P3D Re: Moon Landing VM

[aifxtony@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Tony Alderson)]

There has been some discussion of how the lunar flight stereos in the VM
packet were made, especially as some flat images were included due to
historical significance.

To my knowledge, the only stereo camera on the Apollo missions was a
close-up camera intended to record rock samples in place before collection.
It was on the end of a pole so the astronauts (restricted by their bulky
suits) did not have to bend over to take the picture. (They also had scoops
to pick up the samples.)  I think this camera was only carried on the
earlier landings. Only the film cassette returned to earth.

The moonwalkers did the "astronaut shuffle" (shifting weight from one leg
to another) to take stereos with the cameras mounted on their chests.
Apparently none of these images were included on the VM reel, but there are
some more Apollo stereos on the 3DCD.

The images of the moon from lunar orbit may well have been deliberate
stereos--stereo mapping of the moon was an objective of both the Apollo
missions and the earlier Lunar Orbiter.

I believe all the other stereos (such as the command module in lunar orbit)
were time/motion parallax pictures, either from still sequences or motion
picture exerpts. One tip-off for this is the CSM literally coming thru the
LM window in the last pair on the last reel (C-7). I am pretty sure none of
these are conversions.

Stereo World reprinted an article about the Apollo stereos in the
July/August 1990 issue (vol.17 no.3)

Also, there was an earlier posting from someone about astronomical
stereography. I was hoping somebody with some knowledge of the subject
would reply, but that doesn't seem to have happened. So I will offer a
couple leads I have stumbled across.

Charlie Piper has an extensive discussion of photographing the moon in
stereo in his "The Technical Page." I believe he still has copies
available.

"Astronomy" magazine had a 3D issue March 1998. They didn't say much about
how the deep space stereos were taken, I presume they resulted from the
parallax of our path thru the cosmos. You might find some leads at their
website, and perhaps get a back issue ( I haven't visited for a while
myself):     www.astronomy.com

All for now

Tony Alderson
aifxtony@xxxxxxxxxxxxx






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