Photos on the moon.?

Question

"When" the USA put a man on the moon, can anyone please explain why there were no stars in the pictures? Our atmosphere stops us seeing most of whats there but away from cities and the street lighting etc, you can see billions of them. Surely on the moon you should see even more?
Also, how did the astronauts survive the tremendous radiation without suffering radiation sickness/burns etc. I was taught that getting through the Van Allen belt would probably kill someone and cosmic rays when sun spot activity was so high would undoubtedly have finished them off.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, just someone who cant work out the above problems.
Please don't rant as most from USA usally do, just explain in rational terms.

I understand about light polution but surely there is no atmosphere on the moon to refract the light. Still not happy about this as an explanation.

Sorry to disagree about the solar flares. The sun was at its most active for two decades when they went. Since when did the USA send rockets anywhere other than straight up?

Sorry, not convinced about the protection from the suits and ship. They had thin suits on that must have had a magical material in it otherwise they would have used such protection to sort out three mile island and chernobyl.

Answer 1

Why do people keep asking these silly questions?

The stars are easy: it was daytime, and the Moon was illuminated by the same Sun, same brightness, as daytime shots on Earth. A typical exposure might be, say 1/125 at f8. Just like a sunny day on Earth. This is far too short to pick up any stars.

Answer 2

There are no stars in the Moon images because the cameras were set for daylight exposures. When the Sun is up on the Moon, the sunlight is just as bright there as it is here. Accordingly, the cameras had to use very fast exposures, whereas stars require long exposures to show up. True, the sky on the Moon is black, but the stars are too faint to show up in short daylight exposures.

The astronauts crossed through the weakest parts of the Van Allen belts in less than an hour. The ship itself provided some protection from the rather low amount of radiation in that part of the belts. Scientists have calculated that the actual exposure that they received was harmless (several times the amount that you'd receive when you get an x-ray).

If these explanations don't satisfy you, then there's a greater problem here. What I've said is neither a subjective opinion nor an uninformed guess; it's exactly what you'd hear from the astrophysicists who have taught me.

Answer 3

It was daytime on the moon. The sun is just as bright, or more so. To take photos, the exposures are short and at fast f ratios. Try taking a film photo of the sky AT NIGHTTIME with anything less than 10 seconds of exposure. You'll be lucky to see a single star. So if it was a daytime setting on the camera, as it was on the moon . . .

I don't know who taught you that about the Van Allen belts, but they're wrong, unless you think the spacecraft stopped in the middle of it to admire the view. They went through the belts quickly, and got as much radiation as they'd receive in an afternoon at the beach. As for cosmic radiation, we get that when we're on the Earth. They received elevated amounts, but nowhere near lethal, obviously. And yes, it was a calculated risk sending them without protection where there MAY have been a solar flare, but even at times of maximum activity they don't occur frequently.

Thank you for putting in your qualification of your question at the end. The reason answerers rant sometimes at "conspiracy" questions is because the reasons given are so dumb that they could be answered with a little thought. It's difficult to put up with deliberate ignorance because it's likely that someone with that attitude is going to be dangerously stupid in other ways, too.

EDIT: I've just read that last comment about the suits, and it almost deserves a rant. What do you mean they'd have used them to deal with Harrisburg and Chernobyl? Do you mean that the residents of those places could have been clothed in the suits? How long do you think that would take in the rural Soviet Union, even if they had hundreds of thousands of the bloody things waiting for just such an event?! Or that the reactors could have been surrounded by the material? Ditto, even if it was practical!

Answer 4

>>"When" the USA put a man on the moon, can anyone please explain why there were no stars in the pictures? Our atmosphere stops us seeing most of whats there but away from cities and the street lighting etc, you can see billions of them. Surely on the moon you should see even more?<<

Seeing is not the same as photographing. Stars are very dim objects, relatively speaking, and require long exposure times to show up on film. However, the lunar surface at the landing site was in full sunlight, as bright as any day on Earth. To capture that on film properly requires exposures measured in fractions of a second; too quick for the low light from stars to cause any reaction on the film. The astronauts could see stars under certain conditions, when they found a moment to look up and away from the bright lunar surface and allowed their eyes to begin to adapt.

>>Also, how did the astronauts survive the tremendous radiation without suffering radiation sickness/burns etc.<<

Claims of 'tremendous radiation' are overstated, usually by people who don't actually understand radiation, the different types, and the different ways of shielding against it. EM radiation, such as gamma rays and X-rays, is quite dangerous, but only in large doses far exceeding those acquired by spending a couple of weeks in the average flux density of deep space. The more energetic particle radiation is more dangerous, but also more easily shielded. Protons and electrons can be stopped by a thin layer of plastic or light metal such as aluminium.

You might be interested to know that no less a person than Dr James van Allen himself, after whom the belts are named, and who made the most extensive study of them in the early years of space flight, has specifically rejected the idea that they were a barrier to the Apollo flights.

>>I was taught that getting through the Van Allen belt would probably kill someone<<

Under what conditions? The radiation in the van Allen belt would be lethal to a human who was not protected, but as it consists of protons and electrons it can be shielded against using materials like aluminium, which was what the Apollo spacecraft was made of. They also designed the trajectories such that they avoided the densest regions of the belts and spent as little time as possible in them.

>>and cosmic rays when sun spot activity was so high would undoubtedly have finished them off.<<

The sun was active, but that doesn't mean it was throwing off a constant barrage of deadly radiation. Had there been a major flare then yes, the astronauts' chances of survival would have been drastically reduced. However, there were no major solar outbursts during the flights. NASA played the probabilities of a major outburst occurring in the two week window of a single Apollo mission and launched at times when solar activity was deemd acceptable. Was it risky? Absolutely. But the astronauts went voluntarily. It was their job.

Answer 5

I wish people would take the time to actually look at some pictures before they make their statements. Take a good look at this picture.
http://www.solarviews.com/raw/apo/as11_40_5874.jpg
See those shiny dots above Buzz Aldrin? Guess what: they are stars... I count atleast 6. They are faint. Real faint. Just as faint as they would be if you were taking pictures on the moon at daytime...

I don´t know who taught you about the Van Allen radiation belt but the person should be shot. Your information is completely wrong. The astronauts did get a dose of radiation but no wher near enough to kill. Still several astronauts, like Jack Swigert, have died from cancer. Do a little research next time...

-edit-
Again you are proof of your own ignorance. The radiation in space or the radiation belt is NOT like the radiation in a radioactive environment.

Answer 6

Understand photography. They were using daytime exposures because the sun was up. If they used exposures that captured the stars, everything else would be overexposed. If you were on the moon during lunar daytime you'd likely have a hard time seeing stars because the bright surface would keep your pupils contracted, preventing you from picking up most faint stars. Cameras have a much smaller dynamic range than human eyes so the problem is even worse for them.

Basically it is impossible to capture images of the bright lunar surface and other brightly sunlight things like astronauts and equipment while at the same time capturing the stars in the sky.

Answer 7

For the same reason you don't see stars in your pictures when you take them at night - you used the flash. They didn't have a flash, but the surface of the Moon is bright and reflective, as were their suits. It was much brighter than the dim stars.

We had sent probes up. We knew there was radiation. They only got a dose every hour equivalent to what you get on Earth in a day. That's very little. And there's a big hole in the Van Allen belts in the southern hemisphere - that's where they went through. And the faster you go through, the less radiation you get. There weren't any solar flares those days.

Answer 8

The pictures on the moon showed a very high contrast, with the lunar dust very bright and the shadows very dark, because of the lack of atmosphere. Therefore the stars would be too faint to impress the camera sensors or film. They still used vacuum tube sensors in cameras. CCDs were not invented yet.
About the Van Allen belt, the astronauts crossed it in a very short time and they were protected by the spaceship and their space suits. Still they faced some danger from possible impacts by meteorites.

Answer 9

The sun is quite bright isn't it?
You can take a photo using sunlight.
Far brighter than starlight.
You can't take a picture with starlight.

Anyway, the cameras on the moon were so stopped down to cope with sunlight they hadn't a hope in h*** of spotting a star, (which would be too dim for the film anyway, even with slow shutter speeds).

Answer 10

did you see how bright the moon looked when the pictures where taken? Have you ever tried to see stars within the glow of the full moon late at night? Look at the moon and move your eyes over like 5 inches from the moon............ guess what...... NO STARS can be seen

even Arcturus (the 5th brightest star we can see) gets washed out from the light reflected off the moon.

imagine if the entire ground was that bright and right in your face, you're not going to be able to see any stars. People call it "light pollution"

************************Edit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N5Aou5BfhM

check the specs on the camera they used and their fstop setting / shutter speed / film speed

light pollution (or light levels should I say) plays a large part in the proper functioning of the mechanics of photography.

with a lot of light from the moon's ground, you want a to snap a picture as fast (film / shutter speed) as you can or else the entire picture turns out WHITE...... the black space will start to fog and then the stars will pop out, but you won't see the astronaut.

well what else do you want?
If you don't believe anything anyone tells you, don't ask. There's no point in asking. Right?

please EXCUSE his nerdy ness, but he's got some good points.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2uFmzg-BIs