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Apollo 11

Apollo 11 Photography Index (70mm and 16mm)

  • Source document: 1969-apollo-11-photography-index-70mm-and-16mm.pdf

  • Original: Apollo 11 Photography Index — 70mm and 16mm, “Preliminary Screening of Apollo 11 Photography,” prepared by the Mapping Sciences Laboratory, Science and Applications Directorate, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, 1969.

  • Available online: the underlying 70 mm/16 mm frames and indexes are served by the LPI Apollo 11 Hasselblad Image Catalog and the Apollo Image Archive support data.

Summary

Section titled “Summary”

A frame-by-frame catalog of the imagery returned by Apollo 11 — the working index a principal investigator would use to find a given photograph. The Mapping Sciences Laboratory screened 1,340 frames of 70mm (Hasselblad) and 58,159 frames of 16mm (Data Acquisition Camera) film, plotting the 70mm coverage on the 1:2,500,000 ACIC Lunar Planning Chart. The 70mm film is organized into lettered magazines (each frame numbered AS11-<magazine#>-<frame#>); for every frame the index records focal length, the principal-point latitude/longitude, forward overlap, approximate sun angle, camera tilt and tilt direction, photo quality, and a short description. It complements the surface-photography article (which covers the cameras and their scientific role) with the inventory of what was actually shot — the scaffolding for adding individual frames to this library later.

Key takeaways

Section titled “Key takeaways”
  • Cameras catalogued: the 70mm Hasselblad Electric Camera (60, 80, 250mm lenses) and the 16mm Data Acquisition Camera (5, 10, 15, 75mm lenses).
  • Magazine structure (70mm): each magazine maps to an AS11-NN number and a film type. The screening covers magazines N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, e.g.
    • N (AS11-36, color SO-368) — 141 frames; mostly translunar, last 28 of the lunar surface (numbered craters and “targets of opportunity”).
    • O (250mm) — lunar far side, a Sea of Fertility sequence, and nearside.
    • P (B&W 3400) — orbital lunar-surface photography; covers Landing Site 2.
    • Q (color SO-3400) — Tranquility Base and the landing area, shot from the LM and the surface.
    • R — frames taken from the LM (5433–5448 from orbit, with Columbia visible).
    • S (60mm, color) — taken aboard the LM.
    • T (B&W) — lunar surface from the Command Module at ~60 nmi orbit.
  • Surface stills live in Q, R, and S: “Most of Magazines R and S and all of Magazine Q were taken from the Lunar Module or from the surface at Tranquility Base” — these (not plotted on the chart) were assembled into photographic panoramas.
  • Cross-mission note: a number of Apollo 11 surface frames re-imaged bright-rayed craters first photographed on Apollo 10 from different look angles.

Image assets in this library

Section titled “Image assets in this library”

Eighteen 70 mm Hasselblad frames are reproduced in inputs/assets/ (NASA, public domain) and appear as hero images across the wiki — gathered in the gallery in Apollo 11 photographic index. Seventeen are from magazine 40 (“S”): as11-40-5866, 5872, 5874, 5878, 5883, 5899, 5903, 5921, 5922, 5923, 5927, 5935, 5942, 5948, 5950, 5952, 5954; one is from magazine 44 (“V”), as11-44-6634 — the ascent/Earth-on-horizon frame, a National Archives scan (NARA 16687388). All .jpg.

Concepts extracted

Section titled “Concepts extracted”