A Comparison of Lunar Orbiter and LRO Images of the Apollo 11 Landing Site

This video compares the best Lunar Orbiter Image and one of the best LRO Images of the Apollo 11 landing site. The photos were taken over 40 years apart. The Lunar Orbiter photo was taken in 1967 before Apollo 11 landed on the moon, whereas the LRO image was taken on December 22, 2009 and shows the LM Eagle's descent stage resting on the lunar surface.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NASA
• Apollo
• lunar
• reconnaissance
• orbiter
• photographs
• images
• GSFC
• ASU
• space
• moon
• rocket
• astronauts

[1MtnBoy]

Dennis Wingo currently has the Orbiter Image Recovery Project in CA, restoring and helping publish them now. From what Dad has told me, these Orbiter #5 2m resolution photo's were VERY sensitive, incriminating and classified for a long time. Thanks for posting !

[GoneToPlaid]

@1MtnBoy True. I haven't done any research, but I would suspect that the Apollo 15 through 17 panorama camera photos, taken from the CSMs with the classified ITEK spy cameras were also classified due to their extremely high resolution. The ITEK cameras were remarkable marvels of mechanical and analog computer engineering.

[UndeadPizzaGuy]

Such crisp images! Would you be able to do the same for the orbital photographs of the MER rovers?

[GoneToPlaid]

@UndeadPizzaGuy I should, if the photograph of the MER shows a strong glint of sunlight off of one of its solar panels. I can then use the glint to create a point spread function (PSF) for the entire image since the optical system of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is similar to the LRO NACs. Presently I can't afford image deconvolution software which automatically derives a PSF for an image in order to deconvolve the image if no pinpoint like glints are available in the image.

[GoneToPlaid]

@UndeadPizzaGuy In a nutshell, the reason I am able to deconvolve the LRO images of the Apollo landing sites using my current image deconvolution software is that there are numerous small pieces of metalized Kapton film (similar to aluminized Mylar) laying all around each landing site. These small pieces of Kapton film were blown off the descent stage when the ascent stage took off from the moon. Bright glints of sunlight off of the pieces of Kapton serve as a PSF for the image.

[1MtnBoy]

@GoneToPlaid From what I have learned there was a lot classified during Gemini & Apollo due to the incriminating nature of the technology. as I mentioned earlier, any evidence of our ability to resolve 2 meter images on film would have jeopardized every satellite we had at the time.

[1MtnBoy]

this is cool, My Grandpa & Dad both worked on this program 1966-67.

Gramps was a JPL mgr upgrading Goldstone making midnight drives from Montrose and Dad was at Lockeed in Burbank working on the 70mm camera bay. I have only seen a few pic's. This was all classified, Heady times ! if the USSR knew we could take 2m resolution photo's it would jeopardize every satellite we had overflying them. These original hi-res photo's were never released to the public.

[Globalizator1]

@GoneToPlaid Ok images of moon surface are true but traces of humans and vehiles look very poor for recent technologies. Videos from the Appollo landigs showed that there were no any tracks but recent images (Lunar Orbiter) show pretty deep tracks.

[GoneToPlaid]

@Globalizator1 Actually it is an indisputable fact that Gagarin was indeed the first astronaut in space. Exactly what evidence contradicts the Apollo moon landings or even more specifically the Apollo 11 moon landing? More importantly, the Apollo 11 LM's DAC movie footage shows extremely small boulders and craters which have only been confirmed by the LRO images taken during the last two years, proving that the DAC footage was both real and impossible to fake.

[Globalizator1]

@GoneToPlaid Decided to protect US patriot? As a Russian I can assume that our cosmonaut wasn't the 1 in the space. But there are 100 facts that prove that, at the same time NASE gives evidence that contradicts you moon "Odyssey".