This excellent photo shows Buzz Aldrin next to a foot pad of the Lunar Module, can you see anything strange?

A conspiracy believer told me that the photograph is obviously fake because:

• There is no dust visible anywhere on this part of the Lander?

  The surface consists of soft material as evidenced by the foot prints near to the camera.

  He suggests that the 30,000lb thrust rocket used to slow the Lander onto the surface is as powerful as one used on a Lear jet, yet it appears to have created no disturbance of the surface, nor raised any dust which would then have settled onto the foot pad. ( Perhaps they cleaned it before taking pictures!)

• There is a 'pool' of light behind Buzz, the background is out of focus and well 'filled in' shadows.These effects should not be seen on the Moon.

I say - Oops! The LEM did not have a 30,000 lbs trust motor because it weighed just under 33,000 lbs in earths atmosphere. Therefore in the 1/6 g gravity on the moon it would weigh approximately 5,500 lbs. The descent engine had a maximum rating of 10,000 lb but was throttle-able from 1,050 lb up to 6,300 lb, see Apollo 11 - The NASA Mission Reports Volume 1 page 62

The astronauts in Apollo 11 - The NASA Mission Reports Volume 2 page 65-66 talk of the dust being moved along the surface by the descent motor. They say that the dust was pushed out horizontally giving the surface an appearance of being on the move. See the picture below which is a part of image AS11-40-5920 See the part of the surface that is dust free? No crater was formed because the blast was deflected outwards.

As for the "pool" of light which is probably sunlight reflected off the foil sides of the LM and the other effects is due to photographic exposure

Note that the top photograph is looking the same way as the famous Buzz photograph