the focal length, the more exaggerated the foreground objects may appear, making the horizon seem closer.
6. Image Cropping: In some cases, photographs from the moon missions may have been cropped or framed in a way that emphasizes certain elements of the scene, which can make the horizon seem closer than it is.

It's important to remember that while these factors can create the impression of a short distance to the horizon in lunar photos, the Moon's surface is still vast, with wide-open spaces that stretch for kilometers. The apparent lack of depth in these images is a result of the unique characteristics of the lunar environment and the photographic techniques used during the missions.

Points 1 and 5 in your post are the same thing, worded differently. 6 is related as well.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

True. But that's what it looks like, if you consider the surroundings.
I want to be proven wrong. I want to believe we actually went there.

You can't be serious?
They would have to fake 100,000s of pages of scientific data. 100,000s of pages of modeling/testing.
The testimony of 1000s of NASA employees, and nearly every NASA employee since then.
The shear number of people that would have to be willing to fake it, and never say anything to this day is impossible to imagine.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

I don't know about the wide angle lens comment. I have wide angle lenses and unless you are using an extremely wide lens it won't distort it a whole lot.

The wide angle lens on the TV camera had an 80° angle of view. That's pretty damn wide. That's roughly comparable to a 20mm lens on a 35mm camera, or about 14mm on a DX-format camera. A “normal” lens is about 50°.

 

[TNHarley]

You can't be serious?
They would have to fake 100,000s of pages of scientific data. 100,000s of pages of modeling/testing.
The testimony of 1000s of NASA employees, and nearly every NASA employee since then.
The shear number of people that would have to be willing to fake it, and never say anything to this day is impossible to imagine.

I was just going by what I saw. Made me think a little.
I also looked up the chinese landing, and it was the same way.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Lack of atmosphere makes distances deceiving. You can see further more clearly than on earth.

By a hundred yards or so?

I wouldn't find that unbelievable.

I think most people have no idea at all just how much impact the atmosphere has on the view of distant things.

 

[Deadstick]

The one thing i can't get my head round is the technology over fifty years ago, it was on space invader level, that's the only thing that puts doubt in my mind, maybe some of you tech guys could reply on that.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

The one thing i can't get my head round is the technology over fifty years ago, it was on space invader level, that's the only thing that puts doubt in my mind, maybe some of you tech guys could reply on that.

“Space Invaders” is much more advanced computer technology than we had when we went to the Moon. A bottom-of-the-line configuration of an Apple ][ or an original TRS-80 would be considerably more powerful and robust than the computer that went with Apollo 11.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

I was just going by what I saw. Made me think a little.
I also looked up the chinese landing, and it was the same way.

I get it... but you do realize that we have extremely high resolution photographs of the moon surface that show the lunar module sitting there? It shows the blast area when the return vehicle took off. It even shows the footprints of the astronauts.

 

[TNHarley]

I get it... but you do realize that we have extremely high resolution photographs of the moon surface that show the lunar module sitting there? It shows the blast area when the return vehicle took off. It even shows the footprints of the astronauts.

I did not know that

 

[miketx]

The wide angle lens on the TV camera had an 80° angle of view. That's pretty damn wide. That's roughly comparable to a 20mm lens on a 35mm camera, or about 14mm on a DX-format camera. A “normal” lens is about 50°.

When you say wide I'm talking a lens like my 10-20 degree lens. At 20 it shows a little more than a normal lens. At 10 I can stand right in front of you and take a picture of your whole body.

 

[fncceo]

Hmmmm.... It's a list of results....Try looking up "PDI to touchdown"....The live action from all the landings are shown there.

The original moon landings were all done at lunar dawn for a few reasons.

Most importantly to this discussion is because the angle of the sun at lunar dawn will cast l long, visible shadows of the terrain, allowing the astronauts to more accurately judge the topology. The longer the shadow, the taller the object.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

When you say wide I'm talking a lens like my 10-20 degree lens. At 20 it shows a little more than a normal lens. At 10 I can stand right in front of you and take a picture of your whole body.

Do you mean millimeters, rather than degrees? Ten to twenty degrees would be a very narrow view. Depending on the film/sensor format, 10-20mm might be very wide. What kind of camera? What film/sensor format?