MetaFilter posts tagged with photographs and space

In Soviet Russia, Photoshop Crops You!

PepperMax — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 07:10:28 -0800

An interesting article from Wired about Soviet photo manipulations from the 1960s space race. The photo-doctoring was discovered because Soviet news managers lost track of which versions of photos had already been published, and re-released them after alteration. The lies illustrated by these images fueled Western suspicions that a number of cosmonauts had died in secret space disasters, but it turns out this wasn't true. The erased men had either misbehaved and been expelled, or even more innocently, had simply developed disqualifying medical conditions. In the post-Soviet era I actually had the enormous pleasure of shaking hands with one of those erased men, who had been amused by my publication of before-and-after views of his own disappearance after he was dropped from spaceflight status. In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's pioneering space flight.

Please Prepare For Landing

msalt — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:33:36 -0800

1,512 high-resolution images of Mars from the viewpoint of an airplane passenger. Previous photos: 1 2 3

The Lunar Orbiter's Kodak moment

prinado — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:16:01 -0800

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has returned its first images of the Apollo moon landing sites. The spacecraft’s onboard camera photographed Lunar Module descent stages at five of the six Apollo sites—11, 14, 15, 16, and 17. The Apollo 12 site will be photographed in coming weeks. The Apollo 14 image is particularly interesting: ideal lighting conditions resolve additional details, including the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package and the tracks left by the astronauts’ footprints and/or the Modularized Equipment Transporter, a 2-wheeled, rickshaw type cart for carrying around tools, cameras and sample cases on the lunar surface. These first images were captured before the spacecraft reached its final mapping orbit—future images of the Apollo sites will have two to three times greater resolution.

Balloon In Space (Nearly)

jack_mo — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 17:50:27 -0800

Project Nova: on the 9th of September three Cambridge engineering students launched a balloon equipped with a camera and tracking devices. It reached a height of 32km and took 857 photographs during its three hour flight, some showing the curvature of the earth. You can also download a KML file to follow the balloon's flight path in Google Earth.

The most detailed map of Mars ever produced.

RobertLoch — Mon, 25 Feb 2002 17:23:45 -0800

The most detailed map of Mars ever produced. Brought to you by Malin Space Science Systems. The images were captured from The Mars Global Surveyor. They really are incredibly clear. I'm trying find the Mars Face. No luck yet though. (Click image to zoom in)

lagado — Mon, 28 May 2001 00:02:37 -0800

NASA releases new high resolution images of the "Face on Mars" digitally enhanced to make it it look like an ordinary mesa rock formation.
Of course, we know better...