They obviously filmed the faked moon landings in a giant vacuum tank. Duh!

In Sandusky which is close enough to a world famous amusement park that could provide other effects.

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Was there a video recording system capable of 2.4X shutter rate in 1969 (or earlier, to allow for planning)? Was this technology used in television production?

RBG

Given that the framerate of the Apollo films (as far as I know) is 30, and the square root of (9.81 / 1.655) is 2.44, you'd need a camera capable of capturing about 73FPS (frames per second). I read in a book that the most early films were first made with a framerate of 48FPS, and then got reduced to 18FPS. For comparison, a motion picture film is shown at 24FPS.

It is not at all impossible to film something at 73 frames per second. In fact, cameras that are able of higher framerates (like 48FPS and 72FPS) are used in the production stages of films to later play it back at 24FPS (slow motion!). However there are some problems to be noted. To sucessfully capture light with higher framerates you will need either a faster shutter speed or a bigger aperture.

One can expect to see effects of this. A faster shutter speed shows differences in lighting every frame with a lot of artificial lighting. For example, when I point my webcam at my LEGO set and use a fast shutter speed (1/200), you can see the "flickering" of the lamps (most lamps don't shine all the time; they flicker at a quite fast rate, too fast for our eyes to notice), making each frame have different brightnesses. However this problem is usually solved by using a 'stage lamp', that simply doesn't flicker (it produces a lot of heat though).

A bigger aperture changes the field of focus. The bigger the aperture's hole, the more 'select' the field of focus will be: you can only focus on a small part of the image. A good example of this can be found here, on the Clavius.org website. Of course, in the case of the Apollo footage there is hardly 'alternative' shutter speed/aperture settings to compare things to.


Last of all, something else that has to be considered is for in order to fake the framerate in 1969, one would have to film it 'on film' first with a (calculated) framerate of 73FPS, and then slow the framerate down to 30FPS when showing the film. The audio and video must be matched up together, something that is made a lot harder because of the changed framerate. This indicates that in order for it to work, the footage and audio would have to have been carefully scripted and recorded far in advance of actually showing it.

As there are some instances where things in the news are being asked from the moon (I can recall reading something about an astronaut asking for the results of a baseball/football match), something which would be VERY hard, impossible even, to script out beforehand.

But to answer your question in a short way: Basically, it was able to make the technology, however there are a lot of things to be taken into account when looking at the scenario..


Well, enough typing in the morning for me right now. There may be some things I have said wrong; I'm not an expert, I'm a hobbyist.

- Spread the Love

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What do you think about this?:

First pseudo slo-mo video: "1967: Ampex Instant Replay Disk Recorder
Disk recording of broadcast video was first tested in a CBS football broadcast on July 8th, 1965. Because of the extreme storage requirements this was only used for brief bursts to demonstrate slow motion, stop motion, and instant replay. Ampex introduced the commercial HS-100 instant replay deck in 1967. This unit was essentially a hard disk used to record analog video rather than digital computer data. The disc rotated at 1800 RPM and had a 30 second record capacity. Each concentric track stored one frame of video, so freeze frame was achieved by holding the head stationary, and slow motion by moving the head across the surface at less than 30 frames per second."
http://tinyurl.com/343ben

But note that this system didn't actually give you true high speed recording but, simply slowed down the 30 frames per second so that each frame was viewed longer giving an apparent, albeit jerky, slo mo.

Such was the state of video slow motion in the late 1960s.

"The first (real) video slow motion camera was invented by NAC in the mid 1980s."
http://hd24.com/digital_slow_motion_101.htm

So true slow motion video did not exist in 1969. True, smooth, slow motion in those days came from film sources - usually by overcranking the film camera to produce many more exposures per second than the usual 24 frames per second.

The trouble is that anything film-based can be spotted a mile away... especially in those days when compared to video. Film will betray itself numerous ways: through its inherently better, very-different-from-video, picture quality; by the usual contamination that can be found on discrete frames; and by the chemical grain pattern found on film but not video.

So the moon landing *video* could not have been created using film cameras sped up by 2.4 times- we'd see it for what it was. Nor could it have been shot with non-existent proper slow-mo video equipment - it hadn't been invented yet.

There is no explanation for the witnessed moon gravity effects except having been video'd on the moon.

RBG

As Jay has pointed out a number of times, changing the frame rate could realistically simulate the vertical component of the lunar gravity environment. But unlike actually being on the Moon, it would also affect the horizontal component (lateral motion) and time axis as well.

It's pretty easy to see the result by speeding up playback of the lunar surface video/film by 2x (close enough to 2.44x for demonstration purposes). While this makes the astronauts' vertical motion seem Earthlike, everything else is quite noticeably odd -- their arm and finger motions and the rate of horizontal movement in particular. Nobody would ever mistake those images for normal activity in Earth gravity, especially for someone encumbered by a bulky suit.

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"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

I wholeheartedly agree with you, RBG. There's hardly anything I can add to that.

EDIT: Adding to that, I also agree with Donnie B. If for some reason none of the film/video artefacts would pop up, one should still take into account the astronaut's motions and how they look like when sped up.

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Oh, that just proves that evil NASA just fixed the baseball game too.

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One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

They actually took a feather with them?

In fact the Apollo 15 crew took two with them. One they used for the experiment along with a geology hammer, the other thay merely placed as a symbol. The Falcon feathers, and their LM, the Falcon.

The Experiment wasn't an offical NASA experiment, it was one of the ones that the crews came up with, just like the Al Shepard golf swing.

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Hi everyone, first post.

Could this be considered "indisputable proof?"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=isVO9AAAhxM

Hi and welcome, unscannable!

I'm sure our very own BertL, who made and posted that video, would be pleased that you think it constitutes indisputable evidence. Sadly, the hoax believers can always find ways to raise a dispute, no matter how silly. Just read the comments at your link and you'll see what I mean.

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Relight the Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

I know this is in the archive somewhere but I can't find it.

Since Japan's Kaguya will have a 1 meter resolution, do you think they will target the remaining Apollo moon artifacts for calibration purposes and at the same time provide still more independent proof of the landings? Not that the HBs will think for a moment Japan hasn't been paid off by the CIA to fake their photos followed by unfortunate accidents all over Japan.

RBG

I for one would love to see new apollo footage from orbit or even from the surface, not because I need to be convinced, but because I'd like to see what's left of it (you'd need surface photography for that I think) and because it would excite me to see new pics of the historical apollo landing sites.

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I believe its best resolution will be nearer 10 metres.

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One other thing, the dust on the moon is totally different to that on Earth, our sand and dust has been weathered and eroded which makes it flow when disturbed, the dust on the moon is jagged and sharp (from no erosion) so clings easier. Knowing this debunks the hoax theorists who use the dust swirls to add 'weight' to their sad little theories.

Not only is the lunar dust composed of jagged grains (although some are spherules), there is a greater propensity for chemical cementation and cold-welding behavior. The initial clumping and crusting of the lunar surface is due to pre-existing cementation. The subsequent impressibility comes from the particulate shape as well as the notion that if you press the grains together, they will rub and generate enough energy to "weld" themselves together. This is possible because of the relative lack of oxidation in the particles.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

What could the CIA possibly do to Japan that Godzillla could not protect them from?
Oh, wait- do the HBers believe in the conspiracy to make us all think that Godzilla is not real?

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

The CIA has Godzilla locked up at an alligator farm in south Florida.
I know, because I saw him there! And how did I see him? Cuz I'm the master of the moon!

And now, for something completely different.

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This is no fantasy. No careless product of wild imagination. - Jor-El

Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah

...A man with three buttocks.

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You're a coward and a liar and a thOOF - Bart Sibrel

would that man have two...er...nevermind...

I don't think that particular fellow had even one nevermind.

__________________
Relight the Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

Hah! You are a paid disinformation agent sent by the Anti-Monster Conspiracy.
And even if Godzilla was locked up, they would still have their giant mecha robots to step on the CIA agents.

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

G'day one and all,

this is actually @ RBG. First off, glad you got the colorwheel sequence correct!!! Are you a TV engineer per chance? The Colour matrix disc recorder is somewhat of a mystery as to who actually built it. Most of the TV camera engineers from Apollo seem to think it was a custom built NASA device. I suspect it was a modified HS100 (or 200 - the 200 had more capabilities via a computer controller). Of all the documentation I have pertaining to Apollo TV, this is the one thing I cannot find a firm answer on. One thing regarding the color matrix unit; it was acting as a buffer rather than a slow mo machine as such. Each field was held for the duration of 3 real-time fields. (while the remaining two colours were arriving) Each field was actually played in realtime albiet with different sequential colour information in it. That is why the movemement itself is fluid. It is also why before and after any movement there will always be two fields of colour evident as artifacts.

Coincidentally I am in the video biz, but far from being an engineering authority. (Someday I'm going to remind myself why 30 fps B&W NTSC Standard def video needed to be altered to 27.97 fps in order to produce a color signal. That's as geeky as I get. But I digress...)

I'm not following you re your "Colour matrix disc recorder"... Of course, such a thing was irrelevant on Apollo 11 as the video was all B&W. I'd have to look it up as to which mission began shooting colour but I wouldn't be surprised to learn it was the next one.

You seem to be suggesting that this disc system is what NASA actually used to record colour moon video. I don't know one way or another except to express my doubts about that given my understanding that a disc back then simply would not have been capable of holding the volume of all the video that was shot. Why wouldn't they have stayed with tried and true video tape for this purpose?

Or is it that you are saying that this disc technology was required as an intermediary step prior to the signal being recorded to video tape? That Rube Goldberg arrangement could make some sense to me. And I think that is what I am to understand here.

Then such a device would have to be initially built into the camera itself for encoding purposes. You mention that the motion was very smooth. This suggests that each field recorded new information, as opposed to all three coloured fields being identical. I wonder what frame speed the camera operated at? I would assume about 30 fps to match home TV rates. Does this mean each field updated motion at the rate of: 30 frames per sec / 3 colours = 10 frames per colour (x 2 fields per frame) = 20 fields per colour... or 60 fields per second? Which is the same rate as regular NTSC video.

And then I have to speculate, if this technology existed in NASA in '69 and '70, could this THEORETICALLY have been tweaked to record 60 fields of straight B&W images instead of alternating colour and thus allow for a way to obtain continuous low-quality moon-gravity simulating video? A technique that couldn't work as easily for later colour images.

But then, as you say, NASA might have built these recording disk cameras themselves and since they are based upon the slow-mo disk technology of the day, how difficult might it be to up the colour frame rate output to simulate moon-gravity?

I'm sure I've got a lot of this technically wrong, but, nevertheless, I think I can now make a good living at HB conventions.

RBG

The disk system was simply to hold the three fields being assembled into the current frame. Each output frame was composed of three input fields received in sequence.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Of course. Makes sense.

RBG

While I haven't checked out my Apollo 7 discs, I suspect that they had the first Apollo colour camera. 11 certainly had one, they used it in the CSM on the way to the moon several times. Only the one on the LM was B&W.

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Out of curiosity and nothing more- why?

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

Because a color camera that would work in the lunar environment was not ready for Apollo 11. For Apollo 12, they took the color camera used in the CM on Apollo 10 (the first mission to support color TV) and modified it to work in a vacuum.

FYI:

AS-204 (Apollo 1) would have taken while Apollo 7, and Apollo 8 took the RCA B&W TV camera operating at 10fps, 320 lines.
Apollo 9 took the Westinghouse lunar surface b&w TV camera for an in vacuum test which was curtailed due to Rusty's motion sickness. Telecasts still used this camera which was mounted in the LM. The CM did not carry a TV camera.
Apollo 10 took the Westinghouse colour sequential camera 525 lines res. 30fps which sent the colour fields in the following order: Red Blue Green. These were then assembled together with the HS100 (or similar video disc array) and converted to NTSC colour. No LM camera was taken.
Apollo 11 took the Westinghouse colour TV camera used in the CM, and also the 10 fps 320 lines resolution b&w lunar TV camera.
Apollo 12 took two colour cameras both by Westinghouse. One for the CM, and the second for lunar EVA colour TV.
Apollo 13 took two colour TV cameras (see Apollo 12 for configuration) PLUS a B&W camera stowed in the LM in case of failure of the colour camera on the EVA.
Apollo 14 had the same setup as Apollo 13. Additionally the EVA camera had modified circuitry to make it "sun-proof" should it be pointed at an extremely bright object, and it also featued a lens cap for use when moving the camera on the lunar surface.
Apollo 15 had the RCA built GCTA colour TV camera which was set up first on the MESA, then mounted on a tripod, and then mounted on the LRV where it was controlled by Ed Fendell. The B&W camera was (IIRC) taken as a backup as well. It also had the Westinghouse colour TV camera for the CM
Apollo 16 and 17 used the same configuration as Apollo 15, except the colour lunar TV camera was first activated when placed on the LRV.
Skylab reverted back to the Westinghouse colour TV cameras.
ASTP also used the Westinghouse cameras, and featured the first live interior view of a Saturn launch. Additionally a second camera was also taken and used simultaneously. Once joined, the Soyuz module also had two cameras which were also live. (ASTP is the most interesting footage to watch as it really had the feel of a full blown TV presentation, with multi angle views!)
The shuttle used RCA TV equipment as Westinghouse decided not to be involved with the bidding war for TV gear. All colour cameras on Apollo era flights were sequential colour.