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Would the astronauts have seen only blackness? While under dark skies on Earth, we see the stars of the Milky Way. Wouldn’t the Astronauts on the moon see the s

Would the astronauts have seen only blackness? While under dark skies on Earth, we see the stars of the Milky Way. Wouldn’t the Astronauts on the moon see the same? Or does the illumination of the moon surface mask the stars?

projektfu 7y ago
I think the astronauts would have seen stars but the cameras would have required longer exposures to capture them.
- rimliu 7y ago
  Exposure is not the problem, dynamic range is. You could either get the stars and have surface all blown out or retain details of the surface and lose the stars.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    Right, and exposure is what allows you to pick between those two cases.
blotter_paper 7y ago
At the risk of sounding like a crazy person, I'll share the words of the astronauts themselves: https://youtu.be/--AaixSNCUg?t=00m30s https://youtu.be/--AaixSNCUg?t=00m30s Armstrong says that they couldn't see stars with their naked eyes. There seems to be a slight disagreement between him and Collins as to whether they could see stars while photographing the solar corona; Armstrong says he can't remember which stars he saw, Collins says he doesn't remember seeing any stars, and Armstrong nudges Collins with his elbow. I'm not claiming anything more than I've said, which is all there in the video linked above. I believe that those men probably landed on the moon, but don't know exactly what to make of them seeming to discreetly disagree on this topic. I could imagine a number of explanations.
- techdragon 7y ago
  It’s probably just a minor detail, the human eye is very good at adapting and perhaps a few of the moonwalking astronauts looked at the sky away from the high contrast regolith, long enough to adapt and saw some of the brightest stars, while others didn’t. As for the nudge, I suspect it was a warning, simply a heads up between fellow astronauts that poorly chosen words might become annoying conspiracy fodder for decades. They went there, they know it, the idea that their words might be used to argue otherwise is probably not their first thought when describing anything about their time on the lunar surface. To them they are describing the material evidence that we went there, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a shared desire to keep each other from making mistakes, likely born from years of training together.
  - blotter_paper 7y ago
    Not saying you're wrong about the eye adapting, but note that Collins was not a moonwalking astronaut. I've considered that this could be some difference between viewing the solar corona from the command module as opposed to the surface. It could also be memory issues. Perhaps they ran so many drills with a simulated solar corona photographing sequence that the guy who stayed in the sky mixed up this experience and the real thing, whereas Armstrong knew what it actually looked like. I've entertained wilder thoughts as well, but on the whole I think there's probably a mundane, down-to-moon explanation for the disagreement and elbow nudge.

projektfu 7y ago

I think the astronauts would have seen stars but the cameras would have required longer exposures to capture them.

rimliu 7y ago
Exposure is not the problem, dynamic range is. You could either get the stars and have surface all blown out or retain details of the surface and lose the stars.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  Right, and exposure is what allows you to pick between those two cases.

blotter_paper 7y ago

At the risk of sounding like a crazy person, I'll share the words of the astronauts themselves: https://youtu.be/--AaixSNCUg?t=00m30s https://youtu.be/--AaixSNCUg?t=00m30s Armstrong says that they couldn't see stars with their naked eyes. There seems to be a slight disagreement between him and Collins as to whether they could see stars while photographing the solar corona; Armstrong says he can't remember which stars he saw, Collins says he doesn't remember seeing any stars, and Armstrong nudges Collins with his elbow. I'm not claiming anything more than I've said, which is all there in the video linked above. I believe that those men probably landed on the moon, but don't know exactly what to make of them seeming to discreetly disagree on this topic. I could imagine a number of explanations.

techdragon 7y ago
It’s probably just a minor detail, the human eye is very good at adapting and perhaps a few of the moonwalking astronauts looked at the sky away from the high contrast regolith, long enough to adapt and saw some of the brightest stars, while others didn’t. As for the nudge, I suspect it was a warning, simply a heads up between fellow astronauts that poorly chosen words might become annoying conspiracy fodder for decades. They went there, they know it, the idea that their words might be used to argue otherwise is probably not their first thought when describing anything about their time on the lunar surface. To them they are describing the material evidence that we went there, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a shared desire to keep each other from making mistakes, likely born from years of training together.
- blotter_paper 7y ago
  Not saying you're wrong about the eye adapting, but note that Collins was not a moonwalking astronaut. I've considered that this could be some difference between viewing the solar corona from the command module as opposed to the surface. It could also be memory issues. Perhaps they ran so many drills with a simulated solar corona photographing sequence that the guy who stayed in the sky mixed up this experience and the real thing, whereas Armstrong knew what it actually looked like. I've entertained wilder thoughts as well, but on the whole I think there's probably a mundane, down-to-moon explanation for the disagreement and elbow nudge.