Quote:
Originally Posted by Antonia
Small point...
Though it's correct that stars will have been absent from the lunar photographic images it is strange that none of the astronauts remarked on the stars in the sky.
This is largely thought to be due to the gold-plated visor used on the helmets. In 'A Man On The Moon', Mattingly's spacewalk on Apollo 16 is described in detail. Here, it is describes how Mattingly could not see the starts initially, but discovered upon lifting his visor he could.
Only a small point, but given I've just re-read that passage, that particular claim struck with me.
Ref: 'A Man on the Moon' - Andrew Chaikin, page 494 UK paperback.
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Isn't that an excellent book? I loved it.
Gene Cernan said in the
ALSJ that he was able to see some stars from the lunar surface under the right conditions: "When you were in the lunar module, looking out the window, you certainly couldn't see stars. Using the telescope was sort of like being in a deep well; it cut out all the reflected light and let you see the stars. It was also generally true that, when you were on the surface in the LM's shadow, there were too many bright things in your field-of-view for the stars to be visible. But I remember that I wanted to see whether I could see stars, and there were times out on the surface when I found that, if you allowed yourself to just focus and maybe even just shielded your eyes to some degree, even outside the LM shadow you could see stars in the sky."