Like a lunar landing, only rougher

Back in the late 60's, I watched everything that was on TV about the lunar missions. From the very first Apollo shots that just orbited Earth, through to the last trip to the moon, anytime there was live video, I was watching. I remember when Apollo 11 was orbiting the moon as the astronauts prepared for landing, the news announcers were talking about anything and everything they could dig up about the mission. That's what they always did, of course, and there was always interesting information, though usually what they put on TV just scratched the surface of the topic; it was just a teaser. I found that very frustrating. After all, we didn't have the internet. I couldn't run over to the computer and find out everything I wanted to know about any topic. Anyway, as the astronauts prepared for the first attempt at a moon landing, the announcers talked about some of the obstacles they would face. I've always remembered one of them; I just wish I could remember what it's called, too. It has to do with what you see, or don't see, when your head is directly between the sun and what you are looking at. Under that condition, there are no shadows where you are looking (except yours, of course). The effect is not very noticeable over short distances (like when you are standing on the ground and looking at the shadow of your head), but if you stand on a cliff in the desert and look at your shadow 50 or 100 feet away, it starts to show up. What you notice is that the area around your shadow looks brighter, and it is difficult to discern much detail. Color differences are obvious, but any contours or elevation differences are washed out and invisible. It's really obvious if you are in a plane flying over the desert southwest. You can't see the shadow of the plane, but you know it would be in the center of the bright, featureless spot below. Anyway, if you are piloting a lunar lander that is heading for a landing spot in that bright featureless spot, you may not be able to make out the large boulder there that will topple your lander when you set down on it. I bring all of this up because I bet that is what happened to the officer driving the patrol car in the first picture below. It was late afternoon and he/she was driving due east, and being February, the sun is just a little south. So the officer was going to pull into the median for some reason, and looked over there to check out where he was going, but the median along Apache Trail is pretty much barren so you don't have to check very closely at all. Without any shadows, the culvert would be invisible. I'm sure that was a very nasty surprise. (Click on the pictures to see a larger version.)

 

Look how green the lower slopes of the Superstitions are.

 

I drove on out towards Canyon Lake. On the way out there, I had an idea for a different kind of video. So here it is; Apache Trail from the viewpoint of my armpit. The wind kind of blew the camera around, so you might get motion sickness.

Oh dear, after more than an hour the video is still processing. I'll have to add it to the blog later.