Why don't you see stars when a picture is taken from the moon?

Question

I saw this question in a newspaper today and I was quite interested. (It hasn't been answered yet).

But yeah, like when you're looking from Earth you can see the stars.

http://www.resonancepub.com/images/space.1.jpg

Answer 1

Ah yes one of the popular conspiracy theories. Seems like a good idea, but it really isn't. Don't be fooled!

There are SOME stars visible in a few photos, but in most of them, none are. Why is this? Its pretty simple. The moon's surface is HIGHLY reflective... as you probably know.... add all of this light that is being reflected off the moon, and some of it hitting the lenses of these crummy cameras from the early 1970's, and the end result is very few stars being visible. Have you ever tried taking a picture of stars with a digital camera these days? What do you get? Very few stars visible. Now there are special settings and cameras made just for taking pictures of the night sky, but the average digital camera does not get a good picture of these stars. And this is on Earth when the surface is dark! Imagine doing it on a highly reflective surface!

I hope you understand. That why there are very few visible stars on the moon photos, but we did, indeed go to the moon. If you have any more "conspiracy theories" that you would like us to refute, post some more. Or shoot me an email. I'd be happy to answer. I hate seeing people get confused by these awful theories which are nothing more than webs of misleading "information" and flawed logic. Don't become victim to these rags.

Answer 2

It's because the surface of the moon is so bright.  When taking pictures on the surface of the moon you would need to use short exposure times and large f/stops to avoid overexposing the pictures but at those settings the stars, which are much fainter than the moons surface, would not show up.   If you were actually standing on the surface of the moon you would be able to see stars, but only the brightest ones because of the light bouncing off the surface of the moon washes out the fainter stars.

Answer 3

Because the pictures are shot on the lunar day - do you see stars during the day on Earth? It is just too bright to see stars. But they are still there.

Answer 4

Because an exposure long enough to show stars would overexpose everything else in the picture.  Why don't you see stars on Earth during the day?  They are there, you just can't see them because they're washed out by the rest of the sky which is much brighter.  The moon does have a dark sky during the day, but the surface is so much brighter because of the sunlight that they are insignificant.  The same thing occurs when you take a picture of the moon from the earth.  Any exposure that shows the stars would make the moon a featureless ball of light looking sort of like the sun.  To show features, the exposure has to be short enough to not show the stars.

Answer 5

i think ti's because the camera's taking those pictures aren't light sensitive enough to take a picture of the stars..... i'm pretty sure you have to have like a long-term exposure to take a picture of the stars at night.  

Answer 6

The cameras were the Hasselblad 500/EL Data camera.  The modern equivalent is the MK70, but you can still pick up 500/EL bodies on eBay.  The film was Kodak Ektachrome E-3 at ISO 160 on a (then-secret) Estar base.  The lens was a 60 mm f/5.6 Zeiss Biogon.

The moon is, on average, about 12% reflective.  But that's still a lot of light.  We discovered that the photographer's "sunny 16" rule still works.  That's a rule for exposure that says, under sunny conditions, set your f-stop to f/16 and your shutter speed to the reciprocal of your film rating -- in this case 1/125 or 1/250.

With the MK70 and the same film and lens, I can't get stars to expose at f/5.6 and 1/60, much less at f/11 or f/16 and 1/125 or 1/250.  In fact, you need exposures of 15-30 seconds at f/5.6 (the widest f-stop) to see stars.  That's several orders of magnitude brighter than would properly expose the sunlit lunar terrain, the astronauts, the spacecraft, and what have you.

But earlier this year, working with high-quality digital scans from the camera originals, we were able to locate Venus in a few photographs taken by Apollo 14.  It's extremely faint, requires a lot of clever enhancement tricks to bring it out -- but it's there right where it's supposed to be.  Stars, however, aren't bright enough to get into the exposure "window" of normal photography.

Answer 7

because of the intensity of the light from the sun, not shining on it's own, but reflecting off of planet earth...

Answer 8

It's all to do with exposure. If you go outside on a sunny day and take a photograph, you might find that with 200 ISO film (or equivalent digital setting) you would have a shutter speed of typically 1/250th of a second at an aperture of f/11. Now go outside at night, point the camera at the stars and use the same exposure settings. You will obtain a completely blank picture because the exposure is way too short to pick up any stars.

Answer 9

Interesting - i've tried to take a picture from to top of Table Mountain, the lights of Capetown shines like diamonds beneath you, a beautiful sight, but the picture is just black - you can't even print it

Answer 10

photos taken from the surface of the moon were not intended to show stars. the white balance (aperature) blocks the dim light of the stars.

fact is,because of the lack of an atmosphere,far better photos of stars

could be taken than from earth.

yes, you can see stars in daylight,but from the bottom of a well.

Answer 11

It is not the intensity of the light shinning off earth that makes the stars dim out,yet the reflection of the moons incredibly bright surface light... If you were on the sunny side of the moon,it would be like being in a super bright white dessert,in which all surface rock and dust beam ton's of blinding reflected sunlight back up to space... This is why a full moon can brightly illuminate the earth... If the sky was viewed from the the dark side of the moon the stars would be quite brilliant to say the least... Jose

Answer 12

Because when taking a photograph on the side of the moon that has any significant sunlight, you'd have to stop down the aperture of the camera so much, that stars would not show up.

Here's a experiment you can do yourself to demonstrate the principle.  Go out sometime tonight and look at the stars.  Can you see them?  Good, now, walk directly under a streetlamp and look up at the lamp.  Can you see any stars beyond the streetlamp?  No, because the pupils of your eyes have constricted to adjust to the streetlamp, and the light from the stars is no longer sufficient to activate you eyes.

You can demonstrate the same thing by taking a bright flashlight and shining it in your eyes.  See any stars?

Answer 13

It depends on shutter speed - or how long the eye of the camera, the apeture, has been open.

To get star light you need to keep the apeture open for a long time to acumulate enough light hitting that spot of flim. This is so that enough light can convert enough silver particles on the film for the eye to see.

If the picture you posted had a fast shutter speed, then not enough light got through to register the stars (enough light was being reflected of of the Earth). If the shutter speed was slowed down to 1 sec, let's say, we would probably see the stars - but the rest of the picture would look overexposed. (Earth might look like a giant white spot!)

Hope that helps.

Answer 14

Because of the intensity of sunlight reflecting off the lunar surface. Remember dark and light is a relative principle.

Answer 15

Apollo astronauts used ordinary cameras on the Moon.  Expensive, high quality ones but ordinary just the same. They were not crummy and I believe Hasselblad is still making the same camera for serious photographers.

When taking pictures of the sunlit surface of the Moon, the spacecraft or another astronaut - clad in highly reflective white, they had to close down the diaphragm of the camera and reduce the time of shutter opening to prevent the actual subject of the photograph, which was NOT the sky, from overexposing the film.  The same would be true if they had taken digital cameras, the principles of photography are the same.  

Stars are distant and are weak sources of light.  Since the camera diaphragm and shutter reduced the light coming into the camera, the stars did not provide enough light to expose the film.  All that said, there are a few Apollo photographs which do show one or two of the brightest stars.

This is elementary photography.  Most people do not know it now because automatic exposure controlled cameras have dominated the popular market for 15 years or more.  However professional and serious amateur photographers still prefer to control exposure themselves.

Answer 16

because some percentage of the sun is always shining on the moon except during a lunar eclipse or maybe its the solar eclipse...i forget.