Apollo crews viewing stars on the moon

[grooble]

How would the stars have looked from the surface of the moon? We cannot see them in the videos or photos, but surely the astronauts would have seen them? I'm guessing it was a majestic view.<br /><br />

 

[harmonicaman]

<i>"The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine.</i><br /><br /> <b>- James Irwin</b>

 

[formulaterp]

Since the astronauts landed during the lunar morning/day, I doubt they could see too many stars. Perhaps if they stood in shadow and looked down-sun.

 

[spaceinvador_old]

But if there is vertually no apmosphere on the moon, then why would the moon sky veil the stars? I mean, during daylight hours we see a blue sky do to the gases in the apmosphere. But, the moon has no such gases and the moon sky would have a clear view of space, right?<br /><br />Also, I have read that the gases in our apmosphere magnify what we see in space. So if we had no apmosphere, we would just see a black sky. The darkness would be so black that the full moon would cook (not literally).

 

[spaceinvador_old]

Aslo, without an apmosphere here on earth, the sun and moon would probably look much smaller. So strange we live in a gas bubble.

 

[nexium]

We rarely see stars day time on Earth, partly because the sky is bright. We rarely see a star or planet in the day time on Earth mostly because our eyes are adapted to bright light. On the Moon's surface, the glare from sunlit rocks and soil prevent our eyes from dark adapting, so we see few stars in the daytime from the moon's daytime surface, unless we take steps to get dark adapted vision. It is so cold at night on the moon's surface, we risk failure of our space suit, which is typically optimised for daylight conditions. A camera with a telephoto lens would make good time exposures of the stars, day or night. The magnifing effect of Earth's atmosphere is minor. Neil

 

[harmonicaman]

<i>"I have read that the gases in our atmosphere magnify what we see in space."</i><br /><br />The "magnifying" effect you refer to is called refraction. It accounts for the fact that the sun, and less often the moon, appears distorted (i.e., vertically elongated, or pear shaped) just at the point of rising or setting. The atmosphere does not magnify what we see in space.<br /><br />There is another general optical illusion called the "Moon Illusion" which causes the moon to appear larger when it is near the horizon. This occurs because your brain gets confused when it sees the moon in relation to terrestrial objects. <br />

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>We rarely see stars day time on Earth, partly because the sky is bright. We rarely see a star or planet in the day time on Earth mostly because our eyes are adapted to bright light.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Similarly, try looking at the stars immediately after stepping out from a very bright room. It will take several seconds for the stars to become visible, because your pupils have to dilate. It can take up to twenty minutes for full dark adaptation.<br /><br />Plus, the Apollo astronauts often had their visors down to protect their eyes from the glare of the Sun and the lunar surface. That would probably filter out the stars pretty effectively.<br /><br />But they did see stars. Just not all the time. There were even experiments specifically aimed at doing so, including experiments with a special telescope fitted with an infrared camera on one mission. (I wanna say it was Apollo 14, but I wouldn't swear to it.) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>