posted 06-28-2016 09:06 AM               

Most of the time when you see Earthrise photos the moon is at the bottom with the edge in a horizontal plane and the earth above it. But I have also seen the moon on the right of the photo with the edge in a vertical plane with the Earth on the left.

What would have been the way the Apollo astronauts saw it when they came around the moon? I would like to hang my photo the way the astronauts would have seen it when they were there.

posted 06-28-2016 10:21 AM               

The astronauts in the command module could have been oriented in any direction when taking the photo and the CSM itself could have been oriented in any direction in all three axes as it orbited the moon or indeed spinning gently on one or more of them.

posted 06-28-2016 10:34 AM               

Some observations by Bill Anders about the photograph are:

• My side window was clear — the rest had some kind of oil scraped on them.
• Our objective was not to take pictures of the Earth. “Earthrise” isn’t that good of a picture if you really look at it; it’s not quite in focus. Photographers are probably jealous it was picked as one of the top pictures of the Twentieth Century, but right place, right time!
• Anders’ famous “Earthrise” image has, for its entire lifetime in worldwide publication, been printed backward. The error was not discovered until recently, when Goddard Space Flight Center engineers mapping and filming the moon’s surface via satellite attempted to re-create the famous image with high-resolution cameras, but could not duplicate the exact composition of the photograph, even on Apollo 8’s orbit path. A NASA technician in 1968 simply flipped one of the 10 or so 70mm negatives of the scene, Anders believes.
• The photograph, to be faithful to the way the Apollo 8 crew actually saw Earth rising over the moon that day, really should be viewed sideways. The spacecraft, in the eyes of astronauts, was coming “around” the moon, not flying over it. But technically, those are earth-centric semantics. In truth, it’s accurate either way, as there’s no real “up” or “down” in the zero gravity of space.
• My favorite picture was not Earthrise. It’s one where the Earth is sort of blurry and small.

posted 06-29-2016 06:40 PM               

Of course, I'm assuming the raw shots are direct scans from the film reels, and that the frames with images haven't already been flipped.

posted 07-07-2016 06:23 PM               

L-66-7999 shows the image in a conventional horizontal orientation. This is how, with "the picture of the century" proudly displayed before them, key members of the LOPO team reported the success of Lunar Orbiter I at a press conference in August 1966. Left to right are Oran W. Nicks, director of Lunar and Planetary Programs at NASA headquarters; Floyd Thompson; Cliff Nelson; and Isadore G Recant, the Langley scientist in charge of data handling for the spacecraft. At the podium is the U.S. Geological Survey's Dr. Larry Rowan, the young geologist who helped LOPO identify the most promising landing sites.

This detailed photograph dated December 14 1966 was captioned: Langley Center Director Floyd Thompson shows Ann Kilgore the "picture of the century."

This was the first picture of the earth taken from space, and was also called "the greatest shot taken since the invention of photography."

posted 07-08-2016 05:48 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by moorouge:
I always thought that it was generally recognised that the Copernicus crater taken by Orbiter 2 in 1966 was the "picture of the century."

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In the Time magazine article of December 9th 1966 Space: A New Look at Copernicus what was actually written was the following:

That photograph of the moon's Crater of Copernicus, said NASA Scientist Martin Swetnick, is "one of the great pictures of the century."

It is no wonder that some writers immediately classified it as the 'Picture of the Year'! [Some, with understandable enthusiasm, even hailed it as the 'Picture of the Century.']

posted 09-09-2021 09:43 AM            

The argument that "there is no up or down in space" is best seen when we look at a picture of the Earth-Moon system taken from a departing or returning spacecraft. In that case, it really doesn't matter whether the Moon is "above" the Earth or "off to the side." It isn't the normal "feet on the ground" perspective.

posted 09-11-2021 04:04 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Captain Apollo:
Wait — so is the photo still incorrectly flipped in most incarnations?

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I disagree. If you zoom in on a high resolution version of the image you’ll see that the land mass visible is West Africa and it is the correct way round. So definitely not flipped.

I have two signed versions of the image displayed, the standard in color, moon at bottom; and the higher resolution black and white, moon to the right.

posted 09-12-2021 07:12 PM            

NASA Goddard put out this video for the 45th anniversary of the photo that shows the spacecraft attitude in relation to the lunar surface combined with crew dialog.