I looked through all 14,227 Apollo photos… and made GIFs.
A few days ago Jared Kinsler compiled an excellent selection of the photos of the Apollo missions, which you should check out here:
I clicked through and had a look at the entire archive, and as it turns out, the Apollo astronauts had the same approach to photography that I do; that being: Take as many photos as possible and hopefully one will be good.
As a result, a lot of those 14,277 photos have been taken in bursts, which means once you’ve painstakingly arranged them into their correct sequence, (combined with some photoshop know-how) you can turn this…
into THIS!
This is Apollo 7; apparently they were practising a simulated Lunar Module rendezvous and docking with the S-IVB (which is the 3rd stage of the Saturn V).
Anyway, here below is Apollo 9 blasting off somewhere…
…and here’s Apollo 9 again, with Rusty Schweickart standing on the outside, because why not.
This is an ‘Earth Rise’ photo taken by Apollo 10, on their way around the moon. (although not the original ‘Earth Rise’)
I assume whoever took the next one was trying to make a panorama, so stitching those together almost gets you a little Google street view of the moon. This one is from the Apollo 17 mission (you can briefly see the moon buggy there)
Oh and if you’re wondering what the combined panoramic photo might look like, I got that covered for you too..
This next one is of the Apollo 17 Service Module taken from the Lunar Module. That open bay of instruments on the Service Module is called the SIM (Scientific Instrument Module) The SIM included a lunar sounder, an infrared scanning radiometer, and a far-ultraviolet spectrometer, and I have no idea what any of those do.
Here’s Apollo 12 with Alan L. Bean stepping on the moon, photographed by Pete Conrad. Conrad was a bit shorter than Neil Armstrong, so when he stepped onto the moon, said the (slightly less famous) words:
“Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that’s a long one for me.”
There should have been more photos of this mission, however Bean accidentally left a few rolls of film on the moon. The landing was also supposed to be televised, but Bean accidentally faced the camera right at the sun, destroying it more or less immediately. Good job Bean.
Here’s another good panorama, again with Apollo 12. Whoever took this panoramic did a great job, getting a full 360 degrees so the GIF loop that just loops seamlessly. (let’s face it, was probably Conrad)
As I’ve been perusing these photos I’ve discovered that every mission did a little panoramic at some point, and I gotta say, Apollo 14 might have done the best one:
Anyway, that’s it for now, but there’s plenty of more photos there, so I’m far from finished with this. Till next time.
UPDATE: You can find part two here.
(Oh, and if I got any of that info wrong on these, please let me know space-nerds! thanks!)
