Apollo 11 documentary

[Zirconia]

Beati Dogu said:

It's also 50 years today since Apollo 11 splashed down in the Pacific.

Over slept?
https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/

They are now connecting Columbia to the quarantine facility to get all that Arizona rock off.....

Edited by Zirconia on Thursday 25th July 21:43

[RobM77]

jshell said:

RobM77 said:

jshell said:

Have you ever changed anyone's mind? I haven't so I just let it go now. It's wasted enegy and quite unwelcome to the idiots!

I've never had anyone admit to that, but I'm fairly sure I've made some of them think and put them on the path to accepting that Apollo happened, which is all I intend to do. I find that if you're civil with people you can have a dialogue (I believe being rude to these people just bolster's their position), and then of course you can start being logical about the evidence behind Apollo and the impossibility of faking it.

Cool, I hope so.

I often ask if they believe in Concorde...

It’s a fair point! I realise that landing men on the moon was probably the single greatest human achievement in history, but there are an awful lot of immense human feats that these guys would accept, but aren’t as outwardly extreme, such as Concorde, but also things like cracking Enigma, sequencing the human genome, key vaccines like Polio, LIGO, the LHC, etc etc. Plus of course everything else NASA have done. I still think landing robotic probes on Mars safely enough to carry out experiments is utterly mind boggling.

[RizzoTheRat]

On a general Apollo theme, this week's Infinite Monkey Cage podcast panel has Apollo 9 LM pilot Rusty Schweickart, Apollo flight director Gerry Griffin, and Buzz Aldrins son and daughter. Plus they've released an older episode with Charlie Duke (Apollo 16) and 3 shuttle/iss astronauts.

[Eric Mc]

ash73 said:

I'm enjoying all the documentaries, there are a ton of them on iPlayer
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/group/p01z059t

Stargazing was good, Sky at Night was unwatchable

I even watched The Right Stuff again last night.

50 years on and no sign of going back, I'm starting to have my doubts...

Have you not been paying attention to what's been announced over the past few months?

[Zirconia]

I understand there are some rather more informed people than me that find the 2024 target a disaster waiting to happen.

[Zirconia]

Not sure anymore, but when it was announced there were some voices that were very concerned and not for missing the target date but loss of life as well.

But
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/vice-president-...

[Eric Mc]

They were too good at what they did and you find that disappointing? There's no pleasing some people.

[Eric Mc]

They've been around for a while and have appeared in some "coffee table" type books on the Apollo missions. They certainly give a better sense of place and location.

The astronauts were instructed to carry out panoramic sweeps with their Hasselblad cameras from which stitched together full panoramas could be constructed. The early versions of these panorama shots were published not that long after each mission. However, in more recent years, sophisticated digital techniques have been used to adjust for the obvious exposure difference between the different shots, which eliminate the join lines of each individual photograph and therefore allow the pictures to look seamless.

They also carried out a similar exercise of the Lunar Orbiter pictures which were taken between 1966 and 1968. Because of the scanning techniques used on the Orbiter spacecraft, the original pictures had very prominent scan lines. When they were tided up in recent years, some of them became totally stunning -

Original Lunar Orbiter "earthrise" shot from 1966 -



Tidied up version -

[RobM77]

Wow!

[Zirconia]

I have not delved in too deep but the copied articles from scans (most I think, but not all?)
http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html

And as the link says, they put a load up on Flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive...

Need to take note of the magazine types and names.

I did try a few years ago at stitching some up many years ago but software was not useful (never used or had photoshop). I have not tried with my more capable software recently. Might have a crack at it myself later on. e.g. Aldrins Z pan from the descriptors.

Note, these are not NASA uplinking the images, it is someone else who has been given access.

[Eric Mc]

Beat Bill Anders Apollo 8 picture by almost three years.

[Zirconia]

Liking my photo software better now. Three images stitched from the Flickr page, just messing for now.

[Eric Mc]

Not bad.

Have a go at some images from 15, 16 and 17 as the scenery on those missions was much more spectacular than on Apollo 11.

[Zirconia]

Eric Mc said:

Not bad.

Have a go at some images from 15, 16 and 17 as the scenery on those missions was much more spectacular than on Apollo 11.

On my list, I think they carried more capable camera's for the very purpose of panorama though 11 did the same.

Edit. Needs more work, 5 or 6 in here. Trick is tracking the sequence down and my software does left and right but some images seem to be up and down as well.

Edited by Zirconia on Monday 29th July 14:03

[Eric Mc]

ash73 said:

CSI "zoom and enhance"... how did they create the second image the information just isn't there.

I like the stitched together panoramics, keep them coming!

Probably using some sort of digital filler and cleanup process, similar to what Peter Jackson did with his recent World War 1 documentary where he cleaned and tidied fairly old and worn footage.

[gl20]

Finally got to see Apollo 11 today. Regular cinema, maybe 600 seats, just 4 of us in there.

Not much I can add to what’s already been said. It had a lot to live up to but it didn’t disappoint.

Some general observations from this past month of all things Apollo.

- As good as this film was, I preferred the music score for the C4 Moon Landing Live. The countdown and take-off sequence in that version was fantastic. If you’ve not seen it, take a look before they take it off the player.
- what I came to realise watching both this film and the C4 version was how nearly all other Apollo documentaries I’ve seen over the past 20 years or so tends to comprise the same bits of film and sound bites, just cut together differently. There was so much stuff in both these films that was new footage for me.
- of this new stuff, it was some of the most seemingly mundane things that made it all seem more human. Some of the shots of the van taking them out of the parking lot to the pad, the 3 of them going up the tower lift, the routine conversations en route to the moon and so on. I know all these things have been shown before but throwing in what seemed to be CCTV recordings or previously unused radio transmissions really added an extra dimension.

As an Apollo geek it feels like the rest of the world has now moved on from the anniversary and that it’s now going to slip from public conscience, particularly given the age of all those involved. I just hope that one day we’ll be able to see new shots of some of the landing sites, hopefully left untouched, to keep the memories going.

[Zirconia]

4k disc due out later this year.
November 4

[Eric Mc]

Zirconia said:

4k disc due out later this year.
November 4

One for my "to buy" list.

[Zirconia]

iTunes lists it as HD (pre order, no release date) but apparently has had a 4k bump in the States, I expect it will get a 4k bump in the UK but that is not certain.

But this is one for the hard copy. Apple TV stream 4k very well but there are just some that require the better bit rates.

Unfortunately it is only listed on Amazon pre sale at the moment and I am trying to avoid them. Giving it time for the others to see if they stock up.

[Beati Dogu]

Not specifically Apollo 11, but here's a nice look at some of the Apollo and Skylab hardware that's undergoing preservation at the Smithsonian before it goes on public display. Includes the lunar lander trainer, lunar buggy and a close up of a capsule.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFSnf0MSAFc