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  Apollo-era photographs: NASA archives vs wire

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Author Topic:   Apollo-era photographs: NASA archives vs wire
Mike_The_First
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Posts: 436
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2014

posted 09-13-2017 05:46 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Mike_The_First   Click Here to Email Mike_The_First     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I was browsing completed sales on eBay (182734857765) and I came across this Apollo 13 wire photo.

I recognized it immediately as I had just been looking at the same picture (S70-34986) a couple of days ago on NASA's archive.

But it looked a bit off to me, so I pulled the archive image back up, which raised multiple questions for me.

  1. Which one is mirrored and which is true to life?

  2. Why is one of them mirrored and is this common for photos from that era?

  3. Who wrote the captions and which one is accurate?

  4. Is it normal for whichever one has the inaccurate caption (either wire photos or photos from the NASA archive) to have inaccurate captions?

randy
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Posts: 2176
From: West Jordan, Utah USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 09-13-2017 06:36 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for randy   Click Here to Email randy     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
In answer to the first question, I believe the one on eBay is the mirrored image. I have seen the NASA photo other places and it's always the same orientation.

I don't know about the other questions. I'll defer to those more knowledgeable than me.

Philip
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Posts: 5952
From: Brussels, Belgium
Registered: Jan 2001

posted 09-13-2017 06:53 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Philip   Click Here to Email Philip     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Look at the NASA stickers of Gemini XI, Apollo 1 and 8 in the background to find the right answer.

Blackarrow
Member

Posts: 3118
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 09-13-2017 08:56 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Blackarrow     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Never mind eBay, NASA itself is wrongly displaying their own photograph on their own website in mirror-image format. Anyone can make a mistake, but wasn't there a suggestion in an earlier thread that NASA personnel are, for some bizarre reason, doing this deliberately?

Robert Pearlman
Editor

Posts: 42981
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 09-13-2017 09:12 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
That suggestion seems implausible for the simple reason that due to budget constraints, there is no one at NASA actively working with the photo archive, other than in response to specific internal and external requests.

Blackarrow
Member

Posts: 3118
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 09-13-2017 10:12 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Blackarrow     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I'm inclined to agree — after a quick look through other images on the NASA site, I can't find any other obvious examples (certainly not among the most iconic images). So it's screw-up rather than conspiracy?

ColinBurgess
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Posts: 2031
From: Sydney, Australia
Registered: Sep 2003

posted 09-13-2017 03:52 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for ColinBurgess   Click Here to Email ColinBurgess     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
JL Pickering and I had a similar discussion a couple of years back about a number of NASA Mercury, Gemini and Apollo images that were printed the wrong way round. It only becomes obvious when you see watches on the wrong arm, NASA logos back to front, and other indicators. I think laziness might have been a contributing factor.

Blackarrow
Member

Posts: 3118
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 09-13-2017 04:43 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Blackarrow     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Would that be deliberate laziness or careless laziness?

heng44
Member

Posts: 3386
From: Netherlands
Registered: Nov 2001

posted 09-16-2017 06:18 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for heng44   Click Here to Email heng44     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
It happens sometimes that NASA photos are printed "mirrored." I always look for clues like signs in the background, the flag on a spacesuit or (in this case) the breast pockets on the shirts. These are almost always on the left side, so the wire photo is correct. Another clue is the way a shirt or coat closes: left over right for male and right over left for female.

LM-12
Member

Posts: 3207
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010

posted 09-16-2017 11:22 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for LM-12     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Photo S70-34412 is another backwards image in the Apollo 13 gallery.

All times are CT (US)

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