The 2016 eclipse photo I analyzed changed my whole moon landing stance

I pulled a 2016 shot from a friend's DSLR in Oregon, same lens settings as an Apollo shot, and the shadow angles don't line up by about 11 degrees. I used to wave off lunar landing doubts as noise, but this specific comparison has me digging into amateur tracking data. Has anyone else run a side-by-side angle check on NASA images and found something off?

2 comments

2 Comments

abby_fisher1d ago

@the_robin, did you check both shots against a flat-plane sun model or just eyeball it?

the_robin1d ago

Oregon in 2016 was a total eclipse path, so the sun was fully blocked there, but the Apollo shots were taken with the sun high and full, totally different lighting conditions. An 11 degree shadow difference probably comes from lens distortion or the time of day, not a cover up.