Examination of Apollo Moon Photographs - Allegations and Refutations - Absence of Stars

Absence of Stars

Moon Landing Hoax Theory proponents frequently point out that there are no stars in the photographs. Yuri Gagarin (who made one orbit of the Earth in 1961) commented that the stars were astonishingly brilliant (see the external link below). Hoax proponents say that NASA chose not to put the stars into the photos because astronomers would have been able to use them to determine whether the photos were taken from the Earth or the Moon, by means of identifying them and comparing their celestial position and parallax to what would be expected for either observation site.

• Zarya from the Space Shuttle, no stars visible

• Mir, no stars visible observing The Moon and Mir from the Space Shuttle Discovery

• Stars are also never seen in Space Shuttle, Mir, International Space Station Earth observation photos, or even sporting events that take place at night. The sun in the Earth/Moon area shines as brightly as on a clear noon day on Earth, so cameras used for imaging these things are set for daylight exposure, with quick shutter speeds in order to prevent overexposing the film. The dim light of the stars simply does not have a chance to expose the film. (This effect can be demonstrated on Earth by attempting to view stars from a brightly lit parking lot at night. Only a few of the brightest stars are visible, and shielding the eye with one's hands only marginally improves the view. Science fiction movies and television shows do confuse this issue by depicting stars as visible in space under all lighting conditions. A photographic demonstration of how aperture and shutter speed can turn a lit background ink-black is here. The eye's visual response is much the same.) Stars were seen by every Apollo mission crew except for the unfortunate Apollo 13 (they couldn't see the stars due to the fact that oxygen and water vapor created a haze around the spacecraft). Stars were used for navigation purposes and were occasionally also seen through cabin windows when the conditions allowed. To see stars, nothing lit by sunlight could be in the viewer's field of view.

• Stars are not dramatically brighter in space (above the Earth's atmosphere). Professional astronomer and two-time space shuttle astronaut Ronald A. Parise stated that he could barely see stars at all from space. He had to turn out all of the lights in the shuttle to even glimpse the stars.

• Payload restrictions made the transport of telescope facilities to the Moon unfeasible, and without these ordinary stellar photography would have served no (scientific) purpose. However, even without such facilities, the Moon does offer several advantages as an observation platform. The near-absence of an atmosphere means that stellar imaging is possible at many wavelengths which are not visible from Earth. Long-exposure photos were taken with a special far-ultraviolet camera by Apollo 16 astronauts on April 21, 1972 from the surface of the Moon. (The second photo has some stars labeled.) Some of these photos show the Earth with stars from the Capricornus and Aquarius constellations in the background. The joint Belgium/UK./Holland satellite TD-1 later scanned the sky for stars that are bright in UV light. The TD-1 data obtained with the shortest passband is a close match for the Apollo 16 photographs.

• The ability to determine parallax is limited by the angular resolution of the instrument used. The most advanced dedicated experiment carried out to date—the Hipparcos satellite—achieved resolutions in the milliarcsecond range. Using as baseline the diameter of the Earth's orbit about the Sun (by comparing images taken six months apart), this allowed parallax measurements for stars out to a distance of approximately 1,000 parsecs. However, the distance from Earth to Moon is about a thousand times smaller than that baseline, which means that the detection limit is reduced to about 1 parsec. This is less than the distance to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri. Considering further that the resolution of an image taken with a conventional camera is many times lower than Hipparcos's, any such determination is entirely ruled out.

• Although stars would not normally be visible to the naked eye during daylight, whether from the Earth, the Moon, or on orbit, the planet Venus (which is much brighter than any of the stars) was actually recorded on film by astronaut Alan Shepard at the conclusion of his second extravehicular activity, during the Apollo 14 mission. Shepard was preparing to ascend the ladder to re-enter the lunar module Antares, when he likely noticed Venus shining brightly next to the crescent Earth. He made a series of photographs with his chest-mounted Hasselblad camera, likely all at 1/250th second exposure, and differing f-stops. Owing to its position closer to the Sun and its complete coverage by clouds, Venus has a higher surface brightness than Earth, and is indeed visible to the unaided eye in broad daylight from Earth, given a sufficiently transparent sky. It would have been plainly visible to Shepard in the lunar sky, and easily recorded on film. For a complete explanation, consult the "Images" section of the Apollo 14 Lunar Surface Journal.

• In the Apollo 11 press conference, Neil Armstrong states that he was "never able to see stars from the lunar surface or on the daylight side of the moon by eye" Stars were visible with the naked eye only when they were in the shadow of the Moon. All of the landings were in daylight.