How come no Stars are in the moon landing pictures?

Question

You can see earth, but not one star? How come?

The astronauts reported not seeing one star too. How do you explain that?

Answer 1

The stars are not bright enough to be seen, given the brightness of the other objects in the picture.

Answer 2

This is probably the worst piece of "evidence" in favor of a conspiracy.

There are no stars in the pictures because the exposure times of the cameras were far too short. The stars are simply too faint to show up. This is something that can easily tested back on Earth; set a manual camera for a daylight exposure and take a picture of the night sky. The Moon would show up, but stars wouldn't.

The astronauts didn't report seeing stars from the surface because their eyes were adjusted to the bright surface of the Moon. In bright light, the iris of the eye contracts to limit the amount of light that goes into the eye. This severely limits the ability of the eye to simultaneously see bright objects - like the lunar surface - and faint objects, like stars. So they couldn't see stars while on the Moon's surface, and for good reason.

If you don't believe this, wait for a clear night. Go stand under a bright streetlight, and look up. Your eyes will adjust to the brightness of the light and, in doing so, prevent you from seeing stars. The astronauts reported seeing stars when they were away from bright light, especially when on the night side of the Moon.

Answer 3

They aren't bright enough. This is the same reason you can't easily photograph stars at night on Earth, and the same reason you can't see stars out a window at night from inside a house with the lights on, or in the sky at a night football game with the stadium lights on. The Sun is up on the Moon and it is bright daylight. They sky is black because there is no air to scatter the light and make the sky blue, but it is broad daylight. This means the astronauts eyes have adjusted to daylight conditions and the camera has been set to take daylight pictures, making the dim stars invisible.

Answer 4

You can see the stars from the moon. The issue here is simply that the moon is white/gray and reflects sunlight very well. In the picture it is day, on earth the sunlight during the day hits the atmosphere and scatters, so we see blue instead of the black of space.

In the picture the aperture on the camera must be set very low or the astronaut would be drowned out. this setting does not allow the faint stars to show up.

Answer 5

Why don't they show up in pictures? They were set for daytime exposures, which will not pick up stars.

Why did the astronauts not report seeing stars? Well, go somewhere at night where there are a lot of bright lights, like a well-lit parking lot, and look up in the sky and see how many stars you see immediately. Their eyes were adjusted for the daylight they were in and not able to see the stars well.

Answer 6

Contrary to what burger king couch scientists think that the landing was fake, the moon DOES have an atmosphere, and the ground material is highly reflective. When you take a picture in those cicumstances, the objects in the skyline that aren't bright enough don't appear. If the people who thought the landing was fake would just look at their own pictures taken by their own cameras of the sky at night, they would(SURPRISE) have no stars either. Which if they were right would mean that we are really not here on earth but in some studio. They seem to forget the obvious. That's what happens when you want to believe something so bad that it warps your sense of reasoning.

Answer 7

It has to do with the range of illumination the camera can "see" and that's about a 2-3 F stop difference which isn't enough for the stars.

To see the stars the lunar surface and Earth would look more like the sun. Big blurry white balls.

Answer 8

Lights and shadows are extreme in a vacuum. Super contrast and no grey zones.
The reflection from the Moon's sand illuminated by the Sun in the vacuum was so bright to overexpose the human eyes and the cameras, so the faint light of the stars could not be seen. Unless the cameras are pointed directly towards the sky. Remember they were 1969 cameras!
.

Answer 9

OK, ill make this quick.
can you see the stars on earth during day?
no. the only thing that makes the sky blue is our atmosphere.
now, the moon doesn't have much of an atmosphere so there wont really be any color changes, but, its still day out and if there's that much light in your eyes, being reflected of objects or whatnot, there's no way your going to see faint little stars.

or, the suns light was to bright for the cameras they were using and the camera didn't pick up the small amounts of light being sent by the stars.

Answer 10

There are enough answers about exposure times / aperture settings here. They're correct. I just thought I'd point out something I've looked into on my own about photos from the Moon. Every shot of Earth shows it with the right phase and alignment for the time the photo claims to be taken. I've compared many with lunar phase calculators, and the Earth's phase matches each and every one I've checked. Just an interesting little detail to throw into the stew for everyone's enjoyment. :)

Point is - there are too many details to make such an elaborate hoax stand up to scrutiny. It's not fake.