Typical snapshots cameras you buy have focus on infinity and can focus as close as 1.5-3 feet. We don’t really know how close the pictures were taken, because we only have the post-processed images on the web pages to look at (cropped, etc). But it’s not a problem to have that f-stop, as long as there is enough light.
emarkp:
“The only film effect in that photo that I can think of is the brightness of the background. It appears to be much brighter than many other photos, which suggests that the exposure had to be longer to make the illumination on Aldrin appealing.”
Aha! No one had suggested that factor. But wouldn’t Aldrin have had to stand still in that position for a while to account for just HOW much brighter the background is in that photo (compared to, say, the lunar rover photo)? And in any case (as I presume you’re driving at) how would the astronauts have adjusted the exposure time on their cameras?
“The math for the surface integral explains the secondary lighting.”
As much as I respect you for doing those calculations, it still seems like you would need to do a whole lot of other calculations to figure out how the properties of photographic film on the moon (this kind of goes back to the old atmospheric-dispersion-of-light problem) would differ from the effects you observe in your darkroom on earth–difficult given that you claim to be unable to calculate the surface integral on earth. I’m certainly not asking you to do any of these calculations, but if you have any hypotheses or even guesses, I certainly welcome them. You are obviously qualified to go out on a limb when it comes to this stuff.
I just am not sure how well we can apply the numbers you provided—it seems you only proved the moon’s surface has a reflectivity value. We don’t know the reflectivity value on earth under similar conditions, and your personal experience with lighting in photography is (I admit quite regrettably…) confined to your experience here on earth. So I’m not sure you can legitimately tie your calculus and your photographic experience together the way you seem to be doing.
Your explanations as to the difficulty of faking the observable conditions have been duly noted, however, and I certainly take no objection to them. You’re definitely pinning this issue down. Thanks for taking the time to go over the specifics with me.
Okay, this oughtta keep you busy: A list of all the Apollo press kits. (They are in Adobe Acrobat format. Some are quite large.) These kits were sent out to all the news media before the launch. (Most of 13’s kit became irrelevant since this was the mission that didn’t land on the Moon as planned.) These kits detail the hardware and gives biographies of the astronauts. They even tell us what they ate and how the waste was disposed of.
Something relevant to the photographic discussion is that one piece of equipment was a color wheel. On the wheel were the three primary colors and a grey bar. This would be used to calibrate the colors in the photos as they were developed so the scientists examining them would know the EXACT shade of grey any rock was in any given photo. The color of a rock can give a geologist an idea what a rock is made of.
This is what we mean when we say it’s easier to believe that Apollo was not a hoax because these press kits alone required an enormous amount of expertise to write up and they had to pass muster with anyone who read them, including any aeronautical and astronautical engineers who may have read them.
Here is a list of Apollo images. There are an ENORMOUS number of images here. How could they have faked such a huge number of them in the days before computers were powerful enough to manipulate imagery?
Oh, and I’m now correcting a mistake I made earlier: I once stated the still cameras were 35mm. They were actually 70mm, which helps explain the photos’ remarkable clarity. I’m still fairly sure the motion picture cameras used 16mm though, to save space.
thanks, jab, I’m all over that shit…
Not that I expect this to matter to BickByro, but in 1971 a number of Amateur Radio groups set up listening stations to receive broadcasts directly from Apollo 15 as it orbited the moon. The frequency was 2.3 GHZ, and it’s not possible that the signal came from Earth as a highly directional antenna had to be aimed at the moon to receive it.
Amaeurs had listened to other Apollo Broadcasts. Here is part of the obituary of one of the more famous ones:
[Stuff deleted to comply with fair use copyright]
Many other Amateurs listened in to the Apollo broadcasts, but as you can see the equipment was expensive (18 ft dish, etc).
But if these guys did it, you can BET that the Soviets, Chinese, and probably just about every other unfriendly country listened too.
Of course, I don’t expect this to make a difference to you. I’ve already seen how you dismiss stuff you can’t answer, while attacking vigorously the odd mis-worded sentence or hasty reply.
I’m posting this here mainly for the interest of the other people here who still retain their sanity and who have critical faculties.
http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/images/pao/AS17/10075956.jpg The reason it would have been so difficult to fake is the fact that the lander, the other astronaut, the Rover, a science experiment, TWO mountains and a large number of footprints are all visible in this one photo, not to mention the shadow of the astronaut taking the photo and the enormous distances involved. Faking this one photo would have taken quite a bit of skill and time. Note the “halo” of light surrounding the astronaut’s shadow. I’ve seen this effect myself, involving my own shadow, here on Earth.
By the way, do you know who else would have had to be in on the alleged hoax? The National Geographic. Every lunar mission was featured in an issue of their magazine. I especially remember the Apollo 11 feature in the December 1969 issue. I may be able to find a copy here in the library, but I’ll have to do that tomorrow.
RickJay: I only post this because I keep seeing your comment at the top of page 4… IF the moon landing were a hoax, THEN spilling the beans on the hoax would definitely be a matter of national security.
Sam Stone: Thanks for your vote of confidence. I’ll be reviewing that data.
jab1: Thanks for the photo link. As for National Geographic, I’m pretty sure they would have just gotten their data from NASA, so they wouldn’t have had to be in on the conspiracy.
To all interested parties: I posted some things on the flame thread that could just as well have fit here. I’m pretty much shutting down my operation here (thanks for all the recent facts ‘n’ links, everybody!), so if you want to go over to the Pit to discuss the “aftermath,” by all means do so.
I spoke with my father the other day about Apollo 1. While this explanation is anecdotal and therefore won’t convince anyone who feels otherwise, those who are interested may find the story interesting.
Dad worked on the LM, but many of the upper-stage engineers were pretty tight, and the young ones were particularly close. (My father, at the age of 28 in 1963, was one of the very youngest engineers on his particular project, the design of the throttling mechanism of the Descent Engine. Several of the people he worked with at the time were German engineers picked up after WWII.) One of his pals was working on the boilerplate Command Module project at North American. Since they were both ICBM guys with ongoing projects outside of Apollo, they met often.
Actually, the specific Command Module this guy was working on wasn’t a boilerplate. It was a working CM, known among the engineers as a “hangar queen,” a term that probably shouldn’t be confused with the very similar Air Force term. Basically, it was a completely functional model in every respect, but which was not exactly intended to be used in space. NASA has a number of remnant examples of these projects. The Orbiter Enterprise is I think one example, as is the LEM that sits in the east wing of the Air and Space Museum. These particular machines are fully functional, and therefore considered spaceworthy, but…
…They are used as test beds. This particular CM, Airframe 012, had seen a lot of testing. Every time a black box was redesigned, it was sent to this testing facility, and was dropped into the CM for evaluation. Therefore the capsule was almost constantly gutted, its wiring harnesses being handled almost constantly, new components being added and replaced at a furious pace. According to my father’s friend, the absolutely draconian NASA doctrine of “direct wiring” was in constant violation with this thing, partly out of expediency and partly because emergency repair techniques, which naturally included splicing, were being tested at the same time.
Then the schedule started to get a little tight. Command Module 012 was considered for being sent to Florida so that that the AS-204 crew could begin testing on the pad. There was some question as to whether 012 was to be a test bed for the pad or whether it would actually go up. According to my father’s friend, another was in the works (possibly model 014) and was supposed to be “capped” before the mission actually took place. It was well known that 012 was a troublesome unit. I quote from this massive chronology at the Mark Wade’s invaluable Encyclopedia Astronautica:
Deke knew what he was talking about. So did Gus Grissom, who got so fed up with the vehicle that one day he supposedly brought in a lemon on a string and hung it from the instrument panel.
My father’s friend said, sometime in late 1966/early 1967, before the deadly incident, that 012 was “a shitbox,” to quote the Old Man. By that time, his friend had moved on to other projects, as had Dad. Dad doesn’t know if his friend submitted any recommendations or complaints; they were both very low on the totem, and were under immense pressure to get the job done. Before the HBs jump in: this is virtually the only instance that my father recalls (and yes, I asked him specifically) in which a fellow engineer was seriously concerned with some aspect of the project. He fully agrees with the universal prevailing atmosphere of “it won’t be my fault” that existed during the design process of Apollo, and that’s why AS-204 strikes him as unique. The gripes he heard from his friend were the exception to the rule that nothing was going to get passed that didn’t factor out to .999 reliability. According to Mark Wade, Airframe 012 won a .970 rating. That’s still pretty damned good, but obviously not good enough.
Dad at first recommended to me that I should try to track down the exact weight measurements of the vehicle, but since the thing was so heavily modified and trifled with, we both agreed that it would be impossible to calculate how much in the way of wire shavings had accumulated. He can only say that there probably was a lot of debris within the wiring harness of 012. He contends that in the 100% oxygen environment any small amount of combustibles would be enough to spread a fire rapidly, and that at the time there was no way to avoid the use of combustibles in close proximity to potential flash points. Hence the directive for direct, shielded wiring connections, which 012 apparently did not entirely have. The rest is, regrettably, history. The above cite further enumerates the specific factors that contributed to the disaster.
But the deaths of Grissom, Chaffee, and White did play a crucial role in the successful–and it was very successful–conclusion of the Apollo program. Thereafter, wiring was seen as the most likely culprit in any potential accident, and was treated with even more respect. The problem reared its ugly head during Apollo 13, but otherwise, six successful missions were conducted. I’d like to think that part of the reason for that success was based in part upon the barroom conversations that my Dad and a myriad of engineers like him had in the wake of AS-204, which would eventually be renamed Apollo 1.
BickByro: I had a look at some Rover shots with dust being kicked up. It’s hard to pinpoint the height the dust goes to, but it’s acceleration is on the same order of magnitude as the hammer/feather. And the rest of the motion in the screen is at normal speed. I estimated the speed the rover was going, and if it was actually travelling fast enough to look ‘normal’ after the film was slowed down enough to fake 1/6 G, it would have to be going close to 40-50 miles per hour, which it couldn’t do (max speed 8 MPH).
Anyway, if the Rover were actually travelling that fast, it would be throwing dust from the front wheels, and its motion would look completely different as it went over bumps and such (i.e. the wheels would leave the ground instead of rolling over the obstacle smoothly). There’s even a shot of it doing a sharp turn, and if it really were going 50 mph it would have been a hell of a power-slide, instead of a smooth turn without much slippage, if any.
So, we have a rover that CANNOT be going fast enough to be recorded at fast speed. Yet the debris it kicks up accerates 1/6 as fast as it should on Earth. Explain that.
Furthermore, the footage covers a wide area as the rover roams around in one large unbroken shot. And it’s clearly in a vacuum. The behaviour of the dust proves that (i.e. it continues to accelerate instead of hitting terminal velocity and slowly drifting down at a constant speed).
Thus, we have a very large area (at least an acre) of airless environment, in a 1/6 G gravity field. Explain that.
Now, I flatly won’t accept vague responses like, “Well, maybe they faked the dust somehow”, or “Maybe it’s airbrushed on” or anything like that. I’ve given you the DVD stock number - go get it for yourself and SEE.
Part of what frustrates me about you (assuming you’re not a troll in the first place) is that you clearly haven’t even looked at a lot of this footage - your memory of the Apollo program is a few photos and some clips you saw on TV. I don’t think you’re quite aware of the sheer volume of video and film footage that exists, and what it looks like. I seriously recommend that you go rent one of the MANY DVD’s or Videos of Apollo footage, and watch it.
Now, on to the Amateur radio reception: As I said, many people tracked the Apollo missions as the Command Module orbited the moon. PLEASE explain how NASA managed to fake this. A relay satellite doesn’t work, because we’d pick up the broadcasts from Earth (and potentially, pick them up after they bounced off the moon - moonbounce transmission is common).
It can’t be a fixed relay station from a lander on the moon, because the signal doppler-shifts as the Command Module orbits the moon. And an 18 ft dish is tight enough to pick up fluctuations in signal strength as the spacecraft passes through the center of the dish. So it HAS to be something in orbit, transmitting audio that’s coming from somewhere other than Earth.
How did NASA manage that again? And if they can orbit a large repeater around the moon, why can’t they land on it?
I’d like precise, detailed answers to the precise, detailed objections I’ve raised to your ‘hoax’ theory.
No he wouldn’t necessarily have to stand there for a while. The longer exposure would be possible in the darkroom. In that case, the negative would look underexposed for Aldrin, but find for the bright background. Exposing the print paper to the negative longer would compensate for that, but the bright regions would be out of their normal operating range, and so the relative brightness might not appear right.
The point is, the claim is that the shadows should be very dark. I showed how you could calculate an expected brightness in the shadows. It showed that it in fact wouldn’t be that dark. Hence the claim that it should be darker than we see is without basis. It falls in the range that the math shows as reasonable given the assumptions. No comparison to Earth is necessary because I wasn’t assuming any relative values to Earth.
And go back to my talking about the shadow gradient on Aldrin’s arm. It is very smooth, and I can’t think of any way to fake that. It means that the source of light from below must be more or less continuous up to a large distance or else the shadow on his arm would be sharper–that is, it would go from light to dark much more quickly if all the light from below were nearby (as in a studio).
Hey, if we have FBI agents running the risk and turning traitor (quite a few, too, over the past few decades, considering that the FBI is one of the highest levels of national security), how likely is it that several thousand civilians would keep their mouths shut? Especially in light of the cash they could get from a journalist (or Fox).
Every single piece of evidence in support of a hoax requires one to first assume the existence of a hoax for the evidence to be palpable… figures.
My memory did not play tricks. I now have a copy of the December, 1969 issue of National Geographic. Half of it was devoted to Apollo 11. But it seems I made a few mistakes earlier about the cameras. The following comes from a Hasselblad advertisement in the front of the issue:
Unfortunately, neither this ad nor the article tells how the astronauts were able to focus the cameras without viewfinders. I still say the cameras must have been of the fixed-focus type. But there is another possibilty:
Was auto-focus available in 1969?
There is another ad, in the back of the issue by the A-V Corporation. They were selling 20-minute home movies of manned space flight. Silent standard 8mm versions cost $40. Silent SUPER 8 versions cost $42.50. 16mm sound versions cost $110 and were narrated by John Charles Daly. ($110 was a lot of cash in 1969!) To compare, there’s also an ad for Kodak Super 8 movie cameras and projectors; cameras were “less than $100” and the projectors were “less than $140.”
I don’t know why I’m doing this. It will inevitably lead to frustration and high blood pressure, won’t change anyone’s mind, and I won’t be able to follow up until at least next Tuesday. But I feel compelled.
First a question for BickByro (that was already asked, but never answered that I saw): is there any piece of evidence that would positively convince you the Apollo astronauts landed on the moon? And that wouldn’t even have to end this debate, it would still be a good exercise to explain why the different conspiracy theories are incorrect.
Second, an apology to everyone. I’m going back to a really early post to address some points.
Third, a note to BickByro. It would make it a lot easier to read your posts and follow your arguements if you would use the quote feature on occassion!
Anyway, on with the futility.
OK, first point. Although not explicitly stated I understand that when you say “shiny” you’re talking about the space suits and the skin of the LEM, and “dull” is the surface of the moon. But both are a “significant” source of light on the moon! A contradiction!
But that’s just not so. What’s actually said is “…is the surface terrain itself, which will add a little more fill lighting…”. A “little more fill lighting” doesn’t sound like a “significant” source of light to me. In fact, “a little more fill lighting” sounds almost INsignificant!
So the moon doesn’t cast a shadow in daylight - so what? That’s not the point at all, and wasn’t discussed in anything you quoted. The point is that some light is reflected off the moon’s surface, the earth, the LEM, the space suits, etc. and that’s why stuff in the shadows isn’t completely black.
Now here on earth you can see things even though they are in shadow, right?
“Ah”, you say, “that’s because the atmosphere scatters the light around, so shadows aren’t completely black! On the moon, with no atmosphere, the shadows SHOULD be completely black!”
That’s where you’re wrong. Sunlight is reflected off the moon’s surface, the LEM, the space suits, the earth, etc. so even in the absence of an atmosphere the shadows are not completely black.
“Well, OK, but the astronauts are just TOO BRIGHT when they’re in the shadows. There must be a second light source.” (And BTW, I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, I’m trying to present what I think your points are).
Some anecdotal evidence. I was in Boy Scouts as a kid, and our campouts were always an excuse to stay up all night and play Capture the Flag in the dark. I know from experience that even on a dark night, if you run around in a white tee shirt you stand out like a sore thumb. I don’t find it that strange that the space suits should stand out like that.
And a question - if there’s a second light source, where is it? Why doesn’t it cast a second shadow? And before you suggest the photos were airbrushed or something, remember that in at least some cases these were motion pictures being broadcast in real time. And if you suggest that there were a number of secondary light sources all around the “sound stage” so there was a general brightness to the scene - that’s what we’re saying! The reflection of sunlight from various surfaces acted as fill lighting! So if these photos were faked, how was it done?
And finally:
Since you agree this could be easily tested, why don’t you try it? And I’m sure that I’m not the only one who’s looked into a hole and seen the bottom! I built a deck and had to put down footers that were at least 42" deep, and on a sunny day (with the sun shining at an angle to the hole, as you describe) I could see the bottom with no problem. And I didn’t try it, but have no doubt that a piece of white cloth or paper or something at the bottom of the hole would have stood out against the relatively “dull” dirt!
Actually, if you say the photos are airbrushed, then all bets are off. The whole point of hoax conspirators is in analyzing the pictures as documentary evidence of the hoax. If you say the images have been altered in some way, then you can claim whatever you want; no need to ask about shadows cast by alternate lights.
And I can’t believe I missed this before:
This is very easily tested without digging a hole. It’s called GOING OUT ON THE STREET IN DOWNTOWN NEW YORK. You are, in effect, at the bottom of a deep canyon formed by the skyscrapers all around. There are places at street level that see direct sunshine for all of ten or fifteen minutes each day. Yet there’s more than enough light, because it bounces back and forth from the skyscrapers – many of which are GRAY, GRAY, GRAY – and scatters to the ground.
And before you say, “Yeah, but streetlights, lights coming out of windows, etc.,” do this: LOOK UP. There’s plenty of light to see the skyscrapers all the way up to where the sunshine hits them. And note that, during the day, most of the windows are opaque from the outside, which means that there’s more light outside than inside. Try it with your living room window sometime. During the day, turn off your lights and go outside. Then at night, turn on your inside lights and try to look out. This is a quick and easy demonstration that there is more light already outside during the day in the canyons of New York than there is light coming out from the windows.
Of course, if you line the inside surface of your hypothetical pit with some very dark, light-absorbent material (say, thick black felt), it’s possible to make the bottom too dark to see. But we already know the moon is not made of dark, light-absorbent material, because we can see it from here.
BickByro:
You’ve said that you (and presumambly, most other Apollo-hoax theorists) have no problem with the notion that NASA astronauts were shot into Earth orbit in the 1960s.
You’ve never indicated that you had any problem with the notion that unmanned space probes were sent to the moon in the 1960s.
You’ve said that the reason you feel the Apollo missions would have been so much harder than simply “combining these two ideas” was that the astronauts would have had to land on the lunar surface and then get back off the lunar surface safely.
Well, then:
WHAT ABOUT APOLLO 8 AND APOLLO 10?
Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 both involved missions where three astronauts orbited the moon but did not land on it. Is it your contention that these orbit-only missions to the moon were faked? Is it your contention that these orbit-only missions would have been much much more diffcult than a manned orbiting of the Earth?
Very nice points, everybody. I’m not, so everyone knows, so hell-bent on this that I’d propose airbrushing or hidden wires or anything like that. Once you get into the airbrushing category, of course, all bets are off. I’m more reasonable than that. As for the age-old question of what evidence I would accept, I’ll clarify a little more: I think believe there are three levels of evidence at work here.
(1) Straightforward NASA-says-so-and-scientists-agree-so-it’s-true. Others may disagree, but I still don’t think this counts as “evidence.” If you’re trying to debunk a conspiracy theory, you have to at least posit that it hypothetically could be true—THEN you tear holes in it.
(2) Examination of NASA’s data in the interest of ruling out inconsistencies. Sam Stone and emarkp have done excellent jobs of this, and I think (short of the full-on conspiratorial airbrushing/hidden wires factor) this is a very reliable source of evidence. I’d say it falls a little short of proof, but it is evidence and I accept it as such. Pretty much everything solid falls into this category.
(3) Proof that, regardless of whether we ever went to the moon before, we could do it again today. This is the only evidence that does not ever need to rely on NASA figures. I think the only issue that falls into this category is the radiation question—either there’s too much of it out there for a guy in a tin can to make it through or there isn’t. This is totally the lynchpin argument for me, I began to realize as the thread continued–it really is the only thing that is completely “conspiracy-proof.” And believe you me, this is one issue I plan to do a lot of research into.
So, as things progress here, some questions, it seems, are being answered; others (did the astronauts have auto-focus?) are coming to the surface. As I’ve said, I’m going to take this all into consideration as soon as I’ve got a little more time, and then hopefully I’ll come out of it knowing the moon landing actually happened. That’s all I wanted in the first place–some solid corroboration of the alleged facts.
Here’s an update on the moon rock controversy: pldennison sent me a link on the flame thread that explains how to calculate the porosity of rock–supposedly this is proof that water trickles from the outside of rocks on in to the center, as though the rock was an extremely slow-working sponge. You may have a greater point that will eventually shatter my argument, pl, but the link doesn’t make it.
According to the site, “Total porosity encompasses all the void space, including those pores that are interconnected to the surface of the sample as well as those that are sealed off by natural cement or other obstructions.”
This tells us that porosity is very different in rocks than with other things: porosity does not necessarily entail a “pathway” from the surface of the rock to the center; it merely describes the percentage of the rock sample that is “void”—more a measure of density than anything else.
I’m trying right now to figure out whether certain rocks are more inclined than others to have pores interconnected to the surface—early earth rocks in particular, natch. What I have found out about early earth rocks is that they are either “greenstone-granites or granulite-gniess” ( http://www.british-towns.net/national/time_line/detail/tl_0030.htm ).
Assuming these rocks to fall under the “granite” category, I find they have a porosity of .5 to 1.5 percent (http://www.mininglife.com/Miner/general/specific_gravity_and_porosity.htm ). Let’s say 1%, then. So the question is this: 1% of the volume of the oldest rock you can find on earth will be “void”–what are the odds of any sort of “pathway” existing that would transport water from the surface of the rock to the center? Not that I’m asking you guys to figure this one out for me, just wanted you to know where I was at in my thinking process.
Cervaise, Venkman—I appreciate the illustrative examples re: “the black hole,” but remember: whether I’m digging postholes in my backyard or taking a tour of NYC, I’m in the presence of a light-diffusing atmosphere. I’ll freely admit I don’t know enough to say how much of a difference that makes, but I’m certain it makes one, particularly in the NYC “look up” case.
There’s a very easy way to see, with your own eyes, the degree to which light is diffused by atmosphere. Two ways, actually.
Method one: Get a bright, focused flashlight. Go out at night, somewhere really dark where there aren’t any other lights. Shine the flashlight on something, say a wall, maybe a hundred feet away. The flashlight beam makes a distinct, if fuzzy-edged, circle on the object. Ergo, the beam of light is not notably diffused by atmosphere.
Method two: Same as above, except do it in heavy fog (or smoke). You will actually see the beam of light in the vapor. Again, minimal diffusion.
And hey, here’s a really simple experiment you can try, even easier than the pit above. Set up at the same location described in Method One, above – the darker the better. Bring a friend with you. Place the friend about ten or fifteen feet from the wall (or object). Take the flashlight to the hundred-foot distance. Step off to the side a bit. Like this:
wallwallwallwall<>wallwallwallwallwall
X <--friend
you --> X
Aim the light past your friend and directly at the wall, at the place marked with “<>”.
Observe:
The wall will be brightly illuminated at the point where the light is aimed. This is obvious.
Your friend will face away from the wall and look down at himself (or herself). He will see that the side facing away from the wall, toward the flashlight, will be hardly illuminated (unless you’re using a cheap light without a focused beam, which invalidates the experiment). From this, we can conclude that the atmosphere does not appreciably diffuse the light, even though the beam is passing fairly close to your friend.
Your friend can now turn around and face the wall, and look down at himself again. He will see that this side of him is illuminated more strongly than the other side. From this we can draw two conclusions: First, there is plenty of reflected light coming off the wall. Second, whatever small diffusive property the atmosphere may have, it’s dwarfed by the potential reflective property of the wall.
These observations should pretty much demonstrate how light reflects around; the atmosphere is unnecessary and irrelevant. There is one final test, though, that’s a little harder to do, and that is conclusive for the purpose of this debate.
That test is this: Compare the illumination of the wall by the flashlight beam while your friend is standing there, and while your friend is not standing there.
Unless your friend is draped in a black shroud, you’ll find that the wall is slightly illuminated overall, in addition to the already-existing flashlight circle. This is because a small amount of light is re-reflected from your friend’s body back to the wall. Just like the moon, your friend is an irregular surface (smile when you say this :)), so the light is scattered off his body and onto the wall generally, as opposed to a focused, recognizable reflection.
The clearest way to see this effect? Shine the light past your friend onto the wall. Observe carefully. Close your eyes for a moment (not longer than a second or two), while your friend quickly lies flat on the ground and you hold the flashlight stationary. Open your eyes again. Observe the wall. Close your eyes again and have your friend stand up. Open your eyes. Lather, rinse, repeat.
If you perform this experiment in a very, very dark location (no moon, no streetlights, no ambient city light coming off low clouds, no nothin’), you’ll definitely see the difference in how much the wall is illuminated when your friend is standing there and when he isn’t.
Really, try it.
(I’m beginning to feel like I’m in some weird, Star-Trek-mirror-universe version of “Beakman and Jax” here…)
Final point before I’m gone for a few days. If you freely admit you don’t know how much of a difference an atmosphere makes, why give so much weight to the “hoax” side of the arguement? Isn’t it just as likely that the atmosphere actually makes things worse?
In fact I’ll make just that arguement. Looking through an atmosphere, some portion of light is obstructed by the very air itself and either never makes it down into the hole. Of the portion that makes it in, again some portion doesn’t make it back out. In the absence of any atmosphere this obstruction never happens so more light makes the trip into/out of the hole, and thus stuff in the hole is more brightly illuminated when there is no atmosphere!
The point is that it’s not the light being diffused by the air that illuminates the bottom of the hole (or the NY city streets), it’s the light bouncing off all the other stuff (like the side of the hole or city buildings).
.
You seem to be missing something:
We’re talking about two (2) phenomena here
#1) Light diffusion. Best way to see that is to turn on your car’s brights next time you’re in a blizzard or it’s foggy outside. You’ll see atmospheric diffusion. Yes it does spread light.
#2) Rreflection. Go into a dark room with white walls. Shine a bright flashlight beam onto the white wall. Watch a slightly bigger “reflection” of the beam appear on your chest. If the surface of the wall is rough, like stucco, the beam will be bigger.
One phenomena doesn’t preclude or necessitate the other.
Fenris