Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectroscope
Apollo 16 ALSEP Experiment S201
Apollo 16 magazine AS16-123
As far as we am aware, magazine AS16-123 has not been scanned in high resolution like most Apollo era photos. This is a shame, because the UVC is still the only telescope on an other heavenly body.
Like other Apollo magazines not online, or only in low resolution, it is a hole in space history.
And to make matters worse, only a few scans are readily available.
Here are the images we have found online so far:
http://www3.telus.net/summa/faruv/https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/apollo/apollo16/hires/s72-40821.jpghttp://www.masaakix.interlink.or.jp/apollo/d_apollo/apollo-16/ap16-exp-uv2.htmhttps://science.ksc.nasa.gov/mirrors/images/images/pao/AS16/10075873.jpghttps://science.ksc.nasa.gov/mirrors/images/images/pao/AS16/10075874.jpghttps://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015059991854As you can see, most of these images appear to be low resolution scans of later generation copies and prints.
So we decided to take matters into our own hands and ask NASA for the images:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/datasetDisplay.do?id=ASUV-00017We received the images.... and what we got were completely non-standard files not readable by normal image software. They appear to be raw bit streams taken from the tape. Luckily, information on how they were scanned and saved is available.
The Revised S201 catalog of far-ultraviolet objects has every image and inspects it in detail. A great source of information.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015059991854(If you are a partner of babel, please download the entire document and send it to us!)
After messing around with the files we received from NASA, we slowly but surely began to get recognizable images.
We continued to tweak them, until we finally got acceptable results. Since these are uncompressed scans of first generation negatives, they are of much higher resolution and dynamic range than many images on the internet.
We proudly present the files unconverted and converted to standard JPGs. This set includes UVC images taken on Apollo 16 and SkyLab.Apollo 16SkylabIf you come up with anything interesting, please share it with us!
Sincerely,
apollo16uvc