caseythompson•1mo agoProlific Poster

Saw someone claim the Moon landing photos were faked because of star patterns

I was browsing a photo thread last night and this guy kept pointing out how there are no stars in the Apollo 11 surface shots. He posted a side-by-side comparison from 1969 and a modern night photo from his backyard. He said the sky should be full of stars if it was real. But here's the thing, the lunar surface is way brighter than any night sky on Earth because of the sun reflecting off the ground. The camera settings that capture a person standing in bright sunlight just can't also pick up dim stars. I tried explaining that exposure time is like adjusting for a room with a bright window, you set it for the subject, not the shadows. Has anyone else had this debate and actually gotten through to someone?

3 comments

3 Comments

king.eric1mo ago

Ivan774's point about city light pollution is actually the perfect comparison, except the moon's surface is reflecting way more sunlight than any city. The thing is, if the conspiracy was that big, someone with a real camera could have just taken one decent shot of stars from the lunar surface to end the debate. But none of this really matters unless you're losing sleep over it, you know?

max_brown1mo ago

Did you try comparing it to taking a picture of someone at night with a flash? The flash lights up the person but the background stays dark. Same idea with the moon surface, the sun is basically a huge flash. I had a buddy who was deep into this stuff and what finally got him was showing him a photo of astronauts on Earth in the desert during the day with zero stars in the sky above them. Once he saw that it clicked for him.

ivan7741mo ago

Wait, so you're saying a picture of astronauts in the desert during the day didn't have any stars either? That's wild, I never even thought about that. I always just figured it was a moon thing, like space was different up there. Definitely makes sense now though, same reason you can't see stars from a bright city at night. Kinda blows my mind how simple it is once you see it that way.