Earth Rise

[Mike Farley]

The story of how Bill Anders tokk one of the most iconic photos of all time. It runs for just under seven minutes, time well spent. My favourite part is when Frank Borman says "Hey don't take that, it's not scheduled".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE-vOscpiNc

[Mike Farley]

There is some further information about the Earth Rise photo at the link below. I had not realised that there was also a mono version of the shot as well as the more famous colour one. Nor that there was some debate as to who actually made the exposure, with both Bill Anders and Frank Borman claiming authorship. That probably accounts for the strange bit at the end of the video when the image is credited to all three astronauts as a team effort. And it seems that it might have been Bill Anders, credited with a dry sense of humour, was the person who actually said "Don't take that" just before Frank Borman made the initial mono shot. *

http://history.nasa.gov/ap08fj/14day4_orbits456.htm

The mystery about how Bill Anders apparently loaded a 120 film magazine so quickly has also been explained elsewhere - the astronauts had preloaded magazines and had only to attach them to the back of a camera. That's logical, as loading a film in the confines of the command module is one thing, doing the same operation in a space suit on the surface of the moon is something else entirely.

* For those seeing this post for the first time as a result of following the link I included in my newsletter, I did not find this additional information until after I had sent it.

[davidc]

I'm massively interested in the whole of the Apollo program (and spaceflight in general, hence the subject of my degree ) and it certainly is one of the best photos ever taken IMO. It's mentioned in the 2nd link that Andrew Chaikin wrote the fantastic A Man on the Moon book and it's one I can definitely recommend.