What Colour is the Moon? Part One | Online – Different Thinking Menu Main Home Page About AULIS About AULIS Editors / Authors AULIS Statement AULIS BOOK SHOP NEWS Items What Happened with Project Apollo?Apollo / Moon Apollo Investigation: ALL ARTICLES Inexplicable 30% reduction in the shadows of Apollo 11 - NEW Jarrah White's Column: No.5 - NEW Rembering Xavier Pascal - NEW How LBJ Mooned America Trajectory of Apollo 11 through the Van Allen radiation belts Most lunar rocks are soft - findings of Lunokhod-1 mission Short Apollo Astronauts: Apollo for Dummys Part Three The Rise and Fall of the Lunar Module: a Problem? Did faking Apollo start as a joke? Apollo 11 STD was in low-Earth Orbit Stanley Kubrick and Apollo: Pt Three How it was done Attempt at Deception by Word Manipulation Stanley Kubrick and Apollo: Pt Two Re-entry is a Drag: Extract from NASA Squirming - New Moon Order Why Flat Earthers are incorrect about the Apollo missions Lunar Geology and Ionising Radiation Miniature used for Apollo 17 lunar liftoff Apollo Ektachrome Film Subjected to a Vacuum Apollo Program Through a Prism of Critical Thinking Small Apollo 11 Astronauts: Apollo for Dummys Part Two LM Double Shadow Question Earth Photos from the Moon 3 Apollo Space Suits: Shenanigans Did this Saturn V get to the Moon? - 2019 Update Getting a Grip on the Apollo 11 CM Apollo for Dummys: Mannequins and Miniatures in Apollo Imagery Moon Landings - Propaganda Stanley Kubrick and Apollo: Pt One Stanley Kubrick and Georges Melies Kubrick Appendixes Debunking the Apollo Myth American Moon: a Review Apollo 12 and Surveyor3 Mystery Apollo 11: Second Light Source Apollo-Soyuz: The Joint Hoax? Apollo 14: Second Light Source How High the Moon? Mystery of the Rover Fenders CSM Orbit/LM Landing: Errors? Adam Ruins His Credibility Scott Henderson's Apollo Studies Lunar Laser Ranging: A Review Shadows in the Lunar Sky? The Apollo Myth: A Hindrance Odyssey of Lost Apollo CM April Odyssey/November Boat Scientific Analysis of images Apollo 17 Anomalous Ascent More Articles on Apollo Investigation Reviews & Testimonials Dark Moon Reviews Apollo Investigation: A-Z LISTINGSpaceflight How LBJ Mooned America - NEW Trajectory of Apollo 11 through the Van Allen radiation belts - NEW Launching into Space? Egos Beyond the Clouds Was Einstein Wrong About Gravity? Re-entry is a Drag: Extract from NASA Squirming - New Moon Order Flat Earth proponent kills himself in rocket launch Newly Discovered Space Radiation How Ancient Galaxies Lit up the Universe How to Build a Moon Base Any Hope for a Moon Base? Orion & the Van Allen Belts Van Allen Probes: New View of Belts Soviet Lunar Program & Space Race Space Travel could age Astronauts Prematurely When Russia Won the Space Race Virgin Galactic and SS2 Was Saturn V Underpowered? JFK: US-USSR Space Missions Antigravity: The Holy Grail Discrepancies in a CCTV Live Broadcast Hubble Telescope Trouble Gravity Mod Breakthrough Space Radiation Risks Mojave to Mars: Virgin Galactic US Missile Defense System Moon Plan Lacking Medical Effects of Spaceflight Gagarin: NOT the First Astro Secrets of Dark Matter Shuttle a Deathtrap Into the Lions Den at the British Intertplanetary SocietyMars / Earth AI and the Pathway to Mars - Home Page NEW Martian Moons: a Common Ancestor Martian Moons Orbit Hints at an Ancient Ring of Mars Was Einstein Wrong About Gravity? Newly Discovered Space Radiation NASA: Where to Land on Mars Mars Colonist Doubts Mission India Reaches the Red Planet Cydonia-Avebury: A Mars/Earth Connection The Face on Mars The Face on Mars Reviews US Planned One Nuclear Blast Two-Thirds: A History of Our Galaxy Two-Thirds - Synopsis The Hidden Alpha - Stephen Hawking Albert Einstein: Plagiarist? AULIS BOOK SHOP Reviews & Testimonials Stan Gooch TestimonialsOrigins Ancient Teeth Find Hints at Neanderthal Mixing Was Einstein Wrong About Gravity? Memories of Michael Glickman Cydonia-Avebury: A Mars/Earth Connection Stan Gooch: Ancient Mariners The SHIVA Syndrome Trilogy Neanderthals - Abstract Art? Voyages of the Magi Neanderthals did not have Hunched Backs More light on Neanderthals Gooch: The Neanderthal Legacy Neanderthal Update 2014 The Way We Are The Face of the Sphinx Origins Reviews & Testimonials 1 Who We Are and Where We Come From Two-Thirds: A History of Our Galaxy Two-Thirds - Synopsis Letter to Stephen Hawking Albert Einstein: Plagiarist? The Paranormal Excerpt The Paranormal Cities of Dreams Excerpt Cities of Dreams Neanderthal was Red-Haired Humans Interbred Colin Wilson on Gooch Andrew Collins on Gooch Dreamculture of Neanderthals Origins of Psychic Phenomena Origins Reviews & Testimonials 2 AULIS BOOK SHOPStream Movies Stream Apollo Movies What Happened on Moon? Pt1 What Happened on Moon? Pt2 Selection of Other FilmsPublications AULIS Publications AULIS BOOK SHOP AULIS Videos The Only Planet of Choice The SHIVA Syndrome Trilogy Other Publications PDF Books / Papers NEWS Items Reviews & TestimonialsSupport Contact AULIS AULIS BOOK SHOP FAQs PDF Downloads NEWS Items Privacy Policy Site Map Useful Website Links Apollo Investigation What Colour is the Moon? Part One by Leonid Konovalov Associate Professor Camera Department, Russian State University of Cinematography (VGIK) What Colour is the Moon? Part Two on Next Page What does the lunar surface material (moon dust) really look like? Is the regolith completely grey, as depicted in the majority of the Apollo photographs, or is the lunar surface actually brown? Is the Moon black and white or is it more colourful? It has been claimed that the lunar 'soil' looks more like black earth. To address this question, I have undertaken a very simple experiment. As the average reflectance of the lunar soil, the albedo, is known to be 7-8%, then with the help of a standard greyscale and a professional luminance meter used by professional cinematographers to determine the correct exposure, I selected an object of the same brightness as the lunar regolith. For this I used soil in front of my window. But because the wet soil was a somewhat darker than the required 7-8%, I mixed it with a small amount of cement as illustrated below: Then to determine the exact colour of the lunar regolith and not just its brightness, I used a X-Rite dtp-41 spectrophotometer available at our department at the University of Cinematography. With the aid of this instrument I selected a substance that most closely followed the spectral reflectance plots, taken from the book Lunar soil from the Sea of Fertility. I marked the visible part of the spectrum from 400 to 700 nm with two lines (vertical blue lines in the graph below): In the visible part of the spectrum, the reflectance spectra plot of the lunar soil rises almost linearly; in the blue portion of the spectrum, the reflection coefficient is lower, and in the red portion it is higher. That unambiguously indicates that the lunar soil is not grey but brown. I copied the values of the three curves corresponding to the diffuse reflection coefficient of the material from the Sea of Fertility (Luna 16), the soil from the Sea of Tranquility (Apollo 11), and the material from the Ocean of Storms into an Excel spreadsheet. I took a deep brown piece of putty. It transpires that the integral reflection coefficient of the deep-brown putty (modeling clay) is the same as the soil of the lunar maria. At this point the colour of the putty was more intense than the colour of the lunar surface. Therefore, by adding a small amount of blue putty to the brown I lowered the colour saturation (thereby increasing the reflectance in the blue-green part). And by adding some black putty I reduced the overall reflectance. After thoroughly mixing and rolling the putty into a smooth material and measuring it in the spectrophotometer, I obtained almost the same reflectance spectra plot as the lunar material samples from the Apollo 11 Sea of Tranquility. For comparison, I took a picture of a cube similar in colour to the lunar soil on a standard Kodak greyscale. The actual colour of the lunar maria is similar to the cube on the right below. This is what the surface of the Sea of Tranquility should really look like where, allegedly, Apollo 11 landed. Therefore I can say that in the photograph below (taken apparently by a probe two years before the Apollo missions) the colour of the Moon's surface is represented correctly: For some reason this picture is captioned "View from the Apollo 11 shows Earth rising above the moon’s horizon", as if this picture was taken by Apollo 11 astronauts in 1969. However, we have seen that the astronauts brought back pictures with differently-coloured lunar regolith (moon dust): Many people were discouraged by the fact that the Moon was not just grey, but blue-gray and grey-purple, and not brown. The following photograph is of Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11, July 1969). Below is a colour photograph of the Moon (recent image): I have reason to believe that the decision to depict the colour of the lunar surface material as being grey in the Apollo lunar surface pictures was taken two or three years prior to the Moon missions in 1966 or 1967, and was based on the Surveyor images. The pre-production had begun and the studio stage was set with this grey-coloured ‘soil’ for the simulation of the manned lunar landings. In the second part of this experiment I will explain why the material in the pictures turned completely grey. This is my specialist subject, for several years at the University of Cinematography I have been teaching the discipline of Chromatics and the issue of colour distortion – it is my favourite topic. Continued on Next Page Leonid Konovalov Aulis Online, August 2013 English translation from the Russian by BigPhil This article is licensed under a Creative Commons License See also: Aldrin Descending the Ladder, Mythbusters Exposed Leonid Konovalov Leonid Konovalov graduated with honours from the Camera Department of VGIK in 1987. Currently he is an Associate Professor of the Camera Department of the Russian State University of Cinematography. He was a camera operator or an additional camera operator on many films and series. He was camera operator on the movie The Belovs which received the State Award in 1994. Leonid Konovalov engineered the non-standard photographic films RETRO and DS-50 at the Shostka Chemical Plant "Svema" which were used in the production of 14 movies. In the magazine "Cinema and Television Technology" (in Russian) Leonid has published seven articles in scientific and technical topics. He also has written the book How to Make Sense of Films. Part Two, What Colour is the Moon? – NEXT Page AULIS Online – Different Thinking 1993-2022 AULIS Online | Articles and papers under Creative Commons Licenses | For more information please contact AULIS Publishers