Photography on the Moon

I went to a talk last night of the SAS about the cartography they did back in the 60’s to plan for the Apollo Moon missions. One of the items on display was a Hasselblad 500 C/M camera.

This is a productized version of the model of camera that the Apollo astronauts carried on the Moon. They stopped making them back in the 90s but you can still get a mint condition one on eBay for about $1300. It is a beautiful piece of equipment.

Every photo you have ever seen taken on the Moon was with one of these, including the famous shot of Buzz Aldrin taken by Neil Armstrong.

I got that from the Hasselblad site. You should go to that link to read about the history of the camera and get a closer look at that photo (and many other ones). One of the things I learned yesterday is that if you look at Aldrin’s face plate, you can see (at the top and slightly left of the middle) a reflection of the Earth. :earth_americas:

Also, when the picture was printed on the front of Life magazine, they did a 60’s version of a “phtotoshopping”. They added in some background sky above Aldrin’s head since it was cropped too closely in the original.