China lunar mission readies for return to Earth

Re: Sunlight

"neither image has been doctored"

At least to add the Chang'e, unless there is ANOTHER craft or it ejected a camera with a radio link

Re: Fake

A properly exposed image of the moon usually requires speeds greater than 1/100th second.

To even start to get enough light to pick up a star you need more than 2 seconds. Anything less and you kiss good bye to the stars.

That is why those night shots of cities show where the car headlights have been but not the cars themselves.

Re: Probably fake

Well from hours of mun missions in KSP, if you get that view then your way off the orbital ecliptic and in for some serious fun on the way back. So I guess it's a mash up.

Re: I suspect fake

...you can tell from some of the pixels.

Re: Should be pretty easy to see if it is fake or not

Most of us photo-astro-geeks are stuck on Earth but I can tell you that in this domain the word 'fake' gets a little blurry in order to sharpen the images.

The moon is a very bright object and it moves pretty damn fast relative to us. Not a big issue because you can properly expose it at 1/100th second depending on your ISO settings and atmospheric conditions. But....if you want details from the foreground on earth then you need a second photo with often a much longer exposure. Combine the two images and you have something the human eye can easily perceive.

The stars are another matter entirely. They are not bright and they are moving. Any exposure greater than a few seconds and your stars appear as lines. If you don't use long exposures then a single shot will not be enough to produce a workable image.

What many of us do is take multiple shots of the same area of space. We then use a piece of software that 'stacks' the images. This way we get stars that are not even visible to the naked eye.

This is one of the methods used on the Hubble and why those gyros are such a big deal.

Its very likely that this image is a composite and why the Earth and moon are ( more or less ) properly exposed. The only way to know for sure is to go there and see for yourself......