Author Topic: Panorama's from Apollo video (Read 7348 times)

apollo16uvc · « **on:** May 28, 2019, 04:29:52 PM »

I love making widescreen, high resolution composites of Apollo video. As the camera pans around I stitch the frames.

This works in all directions and with skew, even with 16mm when the rover was moving.

Three made from an Apollo 16 rover traverse, 16mm source:

(Video processed by Retro Space)

Made from TV camera pans:

ka9q · « **Reply #1 on:** May 31, 2019, 10:50:16 AM »

Nice work!

Dandy · « **Reply #2 on:** July 17, 2019, 07:03:25 PM »

I had an apollo pan printed a few years ago. It is 110 inches wide. Looks amazing but I still haven't figured out how to frame it. Glass cut to that size is too expensive. Anyway, I love the pans. I wish I knew where to get high quality DAC footage (other than youtube). I want the full res raw scans. I spoke to the librarian at LPI and he invited me to bring hard drives to copy what he has. Unfortunately he wasn't able to tell me what it was he actually had but informed me that it was hundreds of terabytes and I was welcome to stay and copy what I wanted. Cannot afford the hard drives it would take but LPI is not far from where I live so I might just go see what he's got.

Kiwi · « **Reply #3 on:** July 18, 2019, 08:24:34 AM »

This website has panoramas you can view onscreen and you might be able to get copies:
http://www.panoramas.dk/moon/mission-apollo.html

I just Googled "apollo panoramas" and got 283,000 hits. There appears to be new stuff released because of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.

There might not be any panoramas from the DAC cameras and the video was low-resolution. But there are a fair few panoramas made from the Hasselblad slides and negatives that are high quality, especially with the help of modern computer graphics.

Have you any idea of which panorama you have? Some of us here would recognise it if you don't and can post some recognisable scenery. I have heaps of panoramas on DVD, of varying quality. You can look at all of them at the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal--
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/

All of the image libraries for each mission have a section "Assembled Panoramas" and some of them have large captions. I've just counted about 81 links for Apollo 17, and that's only the links to the GETs (ground elapsed times) in the Journal. There are plenty more links among the captions.

Dandy · « **Reply #4 on:** July 18, 2019, 04:19:37 PM »

Have you any idea of which panorama you have? Some of us here would recognise it if you don't and can post some recognisable scenery.

yes it's from AS17-147-22572 – AS17-147-22590

Kiwi · « **Reply #5 on:** July 20, 2019, 12:28:21 PM »

Quote from: Dandy on July 18, 2019, 04:19:37 PM

yes it's from AS17-147-22572 – AS17-147-22590

According to the captions for each individual photo, AS17-147-22589 and 90 are from another pan taken from a different position.

The ALSJ's details under Apollo 17's Assembled Panoramas:
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/images17.html#Pans

Quote

120:48:56 Jack's Color ALSEP Pan ( 478k )

The frames are AS17-147-22569 to 22588. USGS B&W assembly from the Professional Paper in a ( 1.7Mb ) PDF document produced by Brian McInall.

High-resolution assemblies of frames 22569-80 ( view to the north, 8 Mb ) and frames 22580-88 ( view to the south, 5.6 Mb ) by Eric Jones.

The first pan linked (478k) is an early black-and-white version, and the second one was also done before computer graphics, but the last two are well worth a look. High resolution colour expertly stitched by ALSJ author Eric Jones.

In the middle of Eric's pan of frames 22569-80 there is a rock just beyond and to the left of Gene and the rover, and showing over the top of it is a white drill stem rack, which Jack kicked over when he later did his spectacular arse-up (below).

Way beyond the centre of that rock and just above the local darker background, on the light side of the distant massif, is Turning Point Rock which Cernan and Schmitt drove around on the Rover and took photos of. And off to the right of that rock and a little higher up, is Tracy's Rock at Station 6. From there another panorama was taken looking back this way which includes the distant LM just to the right of the top of Tracy's Rock.

The distance is a little out of focus in this ALSEP pan because the camera was focused for the nearby equipment on the ground, but other photos taken from the ALSEP site show the distant rocks on the massif more clearly. There are also many black-and-white photos of them taken by Jack as they drove toward Turning Point Rock.

Jack's tumble:

Quote

121:00:59 Cernan: Does it feel like it's loosening up at all?

[On this stroke, Jack pushes so hard on the handle that his toes come up about a foot off the ground.]

[Schmitt - "I was putting every bit of weight and momentum into it that I could."]

121:01:02 Schmitt: Not yet. (Laughs) Excuse me.

121:01:05 Cernan: No, go ahead. (Laughter)

[Jack loses his balance and spins to the ground; he kicks the rack again on the way down.]

121:01:11 Cernan: (Both laughing) Okay, okay, okay.

[Cernan - "This part - where Jack spins around and falls ass-over teakettle - was the funniest thing in the world."]