The Dark Moon

[GaryN]

Here is a photo from Apollo 13 that confirms the darkness of a sun lit Lunar far side, similar the the one taken during the Israel mission. When Apollo 13 rounded the moon it was Waxing Gibbous, and the photo is of Chaplygin crater. It was taken using the SO-168 film, ASA 160, which was not IR sensitive. This, to me, demonstrates just how much effect Earthshine has on the near side, and so there really is a dark side of the Moon!
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apol ... 2/8909.jpg

[GaryN]

Looking at the early images from the Mars Perseverance rover, it looks fairly dark in many of the shots, so I went looking to see if I could finad any actual illumination levels. Why was I not surprised to find any actual values. This is what I get:

Since the solar spectrum is known, as well as the distance from Mars to the Sun, the illumination is well known at the top of the Martian atmosphere. However, the illumination at the surface has to be calculated (estimated) using a model for the transfer of sunlight through the dusty Martian atmosphere. Such models are cumbersome, however, and not always 100% reliable because the dustiness of the atmosphere can change rapidly but is only occasionally actually measured.

https://mastcamz.asu.edu/mars-in-full-color/

Solar irradiance (W/m2) 586.2 is given on another NASA site. Atmospheric conditions change, fair enough, but why not send a light meter, around $50 on Amazon, instead of cumbersome calculations? This observer is suspicious, again.

If you have an Alexa device, call up the “NASA Mars” skill on your device and ask your question right from home.

Anyone have Alexa?

[GaryN]

The atmosphere on Mars though not as dense and complex as that of Earth is still not fully understood. It is thought that it is scattering that produces the observed light profiles at the surface, but if there is no visible Sunlight as I claim then are there
alternative models? The assumption of the 586 W/m2 value is based on the measurements at the top of Earths atmosphere and application of the inverse sqare law, but as with Earth, there are no direct measurements of the Suns heat or light from orbit, only spectrally derived figures and assumtion that the Sun is a near ideal blackbody. I've collected some pages/pdf files that I have found:

Solar Radiation on Mars
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/198 ... 018252.pdf

Solar spectrum on the martian surface and its Effect on Photovoltaic Performance
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... erformance

Absorption and scattering properties of the Martian dust in the solar wavelengths (pdf)
http://molokai.sese.asu.edu/~jimbo/inde ... R_1997.pdf

It is the Lyman Alpha emissions from Hydrogen that I bleieve responsible for driving the emissions from molecules lower in the atmosphere, most notably for our blue daytime sky.The same will be happening with Mars. Probably the only reason Mars is visible from Earth is the H corona and conversion of UV to visible by Earths atmosphere.

The H Corona of Mars
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015P ... C/abstract

Mars has daytime and sunset/sunrise sky colours opposite to Earths.

Ask Ethan: Why Does Mars Have A Bright, Red Sky?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswith ... 7d583d3453

Blue Sky at Night, Martian’s Delight: The Atmosphere of Mars
https://www.illinoisscience.org/2019/11 ... s-delight/

I've had words with Emily Lakdawalaover the years about NASA stuff, good to see that with the Perseverance rover she got fired up about the lack of raw images, and came in for some abuse when asking for transparency from NASA. NASA does not and likely will never release the camera data files showing all the scientific details, which includes exposure times and filters used for each shot. It has been suggested to me that they use only 2MP sensors for the MastCam-Z cameras due to the low light levels. A light meter, a light meter, my Kingdom for a light meter!

In Reversal, NASA Is Now Releasing RAW Images From Perseverance
https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-now- ... rseverance

[GaryN]

A Super Flower Blood Moon will be visible today, but if I was on the Moon would the surface look red? Opinions on the 'net are mixed, I see no photos of a red surface from Chang'e 3, but China doesn't tell us a whole lot about there missions anyway. They don't carry a light meter either it seems. What kind of science is this?

[paladin17]

if I was on the Moon would the surface look red?

Yes.

[GaryN]

if I was on the Moon would the surface look red?

Yes.

Strange there are no photos of a blood moon from the ISS, maybe it's just too boring to bother with?

[paladin17]

there are no photos of a blood moon from the ISS

There are.

[GaryN]

Another thing visible from Earth but not from space is the Earthshine lit portion of a partial moon, indicating again that Earths atmosphere is involved in some way.

This could be interesting:

SpaceX shows off its huge dome window on Dragon for private Inspiration4 spaceflight
https://www.space.com/spacex-dragon-cup ... paceflight

If the crew do indeed get a chance to look directly away from Earth I wonder what they will see? All previous reports say it is totally black out there.

[GaryN]

No surprise at all then that the Inspiration 4 crew did not get to see the stars. The orientation of the vehicle was completely controlled from the ground and the cupola was always facing the Earth, just as it is on the ISS. The side windows would still not have given them a view of deep space, only a view of Earths horizon, but so far they have not mentioned seeing the sunrise or sunset, or the Moon. I think my suspicions that Musk is not as independent as most think he is, and is operating within some rather strict limitations determined by the military(NASA). Shame on him.

[GaryN]

The BepiColombo Mission probe is making its first close pass of Mercury. The images will be using one of the 3 M-CAM sensors, 1024X1024 at visible wavelenghts they say. Cant find info on the sensors, but did find this file about the programming of the cameras:
https://repos.cosmos.esa.int/socci/proj ... 95b61602f7

From the file: Spectral range | nm | 480-940

So again we have IR capabilities, not just visible. The images will be made available here:
https://archives.esac.esa.int/psa/#!Ima ... instrument

From the older images it appears that things are well lit, but is this visible light if the sensors are IR sensitive? Of course there will be IR from the targets if they are bombarded by UV and up solar radiation!! Exposure times can be up to 65 seconds and without specs. who knows how sensitive these units are.

BepiColombo Selfie Cameras
https://microcameras.space/project/bc_cms/
Venus must be blinding in the IR.

Venus and Earth images.
https://lightsinthedark.com/2021/08/12/ ... -of-venus/

For the other instruments there are some specs, this one of course makes sense to me:

The sensor was designed to achieve high sensitivity as well as low readout noise (<100e−) for space-based, low-light conditions.

Low light conditions. But don't we know that Mercury has a 27,000 lux surface illumination level, as determined by earlier scientific calculations? The cameras should need neutral density filters! Just more deception from the authorities. Lets take a Nikon D4 to Mercury!

[GaryN]

Best webcam for astrophotography
1. Logitech Quickcam Pro

This might be a good webcam for astrophotography. The product is indeed old, but it is cheap and can do a good job.

It might be a bit fragile, so you should handle it with care. It requires a USB 2.0 to be connected to a computer.

The maximum image resolution is 1280 x 960, while its video capture resolution is 640 x 480 VGA.

So could the M-Cam see the stars with a 65 second exposure? Of course they are not out there to look at the stars I'll be told.

[perpetual motion]

So where is the light coming from with Venus out of the picture?
Something is not right here.

[GaryN]

So where is the light coming from with Venus out of the picture?
Something is not right here.

The IR light they are detecting is indirectly from the Sun. UV and shorter wavelengths cause the material of the exposed surfaces to emit infrared by way of electron orbital transition heating. It is not reflected visible sunlight, there is none out there.
With the main science instruments it can be seen that thy are looking at spectra from specific surface materials illuminated by the UV and up solar radiation and some will be at visible wavelenghts but mostly in the IR and some in UV. NONE are reflected visible wavelength sunlight, and your eyes would see none of what the instruments detect even at the visible wavelengths, not enough photons.

[GaryN]

First image of Mercury from the MCAM:
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-europe-ja ... ation.html

Images from the ESA site will likely take 10 days or so for some reason.

Starting here is an explanation of the James Web telescope cameras and spectrometers and how they figure out what they are seeing.
https://youtu.be/4P8fKd0IVOs?t=641

This man in my opinion is a snake oil salesman. Assumptions, circular reasoning and guesswork are what present day astronomy is founded on.
Eric Dollard: "All the theories collapse when the stars are not visible in space"

Lets go back to square one and start with some real science, not opinion.

[GaryN]

Video on this YouTube channel looks at the Apollo video cameras.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3DfWR3CVlc&t=502s

Very sensitive, designed for low light, as would be required for the bright lunar surface. Huh?
My estimates for the actual light levels on the Moon get lower all the time, now about 30 Lux for anything outside of the central solar light beam created by the atmospheric silica dust.
Now that we have MUCH more sensitive, high resolution and light weight video cameras that can see stars (from Earth) in real time, why not send one to the Moon on the next mission? One without the 'extended red' spectral response of course.