Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas of the Near Side of the Moon, By Charles Byrne
Using 21st century techniques, Charles Byrne, previously System Engineer of the Apollo Program for Lunar Orbiter Photography, has removed the artifacts and imperfections to produce the most comprehensive and beautifully detailed set of images of the lunar surface.
The book has been organized to make it easy for astronomers to use, enabling ground-based images and views to be compared with the Orbiter photographs. The photographs are striking for their consistent Sun angles (for uniform appearance). All features have been identified with their current IAU-approved names, and each photograph has been located in terms of latitude and longitude. To help practical astronomers, all the photographs are systematically related to an Earth-based view.
A CD is included with the book, providing the enhanced and cleaned photographs for screen viewing, lectures, etc.
The Far Side of the Moon: A Photographic Guide
The Far Side of the Moon: A Photographic Guide, By Charles Byrne
The far side of the Moon, also called the ‘dark side of the Moon’ was unknown to humanity until the Luna and Lunar Orbiter pictures were returned to Earth. Even since then, its nature has puzzled researchers. Now we know that a giant impact struck the near side with such force that it created the ‘near side megabasin’, opening the way for floods of mare and sending vast amounts of ejecta to the far side. “The Far Side of the Moon” explains this event and also documents the appearance of the features of the far side with beautiful pictures from Lunar Orbiter. As in the previous volume, “The Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas of the Near Side of the Moon”, the author has taken the original images and cleaned them of system artefacts using modern digital image processing. The best photographic coverage of the far side of the Moon has been the 150 photos taken by the Lunar Orbiter series. The other sources are pictures taken by the Apollo Command Module, which were limited to the equatorial regions, and the Clementine mission, which took pictures at a high sun angle that washed out the topography of the features. Until now, the far side Lunar Orbiter photos have only been available with strong reconstruction lines, but appear here for the first time as complete photographs, unmarred by imaging and processing artefacts. Also, this is the first book to explain in detail how the far side was deeply covered by ejecta from the Near Side Megabasin and modified by later impacts. A CD-R accompanies the book, and contains all the enhanced and cleaned photographs for use by the reader in screen viewing, lectures, etc.
Atlas and Gazetteer of the Near Side of the Moon
NASA SP-241, Gutschewski, G. L.; Kinsler, D. C.; Whitaker, E., NASA SP-241, 1971
Download document (190 MB PDF)
This atlas and gazetteer is a photographic and tabular compilation of named lunar features appearing on the near side side of the Moon. To provide an easy method of locating lunar features in the atlas, the names have been annotated on the photographs, which are accompanied by locational data regarding the named features.
Five indices comprising he gazetteer are provided for appropriate cross-referencing of the high resolution rbiter IV photography and the mediaum-resolution photgraphy onbtained from the other orbiter missions.
Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas of the Moon
By David E. Bowker and J. Kenrick Hughes, NASA SP-206, 1970
Download document (12 MB PDF) Online version (LPI)
During 1966 and 1967 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft to obtain photographs from orbit of the surface of the Moon. The reconstructed photographs and support data are now on file at the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC), Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The purpose of this Atlas is to present a selection of these photographs which provides essentially complete coverage of the near side and far side of the Moon in greater detail than any publication now in existence.
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The Moon as Viewed by Lunar Orbiter
By L. J. Kosofsky and Farouk El-Baz, NASA SP-200, 1970
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THE PROGRAM
The Lunar Orbiter program was conceived, together with the Ranger and Surveyor programs, with the primary objective of providing information essential for a successful manned Apollo lunar landing. The Lunar Orbiter program comprised five missions, all of which were successful. As the primary objectives for the Apollo program were essentially accomplished on completion of the third mission, the fourth and fifth missions were devoted largely to broader, scientific objectivesphotography of the entire lunar nearside during Mission IV and photography of 36 areas of particular scientific interest on the nearside during Mission V. Photography of the farside during the five missions resulted in an accumulated coverage of more than 99 percent of that hemisphere. The detail visible in the farside coverage generally exceeds that previously attained by Earth-based photographs of the nearside; in some areas objects as small as 30 meters are detectable.
Initiated in early 1964, the Lunar Orbiter program included the design, development, and utilization of a complex automated spacecraft technology to support the acquisition of detailed photographs of the lunar surface from circumlunar orbit. The five spacecraft were launched at 3-month intervals between August 10, 1966, and August 1, 1967.
In addition to its photographic accomplishments, the program provided information on the size and shape of the Moon and the major irregularities of its gravitational field. This selenodetic information was derived from the tracking data. Micrometeoroid and radiation detectors, mounted on the spacecraft for operational purposes, monitored those aspects of the lunar environment.
Guide to Lunar Orbiter Photographs
Thomas P. Hansen, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia
NASA SP-242
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The Lunar Orbiter program initiated in early 1964 consisted of the investigation of the Moon by five identical unmanned spacecraft. Its primary objective was to obtain detailed photographs of the Moon. This document presents information on the location and coverage of all Lunar Orbiter photographs and is one in a series of four NASA Special Publications documenting Lunar Orbiter photography. The others are references 1 to 3. Reference 1 contains 675 photographic plates and provides coverage of the complete Moon with more detail than any other publication. Reference 2 is a collection of approximately 180 selected photographs and portions thereof at enlarged scale, and includes captions for each photograph. Reference 3 shows each named feature on the near side on annotated highresolution frames from mission IV. It also includes (1) an alphabetical index of features, (2) cross-indexes between listings in the catalog of the University of Arizona and the catalog of the International Astronomical Union which was published in 1935, and (3) listings of named lunar features on the near side covered during missions I, 11, 111, and V, and their photograph numbers.
Lunar Orbiter Photographic and Supporting Data
NSSDC 71-13 May 1971
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This document contains photographic supporting data for Lunar Orbiters 1 through 5. These data, which were compiled by the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC), are necessary for the interpretation and analysis of high- and medium-resolution Lunar Qrbiter’photographs. This document describes and presents the NSSDC Lunar Orbiter Photographic supporting Data printouts. Definitions of the elements of the data base, and the search capabilities of the NSSDC system used to produce these and other printouts are also included.
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Data User’s Note: Lunar Orbiter Photographic Data
NSSDC 69-05, Beeler and Michlovitz, June 1969
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The primary purpose of this Data User’s Note is to announce the availability of Lunar Orbiter 1-5 pictorial data and to aid the investigator in the selection of Lunar Orbiter photographs for study. In addition, this Note can give some guidance to the interpretation of the pictures. As background information, the Note includes a breif description of the mission objectives and the photographic subsystem. The National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) can provide all forms of photographs described in the section on Format of Available Data. It is recommended however, that the user frst order the 35-mm film to facilitate selection of those frames for which high-quality reproductions are needed.
Seeing Boulders on The Moon
[Click on image to enlarge] Keith’s note: Tonight we are testing out our newest Mac computer at the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project located at NASA ARC. We’ll be using this machine (8 processors and 10 TB of storage) to do near-real time processing of imagery once we have pulled it off of original Lunar Orbiter analog data tapes using our restored FR-900 tape drives. We hope to do a live webcast this coming Thursday so that you can look over our shoulders as we bring another image to light for the first time in more than 40 years.
Tonight, as we were flying through a portion of one of the images we came across a boulder field. Here is the image archive at LPI – subframe H3, Framelet 323. The image was taken by Lunar Orbiter II on 20 Nov 1966 at an altitude of 52.2 miles with a ground resolution of 1.14 meters/pixel. The framelet image shown here is approximately 220 meters across. You can clearly make out a number of boulders around 1 meter in size sitting on the surface.
Lunar Orbiter’s Kodak Camera Profiled
The Kodak Lunar Orbiter Camera, American Society of Cinematographers Blog
“The recent media attention given to the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, with its dramatic restored video of Neil Armstrong’s first steps onto the lunar surface, has re-ignited our nation’s interest in extra-terrestrial exploration. But this mission would not have been possible had it not been for a series of lunar surface mapping missions that were made several years before. It is a story that is not as dramatic as that of the first humans to walk on the moon. But it is a fascinating story, nonetheless, of the way that the entire Apollo program pushed beyond the then perceived limits of technology. And the Eastman Kodak Company was a major player.”
“The recent AMIA (Association of Moving Image Archivists) symposium held at the Dunn Theater of the AMPAS Pickford Center in Hollywood featured jaw-dropping presentations by Al Sturm and Ralph Sargent of the history of this program as well as the forensic-like work to find and restore its lost images. It is this latter theme I will take up soon along with the recent new photos also taken by a high resolution Kodak digital camera.”
LOIRP Releases Recovered Lunar Orbiter III Image of Surveyor 1 On the Lunar Surface
This image (LO3_194_H3) was taken by Lunar Orbiter III on 22 February 1967 at 5:24:14 GMT at an altitude of 54.27 km above the lunar surface. High resolution frame 3 clearly shows the Surveyor 1 spacecraft sitting on the lunar surface complete with a long shadow.
Surveyor 1 landed on the Moon on 2 June 1966 in the Ocean of Storms (Oceanus Procellarum) at 2.45 degrees South latitude, 43.22 degrees West longitude.
Larger view
This image has been recovered in its original high resolution format by LOIRP staff from original Lunar Orbiter project data tapes using restored tape drive hardware and will eventually be submitted to the PDS (Planetary Data System).
A full resolution version of this image will be placed online at the NASA Lunar Science Institute.
The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) is located at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, CA. Funding and support for this project has been provided by NASA Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, NASA Innovative Partnerships Program, NASA Lunar Science Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, Odyssey Moon LLC, SkyCorp Inc., and SpaceRef Interactive Inc.
For more information on the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) visit https://moonviews.wpenginepowered.com
For information on NASA’s Lunar Science Institute visit http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov/
For information on NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate visit http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/
Surveyor I: Location and Indentification, Science
Science 11 August 1967: Vol. 157 no. 3789 pp. 681-684
DOI: 10.1126/science.157.3789.681
L. Harold Spradley, R. Steinbacher, M. Grolier, C. Byrne
Surveyor I landed on the lunar surface on 2 June 1966 and obtained more than 11,000 pictures of the environment with its television camera. The same region was photographed by the 24-inch (61-centimeter) camera of Orbiter III on 22 February 1967. Surveyor I has been located in these Orbiter photographs; its image was found and all search and identification criteria were satisfied by the site.
Related Document
Lunar coordinates of Surveyor 1, Charles J. Byrne, 28 April 1967
LOIRP and LRO Confirm That Humans Walked on the Moon
Yesterday the LRO team released a new image of the Apollo 14 landing site. You can clearly make out the paths that the crew walked as well as the location of the Apollo 14 Antares Lunar Module Descent Stage.
In June 2009 LOIRP issued its own view and analysis of this landing site – as seen by Lunar Orbiter III back in 1967.
Comparing our high resolution image of the site with that taken by LRO clearly shows no feature where Antares’ Descent Stage now stands [larger image]. While the resolution of the Lunar Orbiter image (0.8 meters/pixel) would probably not reveal astronaut tracks in great detail, we’re rather certain that it would have seen an object the size of Antares’ Descent Stage.
As such, we’re pretty certain that the Apollo 14 mission landed on the Moon!