The Conspiracy

It’s one of the most popular of the conspiracy theories, the one where everyone suddenly looks at the photographs taken on the lunar surface and realises: “hey, where are the stars?”

The conspiracy theorists use this one a lot, even though the explanation is painfully simple. The theory goes that the stars cannot be seen in the sky above the astronauts as they work on the lunar surface. So, obviously, the landings were faked and a plain black background was used. NASA, harbouring pretty much the most intelligent people on the planet and attempting to pull off the greatest fraud of all time, forgot to add some little twinkly lights to said black background – so there are no stars in the Apollo pictures.

The “Evidence”

Photographs such as the following, of Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface, are frequently used to back up this claim:

Stars? What stars? Dammit, we forgot something!

There’s absolutely no doubt about it; there are no stars in the sky above Aldrin’s head. Clearly, it’s proof – the landings were faked! The world has been fooled! Yadda yadda yadda…

The Reality

If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t see stars in the lunar landing photographs, firstly: stop trying. They’re not there. But there is a perfectly reasonable explanation. Firstly, keep this in mind: what a camera sees, and what the human eye sees, are very different things. Haven’t we all looked at a photographic of someone we know and said “that looks nothing like them!”. This is because cameras, compared to the human eye, are extremely inferior at capturing images.

It’s all to do with some basic photographic techniques, which is odd considering the stars theory was first presented by a man claiming to be an award winning photographer (who appears nowhere on the internet apart from in hoax theories – weird, that). The cameras used by the astronauts were made by Hasselblad, and for Apollo 11 the particular model was the Hasselblad 70mm EDC:

The Hasselblad 70mm EDC; the camera used on Apollo 11.

These cameras were particularly basic in their configuration; they needed to be, as the astronauts were on the moon to conduct scientific experiments, not take photographs. The cameras were extremely simple to use; put the right settings on the camera (done in the lunar module prior to an EVA), mount camera to chest, point, click. The cameras were also strapped to the space suits of the astronauts, which can be seen in this photograph:

Practicing using the Hasselblad's on earth.

So that’s the cameras – what about the stars? Well, it’s all one and the same, as the cameras are responsible for the lack of stars in the Apollo photographs.

As mentioned, the cameras – like any other camera of the day – needed to have the right settings, including light exposure. This may seem odd today, in a world of point and click digital cameras, but this was 1969. As Apollo 11 landed during the lunar daytime, the cameras were set to expose images of bright light. This is so the moon itself, and the white suit-cladded astronauts, could be seen. The shutter and aperture speeds were also set to focus on extremely bright objects.

When a photograph is taken on the moon with these settings, the settings focus on the bright images – the astronauts, the lunar modules – that are close to the camera. Objects further away – namely stars – are not near enough or bright enough to be seen on film. Compared to the brightly-lit astronauts, lunar module and lunar surface, the stars would have been extremely dim and therefore the cameras would not have been able to pick these out with the particular settings necessary for the astronauts to be seen. And what would you rather see – astronauts, or stars?

Quick Explanation

• So the astronauts and lunar module could be properly exposed in the photographs, settings were used to pick up brightly lit objects. The stars, in contrast, were dim; with the settings used on the cameras, they cannot be seen.

Oh, And…

If the Apollo photographs did show stars, it would be better proof of a faked landing. As NASA would have had control of the “backdrop”, they could have made the stars bright enough to show on film alongside the astronauts.