32 20 July 2019 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I subscribe 0330 333 1113
W
hen Apollo 8
launched from
Kennedy Space
Center on 21
December 1968, the three
astronauts on board - Frank
Borman, William Anders
and James Lovell – had zero
interest in photographing the
Earth from space. Borman, in
particular, wasn’t happy about
having cameras on board, as he
believed that such equipment
might divert the crew from its
mission, which was essentially
to orbit the moon and return
to Earth in one piece. Despite
Borman’s misgivings, room
was found for two Hasselblad
EL cameras, each with a
Planar 80mm f/2.8 lens, a
Sonnar 250mm f/5.6 telephoto
lens, and seven magazines of
70mm fi lm. The spacecraft
also carried a black & white
TV camera and 16mm motion
picture camera, with numerous
accessories. The cameras, fi lm
magazines and lenses had
black anodised surfaces to
eliminate refl ections, and both
Hasselblads were fi tted with
large levers and locks to enable
the crew to operate them
while wearing pressurised
spacesuits and gloves.
The primary purpose of
the recording equipment was
to document the surface of
the moon. NASA felt that it
already knew enough about
Earth and so it stressed the
importance of capturing
unusual sights such as the far
side of our natural satellite up
close. On day four of the
mission (Christmas Eve),
Apollo 8 had completed three
full orbits of the moon, and the
crew was photographing the
ground beneath the spacecraft
to appraise two potential
landing sites. Partway through
the exercise Anders looked out
of window fi ve and caught sight
of the Earth rising over the
moon’s western horizon. The
voice recording he made at the
time illustrates his surprise
and excitement. ‘Oh my God!
Look at that picture over there.
Here’s the Earth coming up.
Wow, that’s pretty!’ At this
point Borman jokingly
suggests that Anders shouldn’t
take the picture because it’s not
scheduled – he may be teasing,
but it illustrates how every
movement, breath and action
was being controlled and
assessed by NASA.Switching to colour
Thankfully Anders ignores his
colleague and fi res off a few
frames using black & white
fi lm and the 250mm lens.
Consequently, the fi rst shot
of the Earth rising, taken by a
human, is entitled AS08-13-
2329, and is monochrome.
Within seconds Anders realises
that he is on to something and
requests a colour fi lm from
Lovell. The second astronaut
struggles to locate the fi lm and
the three soon fear that they
have missed their opportunity.
Thankfully, as the spacecraft
was slowly rolling, the Earth
became visible again through
two other windows. Now with
a clear view, Anders took one of
the most famous pictures of the
20th century – AS08-14-2383,
otherwise known as ‘Earthrise’In 1968 three astronauts became
spellbound by the sight of their
home planet. Tracy Calder looks
at the most famous photograph
they brought back to Earth
Earthrise
© WILLIAM ANDERS/GETT Y IMAGES
By William Anders
(seen here). This image shows
the view across Pasteur, a large
lunar crater, and required an
exposure time of 1/250sec at
f/11. (To view the scene as
the crew of Apollo 8 did you
actually need to rotate the
picture anticlockwise by 90°.)
The contrast between this
glorious blue planet and the
grey, inhospitable surface of
the moon is striking, andshows why Anders’s decision
to switch to colour was a
wise one. The Earth appears
suspended in inky black space,
looking both peaceful and
extremely vulnerable. From
240,000 miles away all borders
and manmade boundaries
became irrelevant. ‘It was the
most beautiful, heart-catching
sight of my life,’ recalled
Borman, ‘raging nationalisticPhoto Insight