Property developer Greg Lach has dedicated much of his free time and attention to restoring images from Apollo missions using modern photographic restoration techniques, giving new life to these historic photographs.
Photo 5903 features the iconic “Man on the Moon” image of Buzz Aldrin descending the Lunar Module ladder. This picture has been color balanced and lens vignetting removed; additional strong gamma curves were employed to enhance clarity of Aldrin’s blast trail descent engine blast trail.
Photo 5903
The moon is our nearest celestial neighbor that humans can explore, inspiring many to dream of someday visiting its vast reaches. In 1969, Apollo 11 took us one giant step closer towards this goal. To commemorate 50 years since this historic mission took place, take a look at these spectacular images that capture our lunar neighbor like you have never seen them before!
Historian Andy Saunders spent years meticulously going through 35,000 NASA images as part of a personal project to restore them using modern photo restoration methods. Apollo Remastered, released to coincide with its 50th anniversary, contains a wealth of new information about some of space exploration’s greatest moments ever undertaken.
Each astronaut was equipped with a Hasselblad camera that used film three to four times larger than 35mm frames; this enabled them to capture extraordinary detail in their photographs. Saunders’s remastering process requires carefully reviewing every image to ensure it remains as visually appealing and historically accurate as possible.
Apollospace owner Jeremy Theoret uses digital enhancement techniques to restore color, contrast, and clarity of original photographs – while not losing any of their unique details that make each photograph truly extraordinary. From childhood on, Theoret collected astronaut autographs and space photos while watching Gemini and Apollo programs as an aspiring astronaut himself; eventually this passion led him to create Apollospace: a website selling prints of NASA archival images such as posters, T-shirts, postcards that feature remastered photos from astronauts’ time on the moon!
Young and Duke stopped on Stone Mountain during the second day of their lunar voyage for some additional samples. Their lunar rover drove to its top, offering stunning views. From there they used a small rake to collect soil and rock samples; hoping to discover volcanic material because some higher landforms may have been formed by volcanic activity on Earth; instead they mostly found impact breccia material instead.
Armstrong became famous for taking selfies while on the surface of the Moon with his iconic boot print photo and enhanced image using Saunders’ imaging techniques to allow astronauts to be seen at their natural sizes, truly standing as a testament to humanity’s first lunar landing mission.
Photo 5902
Remastered photo from Apollo 16 shows astronauts John Young and Charles Duke on the moon’s surface during their exploration mission, launched April 16, 1972 and ending 11 days later with them returning back home after conducting experiments and studying their home planet more.
Duke and Young pose with a small rock. They were looking for evidence of breccia, or fragments of other rocks fused together by impact, in this sample rock. Thanks to their extensive geology training, the astronauts quickly identified which type of rock they were studying correctly while simultaneously using their rover’s magnetometer to accurately map out Moon’s magnetic field.
Apollo astronauts were often focused on scientific missions, yet occasionally would take a break for something fun or personal. Alan Shepard used Apollo 14’s moon mission to bring golf balls, then play some rounds with fellow astronaut Edgar Mitchell.
Gemini and Apollo astronauts took numerous photographs with Hasselblad Lunar 70mm cameras during both programs, which were later scanned and converted to digital format for display on NASA’s website. Many of the resulting high-resolution images had never before been seen by the public – now, using modern image enhancement techniques, photographer Andy Saunders has taken 35,000 original digital images from NASA and brought them back to life, producing a striking new book called Apollo Remastered.
NASA spacecraft could store up to 160 color and 200 black-and-white photographs in each film magazine during their missions. After they returned home, these magazines were indexed according to their original letter references (M through P) so astronauts could review all images after each mission.
This iconic photo from NASA’s Apollo 11 mission, led by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, depicts them just prior to returning home after conducting their first spacewalk for sample collection on the moon’s surface. This picture is widely considered one of the earliest shots released of astronauts on the Moon by NASA – perhaps even becoming its signature image!
Apollo astronauts were not only dedicated to their work, but they were also great fun! They took some truly stunning photographs throughout the program that have since become iconic images. You can purchase prints of these wonderful shots at Apollospace gallery; prints come in various sizes that can be customized according to your preferences – they even carry books! Additionally, you may want to visit this collection of items such as Apollo t-shirts.