Wonder of ScienceJan 12, 2024

Apollo 17 lifts off from the Moon on December 14, 1972, the last time humans visited the lunar surface and traveled beyond Earth's orbit.

Further reading: https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/leaving-moon-watching-home

Leaving the Moon, Watching at Home

After pressing some buttons to start up the ascent engine of their lunar module Challenger, astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt left the Moon on December 14, 1972. That’s 39 years ago – before many of us were even born. While these men looked out the tiny triangular windows of the lunar module to see the lunar surface getting farther away, viewers around the world watched that same spacecraft leave the Moon, live and in color on their television sets.

Show threadSteve VaughanJan 12, 2024
@wonderofscience I always ask myself - who's filming that?
Show threadMatt McIrvin
@steve_vaughan @wonderofscience I was just learning about that a while ago-- on the later missions they had TV cameras that could be aimed remotely from Houston. There was one mounted on the rover, but they could also set one up on a tripod.
Jan 12, 2024 at 11:22pmWeb
Show threadMatt McIrvinJan 13, 2024
@steve_vaughan @wonderofscience (I guess in this case it actually was from the rover)
Show threadMatt McIrvinJan 13, 2024
@steve_vaughan @wonderofscience (Just getting color video from the Moon was really hard, since regular color TV cameras of that day absolutely were out of the question--they were enormous. They used a small black-and-white camera with a rotating color filter in front of it, and did all kinds of analog electronics wizardry to turn that into a color TV signal. The rotating filter method is why the little bits of flying debris you see here look brightly colored.)