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The original recordings of the first humans landing on the moon 40 years ago were erased and re-used, but newly restored copies of the original broadcast look even better, NASA officials said on Thursday.
NASA released the first glimpses of a complete digital make-over of the original landing footage that clarifies the blurry and grainy images of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the surface of the moon.
The full set of recordings, being cleaned up by Burbank, California-based Lowry Digital, will be released in September. The preview is available at www.nasa.gov.
NASA admitted in 2006 that no one could find the original video recordings of the July 20, 1969, landing.
[Editors Note: The link provided in the article takes you to the NASA homepage. This link will take you direct to the HD previews of the Apollo 11 moonwalks.]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VortexCortex on Thursday November 19 2015, @02:03AM
Since I was a youngling, I've always been fascinated by Cosmic Rays. With ordinary digital cameras you can pick them up hitting the CMOS here on earth. By comparing CPU output from a previously computed series of instructions you can also detect their frequency with a server rack. The ISS crew often reports seeing flashes, the effects of cosmic rays intersecting with the visual cortex and causing neurons to fire. They try to curl up and hide from them against whatever moderate shielding is available. With photographic film evidence of Cosmic Rays is even more prevalent because the film is "exposed" to them far more heavily beyond our atmosphere, and incredibly more so beyond our magnetosphere. Indeed, X-Rays were discovered by accident when some nearby film developed on its own otherwise "inexplicably".
The original airing of the Moon Landing appeared free of interference with cosmic rays, as were the photographic film rolls they brought back from the Apollo mission. There was a deal of static and interference, but no "inexplicable" bright blips as one would expect of cosmic rays. It's a shame the original video footage was lost (I'm sure it's in some rich person's collection, along with a Lunar rock or two). It's a shame VHS and Betamax TV recorders weren't invented yet and so citizens must rely on their recollection rather than their own tapes. It would be interesting to see what modern film analysis would reveal about the cosmic rays at the camera's location. Too bad this newly produced footage is "enhanced" to be even more "high quality" -- Erasing such evidence bearing "noise" from the signal. Oh well.
Now, don't get your pocketprotector in a wad, I'm not suggesting that we didn't ever go to the moon, but the last time NASA produced Lunar footage was 1972... and none of it has evidence of cosmic rays, which one expects would have been more prevalent than the events ISS experiences. I'm just wondering why that is, is all. That the original film of the Moon Landing is of little significance, IMHO, since we have copies. It's all the other lunar footage that has some scratching their heads...
There must be some reason why cosmic rays wouldn't show up on the live video camera's sensors, or the photographic film they took with them. Otherwise, when humans visit Mars they should just cover their suits and ships in 1970's era photographic equipment & film to protect themselves from cosmic rays.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Immerman on Thursday November 19 2015, @02:41AM
I'm not so sure. The camera would shielded from cosmic rays coming through the moon - that's probably more than half of the total off the top (since they landed in Mare Tranquillitatis, though I have no idea how high the basin walls would be on he horizon). Meanwhile the Earth's magnetosphere would be hovering almost directly overhead, shielding the moon from a sizable portion of cosmic rays coming from the opposite direction.
Hmm, actually the Earth's magnetosphere extends about 65,000km sunward (with the solar wind bow shock at 90,000km), and over 6,300,000 km anti-sunward. Compared to the 0.5 degrees covered by the moon's 1,737km radius, the magnetosphere would cover roughly 10 degrees sunward, and essentially to the horizon opposite. Assuming the bow shock would be fairly opaque as well, that could be increased by 50%. Incredibly impressive if it were visible, but not exactly a protective umbrella.
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Thursday November 19 2015, @02:50AM
The original airing of the Moon Landing appeared free of interference with cosmic rays, as were the photographic film rolls they brought back from the Apollo mission. There was a deal of static and interference, but no "inexplicable" bright blips as one would expect of cosmic rays.
Wait, are you assuming a TV cameras of the 60s is going to show the exact same bright blips that you might experience in your brain or optic nerve?
Photographic Film from the moon is full of anomalies. But cosmic rays are small, and at most would affect one or two particles of silver halide, which in turn are much smaller perceived film grain. The effect of the cosmic ray is tiny, and localized, and disappears into film grain.
Rays impacting on the CCDs used in TV cameras of the time would still only affect one pixel. Its a time limited incident. It disappears into the smoothing algorithms.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by physicsmajor on Thursday November 19 2015, @04:13PM
Mod parent up, mod GP down.
Frojack is entirely correct about the physics here. We see blips today because we use CCD detectors, and this radiation interacts much differently with film. The GP's armchair analysis is just flat out wrong.