Exclusive look at Apollo 14 NASA photos

[dutchsteammachine]

Exclusive look at Apollo 14 photos

Disclaimer: This is a preview, and may be subject to change.

Apollo 14 took high-resolution photos of the lunar surface from orbit with a modified Hycon KA-7A Aerial Reconnaissance Camera. The results produced from these military-grade optics and large-format film would be of incredible high resolutions.

And while other large-format photos of the lunar surface taken on Apollo 15, 16 and 17 are online in a mind-boggling 4.8 Gigapixels, high enough to discern Apollo equipment at the landing sites, high-resolution scans of the Apollo 14 KA-7A photos are missing.

The magazines used in the KA-7A camera were numbered AS14-79 and AS14-80.

First, below is a list of currently online sources for these photos, albeit in low and moderate resolution. (To my knowledge)

1. Scans of Apollo 14 image catalog by Awe130
Notes: Awe130 has high-resolution scans of his catalog, but does not want to publish them. Perhaps someone from here can request access to the high-res scans?

2. Scans of Apollo 14 image catalog by NASA
Notes: As14-80 frames start at PDF file page 9.

3. Scans of Apollo 14 science report
Notes: page 282 til 288

4. Two AS14-80 frames scanned from (presumed) prints, see two links bottom page

5. Various images from his own, and other sources. Provided by Paul

6. The US National Archives has two frames:
6.1: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/16701241
6.2: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/16701244

So why am I making this reply?:
Because I have acquired 10 20"x24"inch prints of magazine AS14-80 and together with Paul, am working on scanning and processing them.

We will present an other source for the images, and in much greater resolution and fidelity than previously online. Most of our scans were previously only available as ultra-low resolution scans from the Apollo 14 photo catalog.

We will be providing the highest-resolution scans of these photos online to date.

I use my Epson Perfection V750 Pro to scan the gargantuan print in 6 sections, making sure there is ample overlap between the scans. Vuescan 9 outputs two files, a contrast/brightness enhanced scan, and the uncorrected RAW scan. Both files are saved as 16-bit grayscale uncompressed TIFFs. Sharp prints are scanned at 800 DPI, soft prints are scanned at 300 DPI.

Paul then uses photoshop to merge the 6 individual scans back into a single image. The combined scan is saved in two versions; the uncorrected RAW version, and a contrast enhanced, sharpened version to try and get the most detail out of the prints possible. Due to the nature of this process, there may be some visible stitching where two scans meet.

The resultant image resolution is 307 Megapixels.

A photo of one of the prints:

A Full-HD preview of the links below:

Full-res 307-Megapixel download of raw merge
Full-res 307-Megapixel download of the contrast enhanced/sharpened merge

Once all the prints have been scanned and processed all the individual scans and merges will be provided, in RAW and enhanced.

Please tell me what you think! I and Paul would like feedback.

Kind regards,
Niels

 

[dutchsteammachine]

Paul has done some amazing research work once again, lets have a look!

Scan of AS14-80-10441 compared to LRO

AS14-80-10441 is a high-magnification photo of the Theophilus crater, see here Note the website preview is only half the resolution of a raw scan tile.

The Apollo 16 ITEK Panoramic Mapping Camera compared to the Hycon KA-7A (Keep in mind AS16 is a NASA scan from the original film, and ours is only a scan of a print.)

 

[REAndy]

Awesome work, Keep it up, and Thank You!

 

[dutchsteammachine]

Another comparison by Paul.

This print was not sharp, so I only scanned at 300DPI. The resolution is still good:

Here is a list with the photos and the progression:

10412: Not yet scanned!
10441: Individual scans, merged.
10444: Individual scans, merged.
10453: Individual scans, merged.
10455: Individual scans, not yet merged.
10459: Individual scans, merged.
10466: Individual scans, not yet merged.
10503: Individual scans, merged.
10518: Not yet scanned!
10535: Individual scans, merged.

 

[dutchsteammachine]

After several months of hard work, this project comes to a close. I'd like to thank everybody for their help and insight.

All of the 10 prints have been scanned and can be found on this archival website.

AS14-80 prints:
Subject: 20x24" b/w darkroom prints
Medium: 20x24" darkroom paper
Scanner: Epson Perfection V750 Pro
Scan software: Vuescan 9
OS: Windows 10
Scan Resolution: Between 300 and 800 DPI, depends on print sharpness.
File extension: Tiff

Notes:
!LARGE FILE SIZES!
File size of individual frames varies from 17 to 125MB.
File size of merges varies from 124mb to 600mb.

Each print is scanned in 6 sections, making sure there is ample overlap between the scans.
Vuescan 9 outputs two files, a contrast/brightness enhanced scan, and the
uncorrected RAW scan. Both files are saved as 16-bit grayscale
uncompressed TIFFs. Sharp prints are scanned at 800 DPI, soft prints are
scanned at 300 DPI.

Paul/OneBigMonkey then uses photoshop to merge the 6
individual scans back into a single image. The combined scan is saved in
two versions; the uncorrected RAW version, and a contrast enhanced,
sharpened version to try and get the most detail out of the prints
possible. Due to the nature of this process, there may be some visible
stitching where scans meet.

Individual scans provided as AS14-80-10###-C#-I#-F#, merged files uploaded with 'merge-C#-I#' suffix.

C1I1= Colour fade/cast correction enabled. ICE Infrared Spot/dust removal enabled set to light. I2 = set to medium. Highlight / dark values enhancement for greater contrast, usually very conservative to not blow highlights/dark values.

C0I0 / RAW = Colour fade/cast correction disabled. ICE Infrared Spot/dust removal disabled. Unprocessed scan.

F## = frame number of set or single image scanned in multiple sections.


Below is a list of full-res merged files as JPGs (Between 8 and 75 MB each)
AS14-80-10412
AS14-80-10441
AS14-80-10444
AS14-80-10453
AS14-80-10455
AS14-80-10459
AS14-80-10466
AS14-80-10503
AS14-80-10518
AS14-80-10535

Paul will continue to look at the files in closer detail and compare them to other space missions to the moon, as seen in my previous posts. New developments will be posted here.

I am always searching for more of these photos, so if you know any please notify me, so I can try and get it online.

If you are interested in having one of these prints, send me a PM.

Best regards,
Niels

 

[dutchsteammachine]

Yesterday I received all AS14-79 and AS14-80 photos from the NSSDCA. Looks like a film copy "scanned" with a Nikon D750 and 60mm micro nikkor.

The 25mb TIFF files are problematic to open, it seems that in addition to the full resolution (6004 by 4002) photo there is a preview and thumbnail view in the file. So there are three photos in one file. It's only correctly opened with software that understands Nikon RAW. I will convert the files to something common for publication.

Unfortunately "old style" jpeg compression is used in the files, so when you zoom in you see JPG compression blocks. I have asked if the NSSDCA can supply NIKON. NEF files without compression.

I will keep this topic updated.

 

[dutchsteammachine]

Disclaimer: I and Paul are not from NASA or endorsed by them. We are doing this in our own free time.

This archive contains 251 photos taken on Apollo 14 by a modified Hycon KA-7A camera. These magazines were designated as AS14-79 and AS14-80.

I would like to thank the NSSDCA for scanning and providing magazine AS14-79 and AS14-80.

I would like to thank Paul for processing the NSSDCA .TIFF files.

These photos were acquired by requesting NSSDCA dataset PSPG-00256. A film or digital copy of AS14-79 and AS14-80 was requested. The NSSDCA scanned a film for this request and several months later the resultant digital dataset was provided.

Each file is 23 MB and has a resolution of 6016*4016 pixels.

The NSSDCA provided TIFF files appear to be NIKON D750 raw files, which can only be correctly opened with special software. Paul was kind enough to batch-process all raw files. Each file was put through a DNG converted, Photoshop will then allow it to be imported normally. This caused the images to turn brown, which was corrected by turning them grayscale.

Good night.

 

[foen]

Excellent job! I'm available to share my Nikon Coolscan for this project if you want

 

[dutchsteammachine]

Excellent job! I'm available to share my Nikon Coolscan for this project if you want

I already got a Nikon Super Coolscan 8000 if I get to scan some film.

A 5000 DPI drum scanner would be ideal.

 

[dutchsteammachine]

Paul and I did not sit still, here a taste of the research done on the photos. Paul has been able to find the location for every AS14-80 and AS14-79 photo.

Location of the AS14-80 photos from NASA:

Location of AS14-80 photos scanned by me:

Let's compare AS14-80-10441 with photos taken by unmanned probes, like the LO and LRO.

It can be seen that the large-scale photography of the Apollo missions is very competitive against modern probes, even against the LRO.
And even out-performs the Chinese and Japanese probes.


And what about the AS14-79 photos? Although the magazine did not work well, Rosa tried to photograph the Apollo 14 landing site during the landing. Did he succeed?

Hell yes! Cone Crater can be seen on a number of photographs. Let's zoom in:

The red arrow points to Cone Crater, the largest crater at the landing site. If the magazine had worked properly, Rosa might have photographed the LM shortly after landing, or perhaps even during the landing. Whether AS14-79 had enough resolution for that, I'm not sure. The photos were taken in a higher orbit than AS14-80.

The website with all the research will be done soon!

 

[dutchsteammachine]

Paul is done with the page. I will share the link, but first i'll show two more comparisons

Let's look at a nice crater formation with waste from the impact:

AS14-80-10444 (Large file)

First the Apollo photo on the left, and the Lunar Orbiter photo on the right:

There is no point in using the LO with this magnification, so we won't:

And here another one, AS14-80-10445(Large file)

With some discussion you could say that the Apollo 14 photos match the modern probes, if not slightly better.

Research on all my other AS14-80 photos, and a few from the NSSDCA , can be found on paul's website:
http://onebigmonkey.com/apollo/hycon/hycon.html

His other pages are also well worth reading.