Why are stars not visible in the lunar landings photos?

Question

in the pictures you are able to see the earth but the stars are nowhere to be seen when photos where taken from the moon.

Answer 1

Because of the brightness of the moon probably washed out the background, and the film of that era may not have been sensitive enough...

Answer 2

Another way to put what others have said: if the shutter speed had been set low enough for the stars to show up on the film,everything else in the photo would be overexposed -- the lunar surface, the astrononauts, the spacecraft, would all be a bright blur.

Answer 3

It's the way cameras work. In full sunshine the pictures have to be taken with a very fast shutter speed and since the object in the photo were brightly lit, the stars are too dim as compared to the bright sunshine to show on the film. The astronauts couldn't see them either unless they turned away from the Sun and lifted their visors.
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It's kinda like how people in big cities can't see the stars.
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Answer 4

Because the cameras of the day, stopped down for the bright light of the surface of the moon, could not record the stars- they are too dim. Some digital cameras today can have different sensitivities for different areas of the image, but that technology is recent.

That's one of the ways you know the landings were not hoaxes. Had they been faked, the stars WOULD have been shown, because in the movies they are always there!!!

Answer 5

Mainly because of the brightness of the lunar surface itself which washes out the tiny pin points of light from stars. Also the settings on the cameras taking pictures on the moon weren't set for gathering the bits of light from point sources like stars.

Answer 6

The exposures were set for the surface of the Moon, which was in full sunlight. It takes a much longer exposure to show stars. If you have an adjustable camera, set it for a daylight exposure - 1/250th at f/8 and ISO100, say - then take a picture of the stars and see what you get. A flash picture of the night sky should provide similar results.

Answer 7

While the answers about exposure are mostly correct, nobody has mentioned the fact that, now that high quality versions of the original images from the lunar surface are available online, stars actually ARE visible in the lunar sky, though very faint! They just weren't visible in the poor reproductions generally available until recently.

Answer 8

The stars aren't visible for the same reason why they're not visible during the day on Earth. You've got a massive amount of sunlight there washing them out.

Answer 9

Next time you wake up in the middle of the night, don't turn on any lights till you see stars out the bathroom window. (pull the the glass+screen out of the way first) Then, turn on the lights without looking away from the stars.



Later, turn on those same lights when there's sunlight on the floor!
That stuff you see in the moon pictures is sunlight!



If you live in the city or suburbs, try the same thing on an overcast night, prefferably when there's snow on the ground.

Answer 10

Talk to a photographer about taking a photograph of a VERY bright foreground object.

If you want the background to be seen, then the foreground will be overexposed.
So you filter out some of the light so that the foreground is just right to see the details, but that means that the background isn't exposed enough to see it.