The Boring Sky (Sun)

[GaryN]

The Blue Canyon Technologies star tracker appears to be a conventional, just smaller, but already used many times:

So it will be interesting to know if they work as well from GEO. Then they need to run the same tests from even further away from Earth, cislunar space would be good, the same location from which the Apollo astronauts failed to photograph or see the stars.

Do you believe they did go to the moon?

[Holger Isenberg]

The Blue Canyon Technologies star trackers are already in use in over 100 satellites I see on their website. On their website they only show them with the front lens hidden with a "remove before flight" aluminum cover, which in general of course makes sense for expensive devices as dust protection and maybe also to protect IP. With that they appear to be conventional technology, whatever filter is used there. Or do you have some findings about failures of conventional star trackers, like they have been in use since decades, in GEO and beyond?

[GaryN]

Google search:

Are there any CubeSats that have been launched into Geostationary (GEO/GSO) or Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO)?

https://space.stackexchange.com/questio ... 2721#22721

I was looking at A17 transcrips:

Ron Evans during A17 trans-Earth EVA:

And-let's see now - I see what Charlie Duke meant.
Man, it's dark out here. It is really dark.

So during the 3 trans-Earth EVAs none of the astronauts mention seeing stars, just the absolute blackness out there. So the question really is not if star trackers can see stars because we know they can, but why by eye the stars are so easily seen from Earth (even wearing really dark sunglasses), but not from space, or when looking away from Earth from LEO. The only difference is the lack of atmosphere to look through.
Here is what Evans could see:

Yes, 1 can see the Moon back
behind me! Beautiful! The Moon is down there to
the right - full Moon - and off to the left, just
outside the hatch down here, is a crescent Earth.
Maybe I can get a picture of that - the Earth as
I'm coming back in there. But the crescent Earth
is not like a crescent Moon. It's got kind of like
horns, and the horns go all the way around, and
it makes almost three-quarters of a circle.

I haven't yet been able to recreate the same view using Celestia at the appropriate date and time in order to determine the position of the Sun. In all fairness here is what he also said:

10 15 01 h2 CDR Okay, Houston. Ron's putting the camera out there
on the pole now - pole out there , rather
CC Roger. We see the EVA light out there.
CMP ... stay lower?
CDR Okay
CMP Man, that Sun is bright. Whoooo!
CDR Pull down that visor, Ron. You're going to need it.
CMP Yes
CDR Not the metal one, unless you really need it.
CMP No, I don't want the metal one.
Tape 170/36
CDR No, just get the gold one. That's all you need

The Sun was the EVA light and without a photo of the Sun from cislunar space then there is no proof otherwise.

[Holger Isenberg]

I wasn't aware about that EVA light. Let's find out where it was located. On the camera pole?

Article with photos, painting showing the pole and videos about Apollo 17 and 16 spacewalks: https://www.americaspace.com/2017/12/17 ... space-eva/

For nice solar system visualizations check out NASA Cosmographia: https://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/cosmographia.html

The visualization and atmosphere effects are better than with Celestia. For Dec 18 1972 I see the thin Earth crescent. The software shows it with about 180 degrees, but natural atmosphere effects could easily explain a 270 degree crescent.

[GaryN]

I wasn't aware about that EVA light. Let's find out where it was located. On the camera pole?

This pdf explains the interior and exterior lighting for the Apollo missions:
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/20090016336.pdf
Page 30 shows the EVA light.
The A17 crew commented on being cold during trans-earth coast and CC commented:

We're looking at - no need to
acknowledge this - we're looking at your temperature
problem. And there's a couple of obvious things
I'm sure you've undertaken, but if you haven't -
all the window shades off. Get some sunlight in
there. And might crank on all the lights to get
_ some more heat load in there. Also the - of course,
the cabin fan and the temperature - CABIN TEMP
control thumbwheel - It's your option on that.

In the lighting pdf you also see the window shades described. The crews were kept dark adapted at all times, and using the Sun as an internal light source was ruled out so as not to break dark adaptation and to avoid cabin overheating. Taking off the window shades would have been the first thing the astronauts would have done if it was cold, but made no comment on this CC suggestion. The Apollo 13 crew had a worse problem with cold after the power went down after the mishap on the way to the Moon, and there too it would have been obvious to remove the window shades but never mentioned doing so. Wouldn't have made any difference if there is no heat as well as light from the Sun out there. Circumstantial evidence perhaps, but again without any direct scientific measurement of the Suns heat in space we can not know.

Once he'd handed the TV in, he stuck his own feet down in through the hatch and, with Gene and Jack to guide him, got in without any difficulty. "Man, it's dark in here," he said.

Well of course, he had broken dark adaptation having looked at the EVA light even with the gold visor and would need a while to regain full adaptation.
And on the gold visor, here is CC warning Schmitt on the lunar surface about not wearing his gold visor:

CC Roger. You're probably letting in a lot of infrared
through that - without having that gold visor down,
too. That's sort of an infrared shield.

The lunar surface is bright in the band 1 near IR from emissions of solar UV/EUV excited surface olivine-pyroxine. This is why the lunar surface was mapped in the near IR by LRO, and also all of planet Mercury by Messenger. There are no visible light photos of Mercury from orbit.
That wavelenghth of IR heats the retina and can cause permanent damage with sufficient exposure.

[Holger Isenberg]

This pdf explains the interior and exterior lighting for the Apollo missions:
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/20090016336.pdf
Page 30 shows the EVA light.
[...]
That wavelengh of IR heats the retina and can cause permanent damage with sufficient exposure.

While the lighting on the EVA photo taken from the open hatch looks a bit like from a close lamp, the EVA light would be in this photo on the opposite side of the spacecraft 180° around on the cylinder when compared to page 30. Maybe there was a 2nd light or it was changed on other missions?

That high IR intensity with barely any visible light on the lunar surface would indeed explain this mystery of the gold visor instructions I wondered about when reading through the conversation transcripts on https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj some time ago. Because with a light spectrum like on the surface of Earth anyone would make automatically the correct choice of pulling down the gold visor if the light intensity increases too much. They wouldn't need any remote instructions and constantly be reminded over radio to do so.

It could also explain the choice for the strange monochrome camera on Apollo 11. There was a color cameras already available and made for it, but could be that the adjustments for IR couldn't be made in time.

[GaryN]

While the lighting on the EVA photo taken from the open hatch looks a bit like from a close lamp, the EVA light would be in this photo on the opposite side of the spacecraft 180° around on the cylinder when compared to page 30. Maybe there was a 2nd light or it was changed on other missions?

Yes, it doesn't seem right but looking at the A16 EVA too it is quite obvious where the light source must be. The A16 video shows the thruster shadow in exactly the same place as the A17 video, what are the chances of the Sun being in exactly the same place during both missions? Hard to see from the A15 video which was very dark indeed. The camera was rated for a minimum illumination level of 50 lux but it looked like it was struggling. On 16 they also used the metric camera running at 10 fps with a film process pushable to 400 ASA so it looks much brighter.
During A17 they used the 35mm Nikon and a film formulated for ASA 1000 to take interior photos and also some spectral and polarisation filter experiments. They did snap a few photos of the Moon such as this one:
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apol ... /24106.jpg

It could also explain the choice for the strange monochrome camera on Apollo 11. There was a color cameras already available and made for it, but could be that the adjustments for IR couldn't be made in time.

The A11 video camera was only rated at 75 ASA so with such low levels of visible light available what was being seen was mostly IR, making the lunar surface seem very bright. For me to get the feeling of the real lighting levels they would have had to use the Kodachrome 64 and the exposure settings. They didn't go with an off-the-shelf film for a good reason.

[Cargo]

And you would think that in the pre-digital camera era someone would have tried to take a slightly longer time exposure of the stars from the space station. The more strict space-rating back in time for devices brought to the ISS could of course a reason preventing that, but I’m not sure about that. Something appears to be different there in brightness or spectrum. There is also the surprising story from Apollo 13 where they tried to see a bright comet during their mission, but failed even with two attempts.

Apparently I've missed a few pages of deep research. I do detect though a certain pattern from these two pages. It seems like a black energy hole almost. Higgs is that you? What spectrum is this now?

[Cargo]

Not related to any hoax or anything, but what is really true is how a simple search for The Boring Sky (which is a pretty unique phrase on the Internet) is ignored by google and even duckduckgo hides any topic preview with this overlay:
----

The Boring Sky (Sun) Beyond the boundaries of established science an avalanche of exotic ideas compete for our attention. Experts tell us that these ideas should not be permitted to take up the time of working scientists, and for the most part they are surely correct.

----
I think we've really got this one solved. Space is Black. The sky is boring off planet. You can't see the Sun even.

This will be interesting now, I haven't looked lately. No one has touched the 'surprisingly 'invented' by Dupont shortly after Roswell, the 'kapton' material' yet. Could be a thread killer I suppose, talking about that.

[GaryN]

Here's am experiment you can do from home though I strongly recommend you don't!

From A17 again:

Oh, that Sun's bright when you look into it. That
is a biggy. (Humming)

Put on your darkest sunglasses, UV blocking, and look directly at the Sun for a second. You will understand why you need an arc welding visor to do this safely. I had flash blindness for about 5 minutes. No wonder the EVA light seemed so bright to a dark adapted astronaut with only his near IR blocking visor.

Unfortunately Cargo it seems that the Internet which should be the greatest tool for education ever devised is under the control of those who do not want to see the masses become aware of their true situation. This control has been in place for centuries, as far back as the destruction of the library of Alexandria.

I have no reached a point now though where I realise that, as my favorite Guru says, "We can not change the world, but we can change ourselves". This change must incorporate meditation, which is what the most ancient of prophets have told us all along. The ego needs to be silenced in order that we can with practice acquire knowledge available to us all from WITHIN. "Spiritual science" should no longer have to be considered an oxymoron.

[Holger Isenberg]

Yes, it doesn't seem right but looking at the A16 EVA too it is quite obvious where the light source must be. The A16 video shows the thruster shadow in exactly the same place as the A17 video, what are the chances of the Sun being in exactly the same place during both missions?

While the moon was at similar crescent stage for both, Apollo 16 10% lit, Apollo 17 2% lit, which would make the trajectory between Earth and the Moon identical, the constant rotation of the spacecraft would prevent the sun shining from the same angle. During the EVA they may have stopped the rotation, but even then they most likely haven't tried to stop the rotation to get the same angle for both missions. Maybe a 2nd attached light on the spacecraft the astronauts weren't even aware of?

[Holger Isenberg]

No one has touched the 'surprisingly 'invented' by Dupont shortly after Roswell, the 'kapton' material' yet.

Most likely mylar and kapton was existing for military use already a few months to years before 1947 and had to be published then when the aircraft crashed there.

[Holger Isenberg]

Apollo 16 EVA:
https://youtu.be/5A0OxDgLZ_4

Apollo 17 EVA:
https://youtu.be/SI4ou1PpFH0

Both in high quality 16 fps to 24fps rendering and 16mm film camera and live TV camera shown side by side. It's enlightening!

The pole in the lower left corner appears to be from the known EVA light.

[Cargo]

WoW! Incredible work. That really shows it, undeniably. Even the voices, you can hear the boring sky devouring them.

[Holger Isenberg]

Same lighting on Apollo 15 if you take a close look at the two lobes of shadows by the RCS thruster. The light is coming from the general direction of the high gain antenna, those 4 dishes on a pole at the spacecraft rear end.

Apollo 15 EVA:
https://youtu.be/Rc9Z2w87_DE white colored recording
https://youtu.be/LMa_ckwfiVk greenish colored recording