Word: surveyor
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...been worth a first glance. Its composition was uninspired and its subject - a rough-surfaced grey rock lying on brownish grey, clumpy soil -was singularly dull. Yet it was a histor ic picture - a color photograph taken on the surface of the moon. The dis tinguished and prolific photographer: Surveyor...
...achieve lunar color photography, Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists in Pasadena first commanded the mirror mounted above Surveyor's fixed, black-and-white television camera to swivel and tilt until it reflected the proper piece of lunar terrain into the cam era lens. By radioed signal, they start ed a filter wheel turning until a red filter was in front of the lens. Then they ordered the camera to photograph the scene. The procedure was repeated twice more, once with a green and finally with a blue filter...
...Pasadena, Surveyor's TV trans missions were converted into three black-and-white transparencies that had subtle differences in shading caused by Surveyor's filters. Each was mounted in a separate projector - one equipped with a red, another with a green, and the third with a blue filter-and focused on a single screen. The result: a reconstituted color picture that is "a fair approximation of the actual scene...
Eerie Earthlight. Black-and-white photographs transmitted by Surveyor, before it went into hibernation last week for the 14-day lunar night, were even more remarkable. As the sun slowly sank toward the moon's horizon, the lengthening shadows cast by Surveyor itself appeared with startling clarity in shots of nearby terrain. In one picture, the 10-ft.-high spaceship's shadow stretched 50 ft. away. At sunset, the camera, aimed directly at the solar fireball, captured the brilliant halo of the sun's corona-usually invisible on earth because of the terrestrial atmosphere. After nightfall, Surveyor...
...Though Surveyor was not designed to last through the -250° F. temperatures of the two-week lunar night, its flawless performance has given new hope to Hughes Aircraft scientists, who earlier predicted that its battery would freeze and rupture in the cold, spilling electrolyte over other delicate parts and effectively disabling the craft. Actually, they now point out, similar test batteries have survived temperatures of -270° F., and have later been thawed out and recharged. When the sun again rises on the Sea of Storms late in June, they now suggest, it may find Surveyor ready to charge...