Earthrise - Details

Details

Earthrise is the name given to NASA image AS8-14-2383, taken by astronaut William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission, the first manned voyage to orbit the Moon.

Initially, before Anders found a suitable 70 mm color film, mission commander Frank Borman took a black-and-white photograph of the scene, with the Earth's terminator touching the horizon. The land mass position and cloud patterns in this image are the same as those of the color photograph entitled Earthrise.

The photograph was taken from lunar orbit on December 24, 1968 with a highly modified Hasselblad 500 EL with an electric drive. The camera had a simple sighting ring rather than the standard reflex viewfinder and was loaded with a 70 mm film magazine containing custom Ektachrome film developed by Kodak. An audio recording of the event is available with transcription which allows the event to be followed closely – excerpt:

Borman: Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! Here's the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty.
Anders: Hey, don't take that, it's not scheduled.
Borman: (laughing) You got a color film, Jim?
Anders: Hand me that roll of color quick, will you...
Lovell: Oh man, that's great!

The television miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, drawing upon the book A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin, has Borman uttering the "it's not scheduled" remark (in part four, "1968", at 41' 57"), however, the PBS attribution to Anders is clear from the sound recordings. In fact, had Borman as mission commander said such a thing, the color photograph likely would never have been made.

There were many images taken at that point. The mission audio tape establishes several photographs were taken, on Borman's orders, with the enthusiastic concurrence of Lovell and Anders. Anders took the first color shot, then Lovell who notes the setting (1/250th of a second at f/11), followed by Anders with another two at varying exposures.

A nearly full-page black and white reproduction of Borman's image may be viewed on page 164 of his 1988 autobiography, captioned, "One of the most famous pictures in photographic history — taken after I grabbed the camera away from Bill Anders". Borman was the mission commander and notes (pg 212) that this is the image "the Postal Service used on a stamp, and few photographs have been more frequently reproduced" . The photograph reproduced in the Frank Borman autobiography is not the same image as the Anders photograph; aside from the orientation, the cloud patterns differ.

The stamp issue reproduces the cloud, color, and crater patterns of the Anders picture. Anders is described (pg. 193) by Borman as holding "a masters degree in nuclear engineering"; Anders was thus tasked as "the scientific crew member ... also performing the photography duties that would be so important to the Apollo crew who actually landed on the Moon".