4.2.1a -
Apollo 10, like many missions, took several photographs of Earth as soon as they were safely in Earth orbit, and these can be seen on roll 34 (Magazine M). It’s worth having a look at a pair of images taken just after the TLI burn, if only so that we can look compare them with photographs taken after the LM had been extracted from the SIV-
Figure 4.2.1: GAP scan of AS10-
Stellarium suggests that this image was taken at around 22:00 (figure 4.2.2a), a couple of hours after separation from the SIV-
The weather system to the east of the USA has a distinctive shape that should be evident from satellite photographs. The high quality version of the image clearly shows the shadow cast on Baja California by the bank of light cloud to the west. Other cloud systems of note are those north of Alaska with their 'streamers' of cloud extending into the North Pacific from the Arctic.
Figure 4.2.2a shows a zoomed and cropped version of AS10-
Figure 4.2.2a: ESSA-
Below are 3D reconstructions using digitally recovered ESSA (left) and NIMBUS (right) data.
The distinctive hammer shaped system off eastern USA is very much evident. What is noticeable about the satellite images is that many of the cloud systems in them are (while still recognisable) less clear than on their Apollo counterparts. This is a consistent feature throughout these three datasets. Both sets of image data provide perfect matches with the Apollo image when converted to 3D models.
The position of the weather systems suggest that the time of the Apollo image and the ESSA track over north America were very close together. North America is covered by track 3-
The orbital data for NIMBUS show that the satellite image (orbits 461-
Also available are the high resolution infra-
Figure 4.2.8: GAP scan of AS10-
AS10-
Stellarium shows that it was been taken just after midnight on the 19th of May. The ESSA image suggests that the orbits (tracks 5 to 7) covering the portion of the Earth visible here would have been carried out between 22:08 on the 18th and 02:08 on the 19th, so it is still appropriate to examine the image for the 18th when comparing weather patterns (figure 4.2.9a).
Figure 4.2.9a: ESSA9 Top left upper & lower), ATS-
Below are 3D reconstructions using digitally recovered ESSA (left) and NIMBUS (right) data.
The overall weather patterns visible in AS10-
Figure 4.2.9b: US & Mexico Pacific coastline from AS10-
The left hand side is from AS10-
This bank of cloud then joins offshore with a much larger one between Los Angeles and Geronimo Island lighthouse, and it is very likely that these are large fog banks, as there is a small hole in the cloud in roughly the same position as Guadeloupe The shape and size of the clear area north of Los Angeles is also different in the two photographs. Further to the west, a thin stream of cloud running north-
Over the whole of figure 4.2.1.9, there is not a single cloud that has not in some way altered in a manner consistent with weather system development over time.
Like the ATS image, less of the NIMBUS image is available for use because of the orientation of the Earth and the availability of NIMBUS tracks, but those that are shown do feature weather patterns that match those of AS10-
It’s also interesting to compare AS10-
As with the previous still image we again have a corresponding view taken from a live TV broadcast. The timeline records it has having started just after midnight on the 19th, ending 25 minutes later on the 19th. Here’s a still from the broadcast, obtained from this youtube video, as well as a brief shot from a 16mm film (figure 4.2.10).
Figure 4.2.11: GAP scan of AS10-
Based on the terminator position, the estimated time of the Apollo image is 15:30. It is worth pointing out that the view of the Stellarium image is from the lunar surface (Apollo 11, to be precise). Apollo 10 was not yet near the lunar surface, hence the slight difference in the amount of Atlantic Ocean visible from the spacecraft. This difference in perspective will be examined in more detail later.
Figure 4.2.1.12a shows the ESSA 9, ATS-
Figure 4.2.12a – ESSA-
Below are 3D reconstructions using digitally recovered ESSA (left) and NIMBUS (right) data.
Figure 4.2.13: Close up of Europe in Nimbus infra-
Yet again, superb correspondence despite the images being taken in completely different spectra.
The next photographs in this magazine repeat exposures of Africa, and there isn’t much point in repeating the analysis for very similar images. However it is worth demonstrating that they aren’t the same images, and that the terminator changes position over the course of them.
Two images that show this progression are AS10-
Figure 4.2.1.21. GAP scans of AS10-
Figure 4.2.24: GAP scan of AS10-
Figure 4.2.1.25a: ESSA 9 (left upper and lower) and NIMBUS 3 (right) images compared with AS10-
Stellarium sets the time at roughly 01:30 for this image, and shows the west coast of north America and Australia just in view. Close examination of the Earth shows that, beneath the thin cloud, the Americas are still there. Australia is more difficult to detect, but the bifurcated thin stream of cloud shown by the cyan arrow is off Australia's east coast at the point where it splits, and what appears to be a small fog bank off Sydney on the satellite photograph is just discernible on the very western edge of the globe.
The Earth, therefore, seems to be where it is supposed to be – a few hours ago the crew were describing north America and now it is only partially visible. Can the satellite timings match up with this suggestion? ATS is not available for this image as it doesn't cover anywhere visible. ESSA's image is still dated the 19th, but is now covering areas that were actually imaged on the 20th, and in this case the orbit that best approximates the line of the terminator is number 1032 (track 5, although in reality the terminator is probably between tracks 4 and 5), which commenced at 23:06.
The NIMBUS image used here is actually a hybrid of two day's passes. The 2 strips of images on the left of the NIMBUS part of figure 4.2.1.24 are actually from the image dated the 20th, and the remainder are from the image dated the 19th. The track best representing the terminator is number 475, which was commenced at 17:26 on the 19th. The extra amount of rotation brings an additional pass of the NIMBUS infra-
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Figure 4.2.14: Crops of Earth from AS10-
This set of photographs, then, is taken over a period of a couple of hours and shows an Earth very obviously rotating in a consistent manner so that we lose Africa and start gaining the Americas. We also have some discussion in the mission transcript that confirms what they are looking at. At 21:33 MET, or about 14:22 GMT we have a weather report from the Command Module Pilot:
021:33:10 Young: Roger. It's a European/African weather report. Portugal -
And a moment later the Commander says that
021:34:17 Stafford: Okay; stand by. We want to get, a couple of pictures of Europe; we're in good position right now.
It obviously took them a while to get the photographs as they precede them by at least an hour, but what they describe (in particular the thin cloud across the Sinai peninsula shown by the yellow arrow) is undoubtedly accurate.
The next set of images taken by the crew shows north and south America again coming into view. The common denominator between this photograph and the previous one is the large swirl of cloud highlighted by the blue arrow in figure 4.2.12 in the top left of the Earth's disk, just touching the terminator. The picture in question is AS10-
Figure 4.2.15: GAP scan of AS10-
As before the Earth is visibly smaller, and the scene is dominated by a large polar cloud mass, and the remains of the large 'hammer' shaped formation picked out in figure 4.2.1.2 by the green arrow. The large swirl is now on the terminator, which Stellarium estimates at around 19:30 on the 19th. The comparison with ATS, ESSA and NIMBUS data is shown in figure 4.2.1.16a below.
Figure 4.2.16a: ESSA-
Below are 3D reconstructions using digitally recovered ESSA (left) and NIMBUS (right) data.
As before the Earth is visibly smaller, and the scene is dominated by a large polar cloud mass, and the remains of the large 'hammer' shaped formation picked out in figure 4.2.2 by the green arrow. The large swirl is now on the terminator, which Stellarium estimates at around 19:30 on the 19th.
The blue arrow in figure 4.2.1.16a points to the same cloud system as the previous analysis, and it should be readily apparent that all three satellite images show the same weather systems as can be observed in the Apollo Earth. These systems are also described in detail by the crew during a TV broadcast made shortly after these photographs were taken. The blue arrow, for example, points to
027:03:02 Stafford: You've got a real weird cloud formation
and
027:03:46 Young: It's a real peculiar-
We also have a general description of the weather on view:
027:05:44 Stafford: …It looks like broken clouds over the southeastern part of the United States. Northeast has a little bit more. Looks like Canada is all socked over today, and over that big cap that goes up over the North Pole and over to Russia it's just solid overcast.
Which is pretty much exactly what is visible in the photograph.
Stellarium’s estimate of the time compares favourably with the ATS image time of just after 17:00. The NIMBUS pass that corresponds best with the terminator (number 472) would have started at 13:51 on the 19th. The ESSA pass nearest the terminator would have been track number 2, or orbit 1029, which commenced at 17:01 on the 19th.
We again have the higher resolution NIMBUS orbits to examine, as shown in figure 4.2.16b.
Figure 4.2.19: GAP scan of AS10-
South America has now largely disappeared, but north America is still visible. Some weather systems evident in figure 4.2.16 have now passed beyond the terminator, and there are new ones over the Pacific. The polar cloud mass is still evident, as is the system that runs from the north Atlantic down to central America.
Figure 4.2.1.20 shows a comparison of the satellite images of these weather patterns and the Apollo image, and the red, cyan, magenta and yellow arrows point to the same weather systems as in figure 4.2.1.16.
Figure 4.2.20: ESSA 9 (top left upper and lower), ATS-
Below are 3D reconstructions using digitally recovered ESSA (left) and NIMBUS (right) data.
Figure 4.2.22a: ESSA 9 (top left upper and lower), ATS-
Stellarium suggests the picture was taken at about 23:30, as judged by the location of the terminator near the swathe of cloud cutting across central America. As only 45 minutes have elapsed between this one and the previous photograph examined most of the weather systems identified earlier can still be seen. The satellite timings are also little different, but it is worth while noting that the system picked out by the purple arrow was not imaged by the NIMBUS IDCS camera until 00:48 on the 20th.
We can get some confirmation of the time from the transcript. At 30:27, or around 23:17, Charlie Duke on Capcom tells them that they will be changing to Goldstone in California as their receiving station, and that is pretty much centre stage in the photo. Meanwhile Tom Stafford tells him that
030:34:07 Stafford: From our angle now, it looks like the whole northern quarter of the whole globe is completely socked in there; and, again, the United States is what really stands out and part of Mexico. We can see the Gulf Coast from here real well, right through the hatch window.
Once again we have good coverage of the image by NIMBUS-
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Figure 4.2.2b: Nimbus-
As these are higher resolution satellite images than the others it’s worth zooming in a little more closely. Figure 4.2.2c shows the systems identified by the blue and green arrows in the Apollo and infra-
It should be pretty obvious that the view you are seeing there is exactly the same one shown in the still image.
Shortly after AS10-
Examination of the satellite photographs taken during the mission show the Apollo image can only have been taken on the 19th. The clouds visible over southern Spain and north Africa (magenta arrows) are much less developed on the 18th, and by the 20th had moved eastwards towards southern France. The very striking north Atlantic system is also poorly developed on the 18th and a completely different shape on the 20th.
The ESSA track data show that the satellite passed over Africa between 10:00 and 15:05 (tracks 11-
We again have the luxury of infra-
Figure 4.2.12b: NIMBUS-
As before we can see that there is an extremely good correspondence between the infra-
Figure 4.2.16b: NIMBUS-
As before the correspondence with the Apollo image is excellent, and it is worth pointing out that the start time of the final pass covering the area shown in the western limb of the Apollo photograph is 18:54 -
For a closer look at the high quality infra-
Figure 4.2.16c: NIMBUS-
As before, the correspondence is excellent, and the only differences are easily accounted for by the time lapse between images (about 6 hours) and the different spectra of the photographs.
For our next subject we return to a TV broadcast, this time one made at 20:19 on May 19th. We know this partly from the mission timeline, and partly because it was stamped all over the CBS News broadcast on the day (see figure 4.2.17).
The weather systems are still obviously the same, although there are new systems appearing on the western limb as the Earth rotates, and the large spiral system has now disappeared over the terminator. As the same systems are in view, and they do not look the same on the 20th, they must still be from the 19th, and Stellarium puts the time at around 22:45 on that date. This compares with an estimate of 20:00 for 5036. We already know the time of the ATS-
It’s worth noting that the crew draw attention to the Gulf coast being clear at around the time these photographs were taken (at 19:52 GMT to be precise), which it very evidently is.
The next images of Earth in the sequence taken on the outward bound leg of the mission are actually on two different magazines – one on magazine 34 and one on magazine 35. The best example of each image will be used whenever this occurs.
The two images, AS10-
Figure 4.2.22b: NIMBUS-
The correspondence between Apollo and the NIMBUS images is, as usual, extremely good, and to see how good it’s worth looking at the one taken last, orbit 479, which commenced just an hour before the Apollo image was taken (figure 4.2.22c).
Figure 4.2.22c: Segment of NIMBUS pass 479 compared with AS10-
The match between the two is extremely close, particularly with the lighter clouds north of the equatorial band. That band appeared in an earlier image (figure 4.2.1.2c) and it’s worth going back and seeing the change in that feature over 24 hours.
Also available from the same time is a 16mm still taken using the DAC camera, and this is shown in figure 4.2.23.
Figure 4.2.25c: Section of NIMBUS infra-
Again, the correspondence between the two is excellent -
The next image is discussed in part 2 of Apollo 10’s outward journey, continued here.
Figure 4.2.2c: Infra-
Despite the satellite images showing the weather systems in the infra-
It’s now worth comparing the full disk image with those partial disk ones shown in figure 4.2.0. Figure 4.2.2d shows the context of where those partial images fit with the full disk one and also how key elements of those images compare with the each other.
One link that does prove helpful is this one from the NASA Archive that is described as a screenshot from the Apollo live TV broadcast. This screenshot, the satellite images, and the Earth screenshot from the TV broadcast is examined in figure 4.2.4. Figure 4.2.5 shows the same TV screenshot compared with a photograph taken in Mission Control during the broadcast as well as the same view taken by the 16mm DAC camera (footage available here) and NIMBUS and ESSA 3D reconstructions.
Figure 4.2.1.4 Comparison of TV broadcast screenshot, Post Crescent front page and ESSA & NIMBUS satellite images from May 18th 1969.
Figure 4.2.1.5: Full (top right) and brightness adjusted crop (middle right) of Mission Control image compared with TV screenshot from Apollo 10 in its original orientation. Below these is a 16mm still taken at the same time, and finally 3D ESSA (left) and NIMBUS (right) reconstructions. Mission Control image source: NASA
As with Apollo 8, it is worth remembering that this newspaper front page is from May the 19th, the day after launch, and therefore any photograph of Earth can only have been taken before that day. It is also interesting to note how well the Apollo mission is succeeding in distracting the media from the Vietnam war. The moon missions are often accused of being a deliberate distraction from Vietnam, but while Apollo 10 may have temporarily stolen the headlines, it is clear where the remainder of this paper's focus lies.
Looking at the NASA archive image, it also becomes obvious why it is difficult to place things on the newspaper front page: the Earth is upside down. In all Apollo photographs the terminator is always on the Eastern side when the globe is correctly oriented (in some broadcasts, the cameras were turned upside down to ‘correct’ the view for those at home).
ESSA's orbit covering the central part of the daylight image is orbit 1018 (track 4) at 20:02. NIMBUS' orbit is 462, started at 18:10 on the 18th. Those two satellite images show clear correspondence to weather patterns on the TV image that were unique to that day, especially the 3D reconstructions.
One issue that did frustrate the TV networks was the lack of live footage of the Earth. The very first colour TV was not of the home planet, but of a long slow motion docking manoeuvre, which must have been extremely useful for mission control, but less than fascinating to the average TV viewer. The battle between pro and anti-
This particular broadcast was made between 21:55 and 22:08, during which the crew discuss what they can see with the ground. For example they describe the Eastern seaboard, the view of Baja California and Newfoundland, and the colours of New Mexico and the Rocky Mountains. Charlie Duke, acting as Capcom with Dick Gordon, tells them they are 26000 miles out, beyond the highest geostationary satellites.
An interesting variation on this photograph can be found on astronaut John Young’s website. It shows a photograph used on the front page of the Houston Post on May 20th 1969 of Gene Cernan’s wife holding a photograph taken of one of the TV broadcasts. It’s shown below in figure 4.2.6a.
Figure 4.2.6b: Original (left) and enhanced (right) views of Earth is shown in a photograph in the Houston Post, 20/05/69, and orignallyf or sale on Ebay by Historic Images (it’s now on its way to me).
Once you spot the ‘hammerhead’ shape (which is just visible on the unenhanced image) everything else falls into place, especially in the higher quality wire image.
Well, so what? This image is from the 20th, and the TV broadcast was on the 18th -
Not really. The likely sequence of events is that the Houston Post photograph the TV broadcast on the 18th. They then show the photograph they’ve taken to Mrs Cernan the following day. This event gets photographed and makes it into the newspaper the day after that -
It shows once again that evidence can be found in the unlikeliest of circumstances, and that technology available to us today allows us to reveal new details of a photograph taken of a live TV broadcast. It helps to demonstrate that the photographs of Earth were contemporaneous with the Apollo missions, and not edited in later. They help prove we went to the moon.
Returning to the content of the broadcast, we have a long series of exchanges between the crew and Charlie Duke as Capcom describing the view.
005:07:07 Duke: Roger.
005:07:08 Stafford: See the Rocky Mountains sticking out? Baja California? Can't tell whether you have any smog in LA or not, but Alaska is pretty much socked in.
005:07:20 Duke: Roger.
005:07:25 Duke: It's really a beautiful picture.
And
005:08:10 Stafford: Okay. And it looks like the Rocky Mountains are orange colored to me. The rest of U.S., Baja California, that really stands out as all brownish, and the oceans are blue; but there are so many clouds out to the northeast of the United States, you can't believe it. Covers the Far East over to Europe as far as you can see.
005:08:26 Duke: Roger. We see all that. We've got a brownish spot that's pretty hard to pick out just exactly what we're looking at, but we do see the brown and the clouds out over the ocean about the center of the globe.
005:08:37 Stafford: Yes. Okay. The brown spot is the Rocky Mountains. It runs down around into New Mexico, up into Colorado.
We even have a close up zoom, which Duke says “has to be the greatest sight ever”. Figure 4.2.7 shows a compilation of screenshots from the maximum extent of this zoom along with a still from mission control taken during that sequence (from the film “Apollo 10 -
Figure 4.2.7: Compilation of stills from live TV broadcast (left), along with a still from ‘Apollo 10 -
Figure 4.2.10: Still from Apollo 10 TV broadcast and a 16mm still from the same time.
As in the previous case, the live broadcast is an exact match for the still image, and again there are numerous descriptions of the view by the crew and the Capcom, this time Bruce McCandless.
007:12:33 Stafford: Roger. That's correct. Looks like a beautiful sight. And either you have clouds over the Sierra Nevada's or they're snowcaps at this time. I can't tell which from here. You can still see the San Joaquin Valley.
007:14:51 Stafford: Yes. They start up in the Northwest Territories of Canada and actually ring out to Alaska, and from there they go down just about to the Canadian -
007:15:48 McCandless: Roger, 10. Up in the vicinity of Alaska, we see a swirl. Does that look like a storm system or low pressure area to you?
07:15:55 Stafford: Yes. You've got a swirl out there right on the -
007:16:16 Stafford: How are the colors coming through down there, Bruce?
007:16:18 McCandless: Oh, the colors are coming through beautifully. The oceans are a beautiful blue-
007:16:38 Stafford: Okay. Good. And you can -
007:16:59 McCandless: That's right. We can see the terminator quite clearly moving up from lower right-
As usual, the descriptions they give are spot on.
Moving back to the Hasselblad photographs, the next image to be examined is AS10-
Figure 4.2.17: Screenshot from a CBS news broadcast (Source).
For the purposes of our analysis, however, a still from this source for the broadcast is much clearer, and the satellite comparison is carried out in figure 4.2.18.
Figure 4.2.18: Still from TV broadcast made at 20:17 on May 19 1969 compared with ESSA (bottom left) and NIMBUS (bottom right) data, and a Stellarium depiction of the terminator at that time.
As far as satellite timings are concerned, the ESSA’s terminator track (1030) started at 19:06 on the 19th, whilst the NIMBUS one (473) started at 13:51.
While broadcasting the image to Earth the crew again described what they were seeing in great detail:
027:01:25 Stafford: It looks like the North Pole and most of Russia is covered with clouds. The United States is pretty much wide open. In fact, the solar subpoint is right over the Gulf of Mexico now
027:02:08 Stafford: Roger. What you see there -
027:02:23 McCandless: Roger.
027:02:28 Stafford: And in the tropical rain forest over Venezuela and Brazil and Columbia you can see the clouds that hang over there all the time. I noticed how clear it is west of the Andes.
027:03:02 Stafford: You've got a real weird cloud formation coming around down -
027:03:46 Young: It's a real peculiar-
027:05:25 Stafford: Okay. Again, you can see Baja California coming in there just real clear, and the Rocky Mountains, particularly starting into Mexico going up through Colorado and Wyoming, are coming in.
027:05:36 McCandless: Roger. I'm having a little difficulty picking out the landmasses down here today.
027:05:44 Stafford: That's because of cloud cover. It looks like broken clouds over the southeastern part of the United States. Northeast has a little bit more. Looks like Canada is all socked over today, and over that big cap that goes up over the North Pole and over to Russia it's just solid overcast.
027:06:04 McCandless: Roger. We can pick up part of South America. Must be the Andes, just above or just to the west of the terminator down in the southern portion of the globe.
027:06:14 Cernan: Bruce, you should see all of North and South America from where you are. We're going to zoom it in again here. Show you a little bit closer.
As usual their descriptions exactly match what we can see.
The next still image showing any significant degree of rotation is AS10-
Figure 4.2.23: 16mm still showing the same view of Earth seen in figure 4.2.22
A little while later, we have an image from magazine 35 that shows a more significant degree of rotation, and therefore brings new weather systems into view. Figure 4.2.1.24a shows AS10-
The high resolution version from John young’s website doesn’t seem show much detail on that image of Earth-
Figure 4.2.1.6b below shows the photograph of Earth held by Mrs Cernan enlarged (left), and on the right after noise reduction and level enhancement, then rotated to orient the north pole correctly. Also shown is an eBay copy of an item currently for sale, which shows the scene in greater detail. The arrows used are the same colours as used in figure 4.2.4.
As can be seen in the images, it’s obvious that the full disk image was taken from a vantage point much further out that the ones taken just after TLI, and it’s also obvious that there have been subtle changes in the weather systems on view in the few hours between TLI and the full disk one. These are not cut and paste identical images, they are taken from different vantage points at different times of an evolving meteorology.
The Stellarium estimate of 22:00 is easy to verify thanks to images taken at the same time in what a landmark moment: the first live colour TV broadcast of Earth from space. The mission timeline puts the broadcast at between 21:55 and 22:08 on the 18th, and the transcript of the broadcast can be found here. You can find the actual TV broadcast in this video.
As with Apollo 8, Apollo 10 was well reported in the press and CBS gave the mission large amounts of air time, including the broadcasts from the CSM itself. Most newspapers merely reported the event, or did mock ups of various stages of the mission, but some did present images from the live TV broadcasts on their front pages.
There are reproductions of these front pages available on the internet, but for the most part quality is poor. One relatively decent image can be seen from a local Wisconsin based newspaper, the Post-
Figure 4.2.0 -
Although there aren’t many clues to timing in the first image, the second one does show clear signs of debris from the separation process, and so must have been taken at around 19:52 on the 18th. The AFJ shows separation to have occurred above a point just south of Hawaii and as will be seen this is borne out by the view we see from the departing craft. The image on the right shows the west coast of the USA.
The first full disk image of Earth is AS10-
Figure 4.2.2d: Sections of AS10-
Figure 4.2.3: The Post Crescent headline from May 18th 1969 compared with my personal copy of an Associated Press Wire image from the Baltimore Sun and the front page of The Times, as shown at 12:09 minutes in this film. Reverse side shows the time and date received as 20:09 18/05/69 local time. The newspaper version is upside down.
Figure 4.2.6a: Houston Post dated 20/05/69 showing Mrs Cernan holding a photograph of the previous day’s TV broadcast. Source.