Originally Posted by Astrowannabe

The general opinion so far seems to be that my failure to see the astronaut cross the event horizon is only an illusion. Meaning that I don't see him cross, but that's just a trick of light due to the gravity well of the black hole. In reality, he's already crossed it. That correct?

If so, I have a problem with this. Because lets say he's not going to cross the event horizon, just get REALLY close and then come back (certainly possible). He basically gets so close that millions of years later I will still see him near the event horizon. However, from his point of view this encounter only takes maybe an hour. So, he goes way down into the gravity well of the black hole and then comes back to the rest of the universe. Now, if my preception of him slowing down is merely an illusion, then he should be able to come back to me and say hi an hour later even though I still see him falling in. But this isn't what happens. If he gets that close to the event horizon and then comes back, he will discover that millions of years has passed by for the rest of the universe.

Now assuming that that is true (and I'm pretty sure that it is), then it seems like as he's falling in time is actually slowing down for him, so that if I see him take a million years to get to a spot A, one million years later he will actually be at spot A, not just an image of him. Likewise, a billion years later when I see him a fraction of a nanometer above the event horizon, he's actually a fraction of a nanometer above the event horizon, and so on. Where am I going wrong with this view?

Originally Posted by Astrowannabe

Also, going back to the classic example of the astronaut sending signals to use that get progressively further apart, is it that the light actually takes longer to climb out of the gravity well of the black hole? I thought that since light MUST travel at 300,000 km/s, then it just got extremely redshifted as it climbed out. So if I'm one light hour away, then the light will only take an hour to get from the astronaut to me regardless of how close to the event horizon he is. Or am I wrong on this?