Strange Lights Photographed From the Moon

[newyorklily]

This is a photo from Apollo 17. Just above the mountains on the right, is a triangle of lights. You need to enlarge the picture to see them well. This person does that in the video.


http://youtu.be/oKMA1esxof0

[majicbar]

This is a photo from Apollo 17. Just above the mountains on the right, is a triangle of lights. You need to enlarge the picture to see them well. This person does that in the video.


http://youtu.be/oKMA1esxof0

Link to NASA site: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-147-22470HR.jpg

There are issues with this claim which make it very suspect. The only archived images from NASA for scientific analysis of archive images are in TIFF format, all JPEG images have issues and artifacts which make them unreliable. In the original I do not see these lights ( in NASA's jpeg), and thus I'm forced to conclude that the image editor used by the poster has enhanced some JPEG defects in the NASA image. This is not the first time that such items have appeared and the old OMF and ATS are/were rife with them.

[Lee]

Thanks for poining that out, majicbar!

Any chance you could post an image comparison for others to see? This story seems to be making the rounds at the moment, and it's always nice to get a solid conclusion, even if it's not the one we want.

[newyorklily]

Yes, thank you, majicbar. Is there any chance you could post the original that you mentioned?

[Lee]

Here is a direct link to the image in question:

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-147-22470HR.jpg
(http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-147-22470HR.jpg)
As Majicbar mentions, it is a JPEG and not Tiff file, so JPEG compression artifact is a distinct possibility. When I zoom in on my Laptop here it appears as a cluster of coloured pixels, as one would expect from a compression artifact, and not three points of light.

Still, I'd like to see the original Tiff file for comparison, if anybody can find it.

[majicbar]

Yes, thank you, majicbar. Is there any chance you could post the original that you mentioned?

TIFF images are only available by written request and unless one has some use that NASA will recognize as a valid research request one has to pay a hefty price for such an image, at least what I'd consider a hefty price. I'll look and see if there has been any change in the NASA policy and I'll post what I find if that is the case.

Thus:

http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/ABOUT_SCANS/

http://geospatial.intergraph.com/Libraries/CaseStudies/Accessing_the_Apollo_Mission_Images.sflb.ashx

"Because the DSW700 provides such acute precision and detail, the scanned images are often too large to be viewed utilizing a standard Internet connection and web browser. Each full resolution, 4.5-inch square frame scan is stored as a 16-bit tiff, resulting in a very large file ( up to 1.3 gigabytes ). To make these large files accessible, the archives website ( http://apollo.sese.asu.edu? ) serves the images using Zoomify, a flash-based application allowing users to zoom into an image, loading on the portion being examined."...... (the indicated website does not have the individual photos from the hasselblad photos ).