Earth and Moon Seen by Passing Juno Spacecraft with Music by Vangelis

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Published on Dec 10, 2013

When NASA’s Juno spacecraft flew past Earth on Oct. 9, 2013, it received a boost in speed of more than 8,800 mph (about 7.3 kilometer per second), which set it on course for a July 4, 2016, rendezvous with Jupiter.

One of Juno’s sensors, a special kind of camera optimized to track faint stars, also had a unique view of the Earth-moon system. The result was an intriguing, low-resolution glimpse of what our world would look like to a visitor from afar.

The cameras that took the images for the movie are located near the pointed tip of one of the spacecraft’s three solar-array arms. They are part of Juno’s Magnetic Field Investigation (MAG) and are normally used to determine the orientation of the magnetic sensors. These cameras look away from the sunlit side of the solar array, so as the spacecraft approached, the system’s four cameras pointed toward Earth. Earth and the moon came into view when Juno was about 600,000 miles (966,000 kilometers) away — about three times the Earth-moon separation.

During the flyby, timing was everything. Juno was traveling about twice as fast as a typical satellite, and the spacecraft itself was spinning at 2 rpm. To assemble a movie that wouldn’t make viewers dizzy, the star tracker had to capture a frame each time the camera was facing Earth at exactly the right instant. The frames were sent to Earth, where they were processed into video format.

The music accompaniment is an original score by Vangelis.

The full image caption for this movie is available at:http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/cata…

600,000 miles away.

Damn, no wonder it’s so small.

Adds a humbling perspective to things.

Don’t it?

Peace.

Apollo 16: The Men, Moon and Memories

Published on May 22, 2013

This program profiles the mission of Apollo 16, and presents FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME interviews with ALL THREE astronauts who went on that mission, Commander John Young, Lunar Module Pilot Charlie Duke, and Command Module Pilot TK Mattingly. Apollo 16: The Men, Moon and Memories is an engaging, unique, and definitive one-hour documentary, looking at this historic mission through the eyes of those who participated in it.

The successful Apollo 16 Manned Lunar Landing Mission was the second in a series of three science-oriented missions planned for the Apollo program. The major objective of the mission was to investigate the largest area ever covered of the lunar surface thanks to the newly created Lunar Rover which gave the Astronauts the ability to cover miles of turain in a short amount of time.

©UFOTV® and NASAFLIX®, a UFO Video, Inc. Company.

Visit us online: http://www.UFOTV.com

This film is really quite nicely done.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I clicked on it since it was from a UFO-related site, which, to be frank, often means trouble, but once it started, I couldn’t stop watching it.

It was a nice feeling and a refreshing surprise.

Gosh, there are so many stories contained within; fabulous footage from before, during and after the mission; personal recollections galore, great insights and even a few funny stories… most if not all of which I had never heard before… I assure you that you will not regret watching this movie.

Enjoy and Peace.

LunaCognita on An Eagle’s Ascent From Tranquility Base.

Will try to write more and sidestep the depression a bit, but until then… this quickie post will have to do. It presents WATT friend and reader (!) LunaCognita’s latest film, an unprecedented proper look at the footage of the lift off of the Lunar Module from the end of the Apollo 11 mission. He pretty much explains what’s what with it below, but, do note that near to and again at the end of this clip there are two unidentified objects seen landing…

and they both land…

in the very same spot!

LunaCognita | December 31, 2010

This presentation shows the 16mm Data Acquisition Camera (DAC) footage that was shot during the Apollo 11 ascent from Tranquility Base. In this ascent footage, the DAC motion picture camera was mounted in the right side forward-facing (LMP) window of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module “Eagle”, providing us a view looking down at the Moon’s surface as the LM ascent stage fires and sends the spacecraft on its way back up to lunar orbit for rendezvous and docking with the CSM “Columbia”.

Rather than just showing the raw footage here as it is cataloged in the NASA film archives, I instead show the footage in a rotation-corrected format in order to always keep the scene in it’s proper “horizon up” viewing orientation throughout the duration of the clip. This proper “horizon up” perspective can be established based on some simple visual criteria, with the goal being to ensure we are viewing the footage with the lunar surface being shown so that the Moon’s horizon that is closest to the camera’s current principle point always remains aligned and level towards the top of the field-of-view (even if the horizon itself is not actually visible at the time). This ensures that the surface scene you are viewing can be accurately interpreted.

As you can see in this footage, the rotation correction to align the scene to the “horizon up” viewing perspective is an absolutely vital adjustment that must be applied first in order to be able to even begin attempting to analyze and interpret scenes such as this one accurately. Because the DAC camera was hard-mounted in the window of the LM during liftoff from the lunar surface, this meant that the standard locked display perspective that NASA provides in their archive clips showing the Apollo ascent footage is ALWAYS displaying the lunar surface scene below in an inaccurate perspective. For over 40 years, the public has actually been watching ascent footage like this from the various Apollo missions where the lunar surface after liftoff is being shown essentially upside down (between 135 to 180 degrees off of the “horizon up” viewing perspective).

The point to this simple presentation is to merely serve as a reminder to everyone who is interested in doing their own analysis of ANY of the Apollo DAC footage or still frames of the lunar surface to always consider the question of “what is the proper viewing perspective for each scene?” The ugly fact is that the vast majority of the Apollo DAC footage and still frames, as they are archived by NASA, are not presenting their lunar surface scenes to you in anything close to the proper “horizon up” viewing orientation that our eyes expect to see. Obviously, unless this improper viewing perspective is corrected for first, you have very little chance of being able to analyze the scenes you are looking at with any degree of accuracy at all.

In addition to the rotation-correction, I also was forced to make several frame-rate adjustments to this Apollo 11 DAC footage, and the reason for that is because just before the four-minute mark after liftoff, the 16mm DAC camera suddenly alters it frame exposure rate, switching from 12 frames-per-second (the proper declared setting for filming the liftoff and ascent) down to 6 fps. I have no idea how or why this sudden frame-rate setting change occurs, because adjusting the DAC camera’s fps setting “on the fly” was certainly not one of LMP Buzz Aldrin’s checklisted duties during ascent, and I see no mention in the Apollo 11 mission and post-mission reports to account for this anomalous occurrence. The Apollo 11 ascent footage, as it is archived by NASA, makes no attempt to correct for (or even draw attention to) this sudden step-down in frame-rate, which results in the raw archive footage appearing to suddenly show a doubling of the playback speed. In addition to this, NASA typically renders their HD digital DAC archive at 29.97 NSTC, resulting in further interpolation stretching being introduced in the digital footage. I have attempted to correct for this effect here in order to ensure that the playback rate of the DAC footage accurately matches the accurate timeframe that I was able to establish using the accompanying raw mission audio track and flown liftoff&ascent charts – essentially using the accurate audio timeline to re-synchronize the inaccurate video playback rate so they match up correctly for the duration of the nearly 10-minute complete sequence of footage showing the Apollo 11 ascent from Tranquility Base.
http://magic-ufo.forum-phpbb.in/t871-…
Cheers everyone,
LC

If you’d like to check it out, there is a nice discussion of this work going on over at ATS. Short so far and very well reasoned.

Down There! What IS That Thing?

eeasynow — May 12, 2010 — TSIOLKOVSKY’S SECRET http://www.boomslanger.com/apollo15.htm http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45jack_f…

I have seen this footage before and thought it most interesting. Featured from the beginning for a good while is the crater Tsiolkovsky, a geologically “young” crater that has inspired many for a long time.

This video is Apollo 17 Lunar Farside by Easynow of Pegasus and ATS.

There are a couple of researchers, including the inimitable John Lear, who feel strongly that that admittedly interesting mountain in the center(ish) of this crater, is in reality none other than the dirt-covered and parked tow vehicle that the Old Ones used when they put dear Luna in her place. Luna in this scenario is our Moon… as described in the reasonably popular Moon as an artificial body theory.

Apparently this occurred around 10 or 12,000 years ago. Many ancient cultures have accounts from a time when there was no Moon in the sky.

Thing is, though, that a lot of the natural processes on Earth are based on what the Moon’s up to; and those processes have to have taken quite a long time to get going and then develop, surely a lot longer than 12,000 years.

So, unless that “common knowledge” is somehow terribly wrong, how could there have been no Moon? But then again, a lot of respect and heed should be, I feel, given to the accounts of the ancients.

But, hey, dogma be damned, right? Yeah, that’s the spirit!

There are an amazing amount of strange things going on with the moon. Rare is the place that has even a tenth the number of oddities associated with it as our nearest neighbor.

I’m not at all sure what, but something… something… is just not quite right with our Moon. And there is a seriously strong desire in my heart to find out just what that something is.

Those two links up there are a great place to start if you want to dig into the Moon… that regolith’s good stuff!

Well, it’s three in the morning, I have no idea where my wallet is and a fear’s welling up something fierce… more coffee maybe, some comfort food maybe… oh, man… where… where?!

Apollo 17 Lunar Farside

LunaCognita Gets Forensic On Apollo

Ah, great, here’s the new vid from LunaCognita that looks into more of the footage shot during the Apollo missions. I posted a bit about the trailer for it a little while ago on this blog.

Actually, I’m holding out hope that this is only a part of a bigger picture… there’s some cool anomaly shots in it to be sure… including a truly inexplicable boomerang shaped thing… you’ll see… but my thirst for more and more weirdness is strong; and the second half presents a visual representation of the results of frame stacking, as explained more below.

Frame stacking is an old technique that can produce some seriously spectacular results unachievable by any other method… it is very commonly used by the astronomical community and professional photographers and photographic printers alike in a process called HDR, or High Dynamic Range photography. That’s printers as in people, not machines, by the way.

A very handy link was found at NASA’s History site in a section on Apollo 12’s approach and landing by Easynow over at ATS… it goes into some detail, with pics, about the DAC camera and its mountings, view angles and other good stuff… please do check it out, it’s pretty cool.

NASA’s Apollo Coverup – A Forensic Look At The 16mm DAC Film Footage

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LunaCognita
March 16, 2010

In this presentation, we will focus on taking a closer look at several interesting segments of film footage from the NASA archives. All the footage shown and analyzed here was originally shot by NASA astronauts during the Apollo missions (1968-1972) on 16mm film, using what was known as the “Data Acquisition Camera” – the “DAC”.

The Maurer “DAC” cameras were modified variable frame rate 16mm motion picture film cameras used by the various Apollo crews throughout their missions to film scenes of interest through the windows of the spacecraft, interior spacecraft activities, as well as to shoot exterior footage during lunar surface “moonwalk” operations and Low-Earth Orbit or Trans-Earth-Coast EVA ops in cis-lunar space.

I included a bit more information on the Apollo DAC camera in the brief writeup I did attached to the earlier teaser/trailer video for this presentation – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo81LM…

FRAME-STACKING
In the last half of this presentation (starting at 4:30), I show various examples where I employ an enhancement technique known as “frame-stacking” against the raw DAC archive footage. In certain cases, frame-stacking can be employed to forensically attack the raw frames of film and produce an enhanced composite still-frame of a stable (or motion-stabilized) scene. It should be noted that “stacking” is by no means a new method of enhancing video or motion picture film footage. It is a digital enhancement technique that has been around a lot longer than most people would probably believe, and in many cases it can provide us an improved look at some of the deeper image detail that is actually buried beneath the random “noise” in the raw footage.

Frame-stacking exploits the fact that the DAC footage, like any motion picture camera or digital video footage, is comprised of many sequential still images shown in rapid succession to simulate the appearance of motion to the viewer’s eye. If the raw footage is providing us with a stable (or motion-stabilized) scene that has no or little movement in the field-of-view, it might appear that the scene is comprised of many individual photographs that all seem to capture the identical view. However, appearances can be deceiving, and the truth is that each of those individual frames making up the raw film footage have slight variances between them, with each one suffering from its own unique random noise artifacts. “Stacking” works by analyzing and comparing all the raw frames that make up a segment of footage, allowing for the detection and subtraction of random noise artifacting from each individual raw frame. Those individual cleaned frames are then stacked together in order to construct a high-resolution composite image of the captured scene.

The first two examples I show in the frame-stacking segment were included merely to demonstrate the effectiveness of this enhancement technique when employed against raw archive footage of a known object – in this case, an Apollo Lunar Module. The first example is film footage from Apollo 9 taken in low-Earth orbit with an automatic 16mm DAC camera mounted to the open hatch of the CSM aiming “up” towards the Lunar Module (which was docked to the nose of the CSM at the time). Astronaut Rusty Schweickhart (LMP) can be seen standing on the porch of the LM, where he was conducting an EVA to test and verify the performance of the Apollo A7-L spacesuit and PLSS life support pack. A magnified split-screen closeup of the LM’s Rendevzous Radar Antenna allows for a direct comparative analysis of the raw footage versus the “stacked” enhancement as an example to demonstrate the improvements in clarity that can be gained.

The second demonstration example is not actually DAC footage, but rather is television footage from the Apollo 15 mission showing the LM “Falcon” sitting on the lunar surface, taken with the tripod-mounted GCTA-TV camera. I chose this example of raw GCTA-TV footage because it clearly suffers from rather severe noise issues, providing another good demonstration of the enhancement potential that frame-stacking can offer. As you can plainly see in both the DAC and GCTA-TV examples showing the LM, the stack enhancements offer considerable improvement in image clarity, allowing us to extract detail that in some cases may appear to not even be detectable when viewing the raw footage.

This presentation here is just the first part of a multi-part series focusing on the truth (and the lies) in the Apollo DAC footage. Hope you enjoy, and stay tuned for more to come!

Cheers,
LunaCognita

Keep them coming, LC, we be diggin’ it…

What the hell was down there?!

Yes, indeed… just what in the hell was down there?

I’d really, seriously, like to know…

Was just catching up on my reading over at SHTF411.com by checking out Ocker’s latest post called NASA’s Images and strange Lunar anomalies which presents the nice little video he just made and thought I’d share an extract from a reply therein made by the tireless Pegasus Research Consortium researcher known only as Exuberant1 which I think should, by rights, set off at least a few curiosity triggers in my reader’s heads… because Lunar (not to mention all the other bodies out there) anomaly research needs all the warriors we can muster, after all. And don’t worry, there are more than enough of them to go around.

There’s a lot to be gleaned by careful reading of the transcripts of the astronaut’s conversations during the missions, and the different copies of them, and listening to the recordings… (those that have been released, anyway), for insight into some of the things that went on up there. As you’ll see below, there are spots within them that can really set off one’s imagination.

So here ya go… dig it, droogies…

An Apollo astronaut can hardly believe it….

Sometimes the astronauts got disturbed and they just didn’t want to look down at the moon at all….

It turns out that there is so much stuff on the moon, that it is enough make a man’s head hurt:

(John Young, Apollo 16)

He wouldn’t look. There was too much he didn’t understand…

..And it had nothing to do with the albedo or sunlight.

What could possibly be down there that that would make one of our Finest not want to look at it, what did he not want to see?!

What did he not even want his friend Charlie to see? What the hell was down there?!

Perhaps it had something to do with “them”:

“Just keep on the book”

“That’s why I’m purging the fuel cell”

-Charlie already knows, and that is why he is busying himself…

So again, I ask you… just what in the hell was down there?

Apollo. LunaCognita looks at 16mm Film Anomalies.

Madonne! Oh, man, is this good, folks… wicked good, even. Yes, dear readers, once again LunaCognita has managed to knock my socks right off with this video. Needless to say, I can hardly wait for the full version… because there are objects filmed here that I’ve not seen before, and they are spectacular. Where in the heck does LC find this stuff?

I imagine they’ve been ordered from the NASA archives, but how does one know which ones to buy? Connections within the Pegasus Research crew certainly help in that regard, but still… Oh, and, we mustn’t forget that most of the film that was shot hasn’t been released, still, as far as I am aware… oh how we’d all love to see those.

There is so much material at NASA that is classified… one wonders, if there’s nothing of interest up there besides a bunch of cool minerals… then why is there a need for assigning classified status to images, film and research documents at all? Hmmm?

This film can give some insight into that conundrum.

Amusing it is how the trolls and troglodytes commenting at YouTube call this ice and junk falling off the command and LEM modules. Too funny. Junk? Right, we build such fragile craft… Ice? Umm, this is the Moon, dude… Jeez!

Enjoy the mystery…

Hi everyone,
This brief presentation you will see here is just a bit of a teaser/trailer, showing a short segment from a larger video project I am currently in the process of working on. While the full presentation is still awhile away from being complete, I have received more than a few emails asking me about when my next video was going to come out, so I thought that in the interim, I would release this short segment just as a teaser to show a taste of some of the interesting visuals I plan to include in upcoming presentations where I will provide my own analysis of some of the Apollo-era films. All of the footage you will see here was captured on film during the Apollo missions to the Moon, shot by NASA astronauts. Originally exposed on 16mm film, this footage was taken using what was known as the “DAC” – the “Data Acquisition Camera”.Hope you enjoy,
Cheers!
LunaCognita

THE “DAC”
The Maurer “DAC” cameras used to shoot this footage were modified variable frame rate 16mm motion picture film cameras that were used by the various Apollo crews throughout their missions to the Moon to film scenes of interest through the windows of the spacecraft, as well as to shoot exterior footage during lunar surface “moonwalk” operations and Trans-Earth-Coast EVA ops in cis-lunar space during that return-to-Earth phase of the missions.

When it was being used in “automatic” mode, the DAC camera could be set by the astronaut to expose the film within it’s magazine at one of three set frame-rates – 1, 6 or 12 frames-per-second. In the 1 fps mode, the DAC also could be (and occasionally was) used as a still picture camera to shoot single frames of film.

When placed in “semi-automatic” mode, the DAC camera also offered a 24 fps filming capability, although that mode was used somewhat sparingly during the Apollo program as it only allowed for a maximum 3.7 minutes of run time before a film magazine change was required. More typically, one of the three different “auto” modes were used in order to take advantage of the frame-rate control capability to optimize film usage. These slower frame rate settings of course means that when filming in one of those modes, the DAC was functioning more as a sequential still camera rather than a true 24fps motion picture camera (I realize all motion picture film cameras are essentially stop-motion sequential still cameras, so I am referring to the frame-rate playback issues here). The DAC camera could be used as a hand-held movie camera or it could be hard-mounted to various points inside or outside the spacecraft (or to the LRV or the MET during lunar surface ops) in order to provide a stable platform and hands-free filming capability.

LunaCognita
January 20, 2010

YouTube commenter VideoGearHead said… (I thought this was nice…)

1:38 WTF?!!
1:48 busted-up glass dome?
2:21 fractured moon?
Wowa!

5 million stars!

One more thing…and this frosts my jaw the most…I watched the missions to the moon. I remember when I was in the Boy Scouts spending two bucks to have my name put on the Voyager craft. I remember waiting in anticipation to see really cool pictures of our own solar system – Saturn etc. – and remembering them not being what I expected and having to wait YEARS to see them.

Thank YOU for your vision!

Luna. 1969. Moltke. Roads. Triangular Roads.

Spotted by easynow at ATS, this new videoclip by LunaCognita is pretty wonderful.

Okay… first, though… stare awhile at and contemplate the above image. It’s an image of the “crater” called Moltke, from the Navy space program, i.e. the real one, (Shhh!!!) from the Clementine craft, specifically. Not one of the high-res ones, but hey, it serves the purpose for here I think. Yes, it is blue. Yes, that’s the right color. Glowing, even. Pretty flat. With at least three buildings.

And… roads!

Roads?! Whaddaya mean, roads? Says who? Some nutjob tinfoil blogger dork?

Nope.

Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot Mike Collins. Note that the roads are described as being triangular. Triangular? Triangular? Yeah. That’s what he said… Triangular roads.

I’m still attempting to visualize just what, exactly, that characterization means… all the scenes I’m coming up with are pretty rad, but I just know that ‘paling in comparison’ to what these dudes clapped eyes on is the ultimate understatement.

It would, of course, be most helpful – to everyone – if the Powers That Be would simply let Mike Collins tell us what he saw, but as will become tragically clear to you from watching the video, that just ‘ain’t gonna happen’ in our lifetime… unless we… well… I’ll leave that to your imagination.

I’m hoping part 2 comes along soonest. :)

Okay… After you watch the video and are suitably filled with that sense of Whoa!, scroll back up and gaze into the depths of the picture of Moltke “crater” again.

Edit-add: You can download the audio clips for the mission. This particular one is here and the comments in question are about 2/3 of the way in.

In this examination into NASA’s “black box” transcripts, we will look at just a few of the many interesting and revealing comments made by the astronauts throughout the Apollo program that were captured by the CSM’s DSE system, as well as touch on some of the scripting protocols employed during the various TV broadcasts made from the CSM during the journey to and from the Moon and while in lunar orbit. Contrary to what many think, those TV broadcasts were in fact elegantly scripted affairs, designed to rigidly control the amount of data that we, the general public, would have available to analyze. Because of this, the DSE and DSEA internal crew conversation transcripts can provide us, in the astronauts own words, an unscripted and less-guarded insight into some of the incredible things they really witnessed during their journey to and from the Moon.

During the Apollo lunar landing program, NASA made use of two primary flight telemetry/voice recording systems aboard their spacecraft. One of these systems was inside the Command/Service Module, and the other was mounted within the Lunar Module. These two systems were known as the DSE (aboard the CSM) and the DSEA (aboard the LM). The “Data Storage Equipment” systems essentially served as Black Box cockpit voice recorders, designed to tape some of the internal conversations between the astronauts while they were out of radio contact with Mission Control in Houston. After contact was re-established during the flight, Mission Control could then dump (downlink) the recorded data from the CSM to Earth, where it would be analyzed.

Unfortunately, NASA today claims that the original DSE Black Box tapes from the Apollo missions are missing and are presumed lost. However, these DSE recordings were transcribed shortly after the contents of the tapes were originally dumped from the CSM to the Earth, and several years after the Apollo program ended, these transcripts finally were declassified and then released to the NASA archives.

In coming segments, we will examine many more impressive statements made by the NASA astronauts that were captured by the various cockpit voice recording systems utilized during not only the Apollo program, but during the earlier Gemini Earth-orbital flights as well. There is much more to come!

Cheers,
LunaCognita

All the transcript pages shown in this presentation are official source documents, the online versions of which can be accessed @
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/missi…

Enjoy. Oh, hey, this is the 100th post. Cool.

Lunar Mining Technology Developments

For a number of years now, work has has been proceeding in order to bring prefection to the crudely conceived idea of a machine that would work to not only supply inverse reactive current, for use in unilateral phase detectors, but would also be capable of automatically synchronising cardinal grammeters. Such a machine is the ‘Retroencabulator’. Basically, the only new principle involved is that instead of the power being generated by the relaxive motion of conductors and fluxes, it is produced by the modial interactions of magneto- reluctance and capacitive directance.

The original machine had a base-plate of prefabulated amulite, surrounded by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in direct line with the pentametric fan, the latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzelvanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar vaneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented. The main winding was of the normal lotus- o-delta type placed in panendermic semiboloid solts in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a non-reversible tremi pipe to the differential girdlespring on the ‘up’ end of the grammeter.

Forty-one manestically placed grouting brushes were arrranged to feed into the rotor slip stream a mixture of high S-value phenyhydrobenzamine and 5 percent reminative tetraiodohexamine. Both these liquids have specific pericosities given by p=2.4 Cn where n is the diathecial evolute of retrograde temperature phase disposition and C is the Chomondeley’s annual grillage coefficient. Initially, n was measured with the aid of a metapolar pilfrometer, but up to the present date nothing has been found to equal the transcetental hopper dadoscope.

Electrical engineers will appreciate the difficulty of nubbing together a regurgitative purwell and a superaminative wennel-sprocket. Indeed, this proved to be a stumbling block to further development until, in 1943, it was found that the use of anhydrous nagling pins enabled a kyptonastic boiling shim to be tankered.

The early attempts to construct a sufficiently robust spiral decommutator failed largely because of lack of appreciation of the large quasi-pietic stresses in the gremlin studs; the latter were specially designed to hold the roffit bars to the spamshaft. When, however, it was discovered that wending could be prevented by the simple addition of teeth to socket, almost perfect running was secured.

The operating point is maintained as near as possible to the HF rem peak by constantly fromaging the bituminous spandrels. This is a distinct advance on the standard nivelsheave in that no drammock oil is required after the phase detractors have remissed.

Undoubtedly, the Retroencabulator has now reached a very high level of technical development. It has been successfully used for operating nofer trunnions. In addition, whenever a barescent skor motion is required, it may be employed in conjunction with a drawn reciprocating dingle arm to reduce sinusoidal depleneration.

Luna. 1972. Trash Dump. Site Inspection.

Sticking with the lunar theme, here we have a crop from a moon photo, AS16-116-18603, taken by the crew of Apollo 16. The original, as released, can be found at a couple of places, though the Apollo Archive has the cleanest one. There are a couple of other pictures of this spot as well. Inspiration to do some personal exploration into these photos was provided by Keith Laney via his page on this image entitled Apollo Digs #2.

Above we see a crop of the main grouping of strange objects in this apparent junkpile on the surface. The astronauts, Commander John W. Young and Lunar Module Pilot Charles M. Duke Jr., made it a point to get a few shots of this scene and they took one of an intrepid explorer posing nicely alongside it, digging into the ground for samples. Apparent is what seems to be a pile of half-buried and lightly encrusted hardware; a slab sticking upright at a jaunty angle, a flared cylinder just beyond it, to its right a solid cylindrical shaft and a few smaller suspicious objects closer to the camera to boot… hmmm.

This image puts a serious stretch to the believability band regarding the remote possibility that these objects could have come to be eroded into these shapes… and all together like this… via a natural course of events.

The one right below is shaped very, very much like a support base, or perhaps a shelf extension to a desk, complete with a reinforcing bar and stand on its underside. Note the nicely radiused corner. Note that although sturdy it’s not that thick and said thickness is uniform. The support bar/stand assembly is pretty heavy duty, good for holding up something reasonably weighty. I wonder if they took this thing back with them. I certainly would have.

Below is item two in the series, just to the right of our slab above, a cylindrical shape of robust thickness and uniformity with a well defined lip and what looks like a circular depression at the center of the interior surface. What appear as gear-like teeth can be seen along the rim. A couple of small “rocks” in front of it are mighty gear-looking as well. Could this really be erosion, or pareidolia? How? Tell me!

The Astronauts were obviously most intrigued by these objects – and they were right there – up close and personal. And being deadly serious military men I imagine they truly didn’t have either the time or the inclination to mess about.

So, here they be. Make of them what you will…

Luna. 1972. On The Way To Nansen…

Here’s the original image.

This shot’s quite famous, too, perhaps more so than the glowing green critter lurking in the deep boulder shadow from a few posts ago. This is Apollo 17 image catalog number AS17-135-20680.

When you look at the original, at first glance you might even throw it away as it’s overexposed greatly. Still though, a second glance reveals a faint form in the center… just enough to cry out to the viewer to try to bring it out. It looks as though there might be a pyramid there. 

And, lordy, as you see above… there is!

Nicely shaped, too, no? I’ve enhanced this a few times over the years and this one turned out the best I think. Those of little imagination claim we’re all nuts and  it’s just a pic of the floor of the car, as the NASA catalog lists it as:

AS17-135-20680 (OF300) ( 209k or 1402k )

LRV Floor? Sunstruck.

That’s only because the previous two shots actually were shots of the floor of the rover. The two before that are shots of the rover’s seats. What the brain-challenged skeptoids disregard is that question mark you see there. They’re good at that. And it is obviously pretty well sunstruck. But not well enough, thank the deities.

Too bad they didn’t hang about, but they had other tasks. The primary mission of Apollo 17, unlike the blather released to the people who paid for all this, i.e. you and me, now seems to have been the clandestine investigation of a feature called Nansen, an apparent opening into the rather geometrically shaped massif that is a good candidate for a structure.

Upon landing on December 19, 1972, they immediately went all out to get there. Went right to it. Fast. When they got there they went to great lengths to hide what they were doing and position cameras so we couldn’t see. So even Houston couldn’t see. Anything. They did get lots of Hasselblad shots down there in that alien hole, though. How many were released, you ask? You guessed it. None. To this day. You should learn about this mission. It’s pretty exciting stuff. For further enlightenment, thankfully Mr. Keith Laney has written a wonderful series on the whole escapade that you simply must read if lunar anomalies are your thing.

Update: There’s a video on YouTube that stars this image. It’s very good, too!

Aerial View: Copernican Mining Co., Ltd.

And ladies and gentlemen, to our left just below is the headquarters of Copernican Mining Co., Ltd., that looney lunar leader in processing titanium and fine minerals… (ahem) yes… this was snapped in 1967 by the Lunar Orbiter 5 probe as it soared high over the magnificent crater Copernicus.

Via a link in the Fortean Phenomena Again group, this info was revealed to me… it’s at the Paranormal News site – via a reader’s email, which included the above video and a few photos, one of which is below.

It’s yet another strangely suspicious-looking structure on the lunar surface, complete with a totally different albedo than the surrounding area and a nice assortment of reasonably intricate geometric forms within its confines. None of which suggest geology, of course.

So, what do you think? Heap o’ rocks? Trick of light and shadow? Maybe something else? You can tell what I’m thinking by this post’s very existence, but why not download the image for yourself and blow it up a bit… just for fun. 

From the video’s info block:
What do you think ? How would NASA explain this ?

Official image :
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lun…
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lun… (5151_h1)

Eastern Oceanus Procellarum, Mare Insularum, Copernicus Crater / (~) 9.3° N, 19.25° W

Music : Nada Surf – Where is my mind (Pixies Tribute)

If someone can help for the structure’s scale…