The Apollo 8 astronauts performed lunar orbit insertion #OTD in 1968.
Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders became the first humans to orbit the moon, the first to see an earthrise, fifty three years ago today.
Anders spotted the Earth coming up over the Moon’s horizon:
"Oh my God, look at that picture over there! It's the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!"
Image: NASA
Take a minute to read about the OTHER great shot of the Apollo missions, the ONLY picture we had for many years, of the full Earth in one picture. It wasn't possible to shoot it until the last mission went around that side of the Earth, to target a landing on the western side of the Moon.
We never learned who took it - the guy nearest the one unstowed Hasselblad that had a moment during the crucial couple of minutes at 20,000MPH.
@RoyBrander
"The true camera image is upside-down by earthly standards, showing the South Pole at the top of the globe, because the camera was held by a weightless man who didn't know down from up. Most reproductions invert it to align with our expectations."
This makes me wonder if anyone has written a post-colonial critique of astronomical coordinates, I've never seen their global north perspective as starkly underlined as in the phrase "invert it to align with our expectations."
@mcnees
