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Why it's so hard to find a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon

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Re: Why it's so hard to find a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon

#41

Post by brazzy »

TheTruthIsHere wrote: post #34
wazoox wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also there is another half-a-billion or so which thinks man never landed on moon. Citation needed. It looks to me like only a small gang of wingnuts are part of the "moon landing conspiration believers" (I never met one). Like s slight portion of those believing that 9/11 was a CIA/Israeli job, or that there isn't any biological evolution.

Obviously you live in US, get your information from mainstream media (instead of doing your own research on the Web) and belong to the upper middle class. That's in my humble experience the only type of guy, who would never meet anyone disagreeing with government propaganda. In Latin America, East Europe, Arabic countries, Russia and Japan ~90% of the people I talked to believe 9/11 was an inside job. As for the moon…

Well, you're officially a self-admitted idiot. Congratulations. That website is a hoot. A self-proclaimed photographer who doesn't know what scatter light is.

Re: Why it's so hard to find a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon

#42

Post by brazzy »

TheTruthIsHere wrote: post #35
tjoff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conspiracy theorists don't need reasons to argue. that information must not be used as the reported cannot know to which degree was the information tampered with Yet, in this case the reporter knows to which degree the information was tampered with - and the reporter has no problem verifying it either.

"Conspiracy theorists don't need reasons to argue." And people brainwashed by mainstream propaganda don't need reasons to repeat what they've heard on TV ;-)

Except a lot of them have pretty good reasons, while those brainwashed by crackpottery don't.

Re: Why it's so hard to find a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon

#43

Post by quesera »

TheTruthIsHere wrote: post #34
wazoox wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also there is another half-a-billion or so which thinks man never landed on moon. Citation needed. It looks to me like only a small gang of wingnuts are part of the "moon landing conspiration believers" (I never met one). Like s slight portion of those believing that 9/11 was a CIA/Israeli job, or that there isn't any biological evolution.

Obviously you live in US, get your information from mainstream media (instead of doing your own research on the Web) and belong to the upper middle class. That's in my humble experience the only type of guy, who would never meet anyone disagreeing with government propaganda. In Latin America, East Europe, Arabic countries, Russia and Japan ~90% of the people I talked to believe 9/11 was an inside job. As for the moon…

Actually, my dad worked on the mission in Cocoa Beach. The real problem was that they sent the lander to Mars, not the moon. The real concern at the time was the Tycho Monolith, remember, so although the mission was originally intended for the moon, JFK authorized some changes to suit McNamara's DoD. Big change, yes, but obviously necessary for Homeland Security.

You're right that some of the photos were doctored -- good work! The primary purpose of all of the Photoshop work was to remove the red hues from the ground. Some of the backgrounds were reused, of course. That wasn't uncommon back then. And of course the constellations that are thousands of light years away would have looked distorted, so they had to be removed.

But you're wrong about the framing and focus problem. While it turns out to be impossible for a geometrically-inclined engineer to aim a camera without a viewfinder, NASA was able to work with Polaroid to invent a fixed focus lens, which they later commercialized as the Brownie.

Great research! That davesweb guy does good work. It's too bad that the govt can't acknowledge the hard work folks like him have put in. It's just still too sensitive. My Dad never should have told me, but you know how people get when they're old.

Oh, this goes with saying I guess, but they never did find the monolith. So when Bush gets his colony on Mars obviously that will be priority number one.

Re: Why it's so hard to find a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon

#44

Post by brudgers »

One idea: Use this picture of Neil shot immediately after his historic walk on the moon.

After reading the Armstrong family's statement last night, that's the photo which expresses the legacy he wished.

He looks ready to wink back.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-37-5528HR.jpg

Re: Why it's so hard to find a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon

#45

Post by jpdoctor »

jahewson wrote: post #18

Hey, it actually is a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon - you can just about see him taking the photo, reflected in Buzz's sun visor :)

I concur! In fact, I think this would have made an excellent release of the "first man on the moon" photo; It's just a recrop of their original: http://i.imgur.com/PyiKT.jpg, so no disallowed manipulation.

Re: Why it's so hard to find a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon

#46

Post by brudgers »

batista wrote: post #23
pfedor wrote: post #12

I always assumed that the poor composition of the original AS11-40-5903 (and many other photos from the Moon which suffer from the same problem) was because every pixel was precious, so they didn't want the uniformly black sky to take up any larger fraction of the image area than necessary. You can always add more black, unlike the rocks or equipment or whatever which was captured in the bottom of the picture. BTW in…

> I always assumed that the poor composition of the original AS11-40-5903 (and many other photos from the Moon which suffer from the same problem) was because every pixel was precious, so they didn't want the uniformly black sky to take up any larger fraction of the image area than necessary. It wasn't pixels -- it was emulsion film. Nor was it that precious. What would they do with a photo of more rock/equipment and…

The film was precious. Every gram of film had to be brought back into orbit by Eagle in lieu of some onboard instrument, backup system, additional fuel and air or sample from the surface.

Re: Why it's so hard to find a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon

#47

Post by waterlesscloud »

batista wrote: post #29
jyap wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people who care that it isn't a picture of Neil Armstrong are: - People who know it isn't a picture of Neil Armstrong and feel like they need to point that out. - People who are bothered by the slight inaccuracy that it isn't a picture taken of him. Either way, he took the picture. He took one of the most famous pictures. If the caption to the picture reads "Buzz Aldrin as captured by Neil Armstrong", who ca…

> If the caption to the picture reads "Buzz Aldrin as captured by Neil Armstrong", who cares? I _effin_ care. E.g. I want a picture of Neil Armstrong for my article. Not a picture that _he_ took of somebody else. Not a quick sketch he did of his cat. I want a picture of HIM, preferably on the moon. That he "took the picture" is meaningless for the purposes of _showing_ the man in action. If I was writing about Knuth…

Comparing the photo that Neil Armstrong took on THE MOON to a sketch of his cat is silly, and you know it.

Also, every single image you see of Saturn from Cassini has been manipulated. Almost every photo of Mars from Curiosity is manipulated. So what then?

Re: Why it's so hard to find a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon

#48

Post by ralfd »

nrbafna wrote: post #39

This is from a reddit ama where the OP has worked through Apollo 1-14. He claims it was Neil in the photo - http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/xove1/iama_97_year_old...

This is actually rather important. But I guess there is a high chance he misremembered? Hm. When they sent out a correction this should be able to track down?

Re: Why it's so hard to find a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon

#49

Post by batista »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #47
batista wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the caption to the picture reads "Buzz Aldrin as captured by Neil Armstrong", who cares? I _effin_ care. E.g. I want a picture of Neil Armstrong for my article. Not a picture that _he_ took of somebody else. Not a quick sketch he did of his cat. I want a picture of HIM, preferably on the moon. That he "took the picture" is meaningless for the purposes of _showing_ the man in action. If I was writing about Knuth…

Comparing the photo that Neil Armstrong took on THE MOON to a sketch of his cat is silly, and you know it. Also, every single image you see of Saturn from Cassini has been manipulated. Almost every photo of Mars from Curiosity is manipulated. So what then?

>Comparing the photo that Neil Armstrong took on THE MOON to a sketch of his cat is silly, and you know it.

Sure, but not much sillier that saying that putting up a picture of a different person is a "slight inaccuracy".

>Also, every single image you see of Saturn from Cassini has been manipulated. Almost every photo of Mars from Curiosity is manipulated. So what then?

Notice how I, unlike TFA, never said anything about manipulation? I only raised the issue that we DO care a lot, as photo editors (1), if it's a picture of Neil in the article or if it's a picture he took of Buzz.

But, since you ask, you show those images with an explicit notice that they are manipulated. If they were images of events with political aspects, war images, images or persons etc they would not be published manipulated, but in this case we are talking about essential manipulation (stitching, colour correction, move to the visible spectrum, etc), and not creative image doctoring like pasting some space or removing a person USSR style.

(1) And presumably as readers. You don't just put out some different image that one assumes from the article content and then except readers to check the caption (which they seldom do). All sorts of perception manipulation can be carried out that way.

Re: Why it's so hard to find a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon

#50

Post by justin66 »

batista wrote: post #29
jyap wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people who care that it isn't a picture of Neil Armstrong are: - People who know it isn't a picture of Neil Armstrong and feel like they need to point that out. - People who are bothered by the slight inaccuracy that it isn't a picture taken of him. Either way, he took the picture. He took one of the most famous pictures. If the caption to the picture reads "Buzz Aldrin as captured by Neil Armstrong", who ca…

> If the caption to the picture reads "Buzz Aldrin as captured by Neil Armstrong", who cares? I _effin_ care. E.g. I want a picture of Neil Armstrong for my article. Not a picture that _he_ took of somebody else. Not a quick sketch he did of his cat. I want a picture of HIM, preferably on the moon. That he "took the picture" is meaningless for the purposes of _showing_ the man in action. If I was writing about Knuth…

> I _effin_ care. E.g. I want a picture of Neil Armstrong for my article. Not a picture that _he_ took of somebody else. Not a quick sketch he did of his cat. I want a picture of HIM, preferably on the moon.

Neil is visible in the photo, in the reflection on Aldrin's visor. In this photo which he took while walking ON THE MOON. Which, if you take a step back and lose the journalistic tendentiousness, you will realize makes this about as cool as any picture ever taken.

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