Apollo 8 Orbital Lunar Photography

Apollo 8 and its Orbital Lunar Photography

(glossary entry)
 
 

Historic photographs of mankind's first manned mission to the moon and back (december 1968)

Apollo 8's first photograph of Earth, made shortly after the start of the Trans Lunar Coast (TLC)
AS08-16-2581
- Already farther out in space than man has ever flown, Apollo 8's crew at 3,500 miles gaze down on the shallow Bahama Banks, turquoise against the darker, deeper Atlantic. Few clouds veil the southeastern coast of the United States and the West Indies, but to the northeast a huge storm system swirls over the ocean. The spacecraft has now kicked out of earth orbit toward the moon.
National Geographic, may 1969, page 609.

Apollo 8's first photograph of Earth's gibbous globe
AS08-16-2593

The very first B-and-W photograph of Earthrise taken by a human
AS08-13-2329
- Believed most likely to be Frank Borman's photograph, but it could be Bill Anders's. Taken looking across Pasteur with Pasteur G in foreground (Apollo 8 Flight Journal, David Woods and Frank O'Brien).

The very first COLOR photograph of Earthrise taken by a human
AS08-14-2383
- In this case it was made by Bill Anders (Apollo 8 Flight Journal, David Woods and Frank O'Brien).

Cover of LIFE (The Incredible Year '68, Special Issue).

Description

The mission of Apollo 8 was the first step in the manned orbital exploration and investigation of the moon's surface. It was also the first harvest of orbital handheld Hasselblad photography of the many (at that time unnamed) craters at the moon's Far Side.
  David Woods and Frank O'Brien have created many panoramic mosaics of the orbital Hasselblad photographs on which one could easily find his or her way on the moon! The use of Ben Bussey's and Paul Spudis' Clementine Atlas of the Moon, simultaneously with David Woods' and Frank O'Brien's online Apollo 8 Flight Journal are a real pleasure for those who want to know more about Apollo 8's photographed moon!
 
 

Guide to orbital pan-mosaics made by D.Woods and F.O'Brien (Apollo 8 Flight Journal)

AS08-13-2215 to 2227 : Southwest region of Mare Fecunditatis (Al-Marrakushi to the Colombo / Goclenius region).
AS08-13-2228 to 2237 : Montes Pyrenaeus. [This is not the Pyrenees - it is unnamed terrain] (Capella / Isidorus D / Rimae Gutenberg).
AS08-18-2828 to 2833 : view south over Mechnikov.
AS08-13-2310 to 2316 : Eastern rim of Galois.
AS08-12-2044 to 2075 : Pan 1: Korolev F to Amici T (LAC 87/ LAC 86).
AS08-12-2076 to 2105 : Pan 2: Racah X to Beijerinck D (LAC 86/ LAC 85).
AS08-12-2106 to 2123 : Pan 3: Beijerinck U to Chauvenet (LAC 85/ LAC 84).
AS08-12-2124 to 2135 : Pan 4: Shirakatsi - Danjon area (LAC 84/ LAC 83).
AS08-12-2136 to 2149 : Pan 5: Langemak to Pasteur G (LAC 83/ LAC 82).
AS08-12-2150 to 2163 : Pan 6: Pasteur G to Hirayama K (LAC 82).
AS08-12-2164 to 2177 : Pan 7: Hirayama K to Kiess (and Kastner S, aka Cellini)(LAC 82/ LAC 81).

See also:
Apollo 8 - 70 mm Hasselblad image catalog (in the LPI's Apollo Image Atlas).
And:
Apollo 8 Photography Index (all of Apollo 8's orbital photographs at Medium and High Resolution, by David Woods, Frank O'Brien, and Ed Hengeveld).
And:
[/Apollo%208%20Magazine%2013-E Apollo 8 Magazine 13-E] (an additional exploration and investigation of a partially indexed Hasselblad magazine on B-and-W film, by Danny Caes).
Apollo 8 Magazine 14-B (an additional exploration and investigation of a partially indexed Hasselblad magazine on COLOR film, by Danny Caes).
[/Apollo%208%20Magazine%2017-C Apollo 8 Magazine 17-C] (an additional exploration and investigation of a partially indexed Hasselblad magazine on B-and-W film, by Danny Caes).

Notes:
- Descriptions of Apollo 8's remarkable green-blue colored Hasselblad photographs and the crew's observations of the seemingly "colorless" lunar surface are included in the page [/Colored%20regions Colored Regions on the Moon's Surface (Part 1)].
- Observations of Earthshine (Ashen-Light) on the moon's near side, performed by William Anders of Apollo 8, are mentioned in [/Earthshine this page].

LPOD Articles

Humans First Leave Earth

Bibliography

Apollo 8: "A Most Fantastic Voyage", by Lt. Gen. Sam C. Phillips, National Geographic May 1969.
Apollo 8 Flight Journal by David Woods and Frank O'Brien.

Trivia, oddities, and unofficial lunar nomenclature

- AS08-14-2401 is one of Apollo 8's most reproduced color photographs of a region on the moon's Far Side. The photograph shows a near-terminator area at the basin Korolev.
  - Orbital Hasselblad image AS08-12-2052, which shows Korolev L' (5°30' south/ 157° west) on the floor of Korolev, is also one of the most reproduced photographs of a region on the moon's far-side, and it was seen in the episode Survival of the British sci-fi cult TV-series U.F.O. (by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, 1970). In that episode, a so-called "UFO" landed somewhere on the moon and was photographed "from a height of 10.000 meter". The so-called "UFO" was the small shadowed crater inside Korolev L. High-Resolution scan of AS08-12-2052
  - During the mission of Apollo 8, the elongated crater southwest of Korolev L was nicknamed The Keyhole (source: Apollo 8 Flight Journal by David Woods and Frank O'Brien).
  - The pronounced peak Secchi Theta (1°30' North/ 40° East) which looks like some sort of peninsula, was called Mount Marilyn by Apollo 8 astronaut James [/Lovell Lovell] (after his wife). One of the orbital Hasselblad photographs which was made by the orbiting crew of Apollo 10 (AS10-31-4521) shows Secchi Theta (Mount Marilyn) in close-up. Research Danny Caes.
  - To learn more about NASA's unofficial nomenclature at the [/Montes%20Secchi Montes Secchi]/ [/Maskelyne Maskelyne] region, please visit Phil Stooke's LPOD from September 10, 2007.
  - AS11-37-5446, made through one of LM Eagles small windows (Apollo 11), shows CSM Columbia over Cape Venus and The Cape (both west-southwest of Mount Marilyn). Research Danny Caes
 
 

SpaceX and the moon

If everything goes as planned, there should be a new manned circumnavigational lunar mission in (or perhaps around) 2018, very much like the mission of APOLLO 8 in December 1968, see: SPACEX TO SEND PRIVATELY CREWED DRAGON SPACECRAFT BEYOND THE MOON NEXT YEAR (article of February 2017).

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This page has been edited 1 times. The last modification was made by - tychocrater tychocrater on Jun 13, 2009 3:24 pm - mgx2