The first thing every conspiracist notices about photography in
space is that there are no stars in any of the pictures. The general
public brought up on science fiction motion pictures is used to seeing
stars in pictures purporting to be taken in outer space. And so the
real photos seem strange.
The first question we typically put to the conspiracists is: if
NASA wished to perpetuate a convincing fraud, why didn't they produce
photos (with stars) that satisfied the public's expectations and
didn't raise questions? We get this answer:
NASA knew they couldn't
duplicate the complex arrangement of stars accurately enough to fool
people, so they just left them out.
When the webmaster was volunteering at the planetarium at Kansas
State University we had no problem creating highly accurate
starfields. Star maps and planetarium technology were old hat at the
time of the Apollo missions. No special expertise required.
So given that they could have, why didn't they?
It's satisfying to discover that the conspiracists' expectations
are naive and that the empty black void is just what you would expect
to see under those circumstances.
On earth we see the stars in the sky because there is little other
light. Those who live in mountainous country can go up into the
mountains where the air is thin and there are no distracting lights,
the stars are quite magnificent. But when you return to the brightly
lit city and look at the same night sky, you see only the brightest
stars. If you go inside the house and turn on all the lights and look
out the window, you can't see any stars.
Because the human eye has adjusted to the amount of light, first
by adjusting the iris and then by changing the chemical composition of
the retina to make it more or less sensitive. In the pitch blackness
of the mountains they're open just as wide as they can be, allowing
more light to enter. In the night city, they close somewhat to adjust
for the street lights. And inside the house, they are as closed as
they are during the daytime in sunlight. A camera's aperture works the same way. To set
the exposure for bright exposure means that subtle lights like stars
simply won't show up.
Because the sky on the moon is black, we tend to believe the
viewing conditions are the same as night on earth. Not true. The sun
shines just as brightly (slightly brighter, in fact) on the lunar
surface, and so the astronauts' eyes (and camera apertures) were set
for photographing in daylight conditions. Neil Armstrong reported not
seeing any stars from the lunar surface, except through the navigation
scopes (where the eyepiece screened out the other lights). Ed
Mitchell reported seeing stars only when he specifically shut out
Conspiracy author Bill Kaysing even goes so far as to claim that
the Challenger was intentionally destroyed because civilian
Christa McAuliffe would have revealed that stars were indeed visible
from space. Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. With the
shuttle's cabin lights on and cameras set to expose for sunlit
conditions, the stars are not visible. When the shuttle crosses over
into the shadow and you turn all the cabin lights off and let your
eyes adjust to the darkness, you see a glorious display of stars. And
the shuttle astronauts -- civilian or otherwise -- are quite happy
telling everyone this.
But the visibility of
the stars was confirmed by Maria Blyzinsky, curator of astronomy at
the Greenwich Observatory. Therefore experts agree that the Apollo
photographs are anomalous.
One of our contributors, Alberto Matallanos, researched this by
contacting Ms. Blyzinsky. He received the following reply.
Dear Alberto Matallanos,
Many thanks for your e-mail. Yes - I find it very amusing about
the quote concerning the Apollo Missions because I receive regular
'fan mail' about it. Several years ago, the museum wrote to the web
site requesting them to remove the quote, but they ignored us. I'm
afraid this seems to be the way conspiracy stories evolve - through
bad journalism and bad research.
I worked at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich for five years as
Curator of Astronomy - which means I was a subject specialist for the
history of astronomy and curated the historic astronomy collection (eg
astrolabes, sundials etc). The Observatory has been part of the
National Maritime Museum since the 1950s. It is not a working
I have no recollection of being asked questions about the Apollo
Missions. I would not have been qualified to answer such questions and
would have referred any enquiries to the working observatory which was
then based in Cambridge.
National Maritime Museum and Queen's House, Greenwich, London, SE10 9NF