50 Lovingly Restored Photographs Of The Earth Taken By Apollo Astronauts
50 Lovingly Restored Photographs of the Earth Taken by Apollo Astronauts
For his Earth Restored project, Toby Ord digitally remastered 50 photographs of the whole Earth taken by Apollo astronauts during their missions in the 60s and 70s.
The Apollo photographs are historic works of art. So in restoring them, I sought to bring out their own beauty. I refrained from recomposing the images by cropping, or trying to leave my own mark or interpretation. Perhaps in some cases this would make a more pleasing image, but it was not my aim.
And the Apollo photographs are also a scientific record of what our Earth looks like. In particular, what it would have looked like from the perspective of the astronaut taking the shot. So rather than pumping the saturation or adjusting the colours to what we think the Earth looks like, I wanted to allow us to learn from these photographs something about how it actually appears.
Many of these shots are new to me – the Apollo program and its scientific and cultural output continue to be revelatory 50 years later. (My only quibble here: the images on the website are not high-res. Would love to see much bigger versions of these.)
More Posts from Scenesofspace and Others
A solar eclipse (left) happens when the moon gets in the way of the sun’s light and casts its shadow on Earth. During a lunar eclipse (right), Earth gets in the way of the sun’s light hitting the moon.
The last shuttle
Toute la nuit sous la lune ronde à faire le tour de l'étang
Bashô / © Pascal Picco, Pleine lune du mercredi 8 avril 2020
Earth and Moon
Here's What 10 Million Stars Look Like
Using the Dark Energy Camera at the Cerro Tololo observatory in Chile, astronomers took an image of the stars clustered around the center of our Milky Way galaxy that shows about 10 million stars. Check out the zoomable version for the full experience.
Looking at an image like this is always a bit of a brain-bender because a) 10 million is a huge number and b) the stars are so tightly packed into that image and yet c) that image shows just one tiny bit of our galactic center, d) our entire galaxy contains so many more stars than this (100-400 billion), and e) the Universe perhaps contains as many as 2 trillion galaxies. And if I’m remembering my college math correctly, 400 billion × 2 trillion = a metric crapload of stars. (via bad astronomy)
Sunset On Pluto
via reddit
LA-LA LAND-ING The space shuttle Endeavour, perched atop a specially-modified NASA 747 jet, approaches Los Angeles International Airport last week. The retired spacecraft will be towed to its new home at the California Science Center. (Photo: Stephen Confer via NASA APOD)
Circling the Sun (Mercury meets Venus)
The Sun rises over Earth in a postcard illustrated by Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, recalling the 1965 mission when he became the first human to walk in space.
latest Pluto images released Sept 10, 2015 by NASA. Second to last is Pluto’s moon Charon. Last is the original “up close” image of Pluto. Images taken by NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft.
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