Sunday!
A lovely day with sunshine - but cold 10C/50F.
Last night, as I mentioned yesterday, we travelled up to Southwark Cathedral to see a lecture by Andy Saunders about how he got involved with digitally remastering the original NASA photographs from the moon missions (and the photos from the earlier test flights before Apollo). Apollo Remastered was truly amazing and I'm so glad we went. Not only for the lecture which was fascinating, but also because we got to see The Museum of the Moon - a huge illuminated sphere covered with high-definition NASA photographs showing the surface of the moon.
More photos under the cut.
We got to Southwark early, so we wandered down to have a look at the reconstruction of Francis Drakes' Golden Hinde ship nearby. This reconstruction was built in 1974 and is sea-worthy. You can visit the ship which is as close as possible to the original.
The Cathedral was looking rather lovely as we headed back to join the queue to the presentation.
Inside - the moon was also very impressive - this is the face we usually see from Earth suspended in the Nave of the Cathedral.
This is the 'dark side' of the moon which has only been seen by astronauts...
This is the tomb of John Gower who was a renowned poet in the 14th century (he was Poet Laureate to Richard II and Henry IV) and was a good friend of Geoffrey Chaucer:
Then it was time to listen to the lecture by Andy Saunders. He started by admitting that he's been obsessed with the moon and the Apollo programme since he was very small and that he'd been frustrated that there are no photos of Neil Armstrong on the moon as he was the one holding the camera! He was also frustrated as the original film was extremely thin (to save weight), so the negatives were used only once to produce photographs and then put in a freezer to store them. So every copy of the photographs are copies of copies, and obviously, the quality degrades every time they are copied.
However, recently the 35,000 negatives were thawed, cleaned, and digitally scanned by NASA. So Andy decided to see what he could to to enhance the photographs (which are all in the public domain as NASA has made them available to everyone). He was able to do this kind of thing:
Or this (which I found truly amazing). This is Jim McDivitt, Commander of Apollo 9 docking with the lunar module manually while they were in low Earth orbit (in 1969!). He is doing this by looking through a small window, at something that is slightly out of his vision, while having the flip the way his craft is moving to line up the two craft. No wonder he is concentrating so hard.
Andy has had unprecedented access to the photos to ensure that key moments in the history of space exploration are clear and identifiable (and even managed to get a shot of Neil Armstrong on the moon by using film from the lunar lander camera.
There were also amazing panoramas which Andy had managed to assemble from films the astronauts took during the different missions including wonderful ones of the moon in the true colours they should be (so often the photos have been 'adjusted' to look grey).
During the presentation the cat who lives in the Cathedral decided to join in - this is Hodge - who was fascinated by the laser pointer Andy was using LOL!
Andy is an excellent speaker, and the hour-long lecture with photographs was so interesting. If you want to read more his website is here (with lots more photos and background to the project). He is also on Facebook with even more photos here. Mr Cee and I really enjoyed it - we're such geeks!
Today we have been out for breakfast at a local garden centre and wandered around the antiques fair they were holding. I did manage to resist many things including a full sized anatomical figure showing the muscles of the human body (!). I did buy a small glass t-light star because it was pretty. We've also managed to get some groceries, and now we are relaxing.
Today's question: 15 - Mushroom Day: Do you like mushrooms? Do you have a favourite type of mushroom? In what dishes are you most likely to use mushrooms?
I love mushrooms! I love them all and one of my favourites is mushroom stroganoff.
Last night, as I mentioned yesterday, we travelled up to Southwark Cathedral to see a lecture by Andy Saunders about how he got involved with digitally remastering the original NASA photographs from the moon missions (and the photos from the earlier test flights before Apollo). Apollo Remastered was truly amazing and I'm so glad we went. Not only for the lecture which was fascinating, but also because we got to see The Museum of the Moon - a huge illuminated sphere covered with high-definition NASA photographs showing the surface of the moon.
More photos under the cut.
We got to Southwark early, so we wandered down to have a look at the reconstruction of Francis Drakes' Golden Hinde ship nearby. This reconstruction was built in 1974 and is sea-worthy. You can visit the ship which is as close as possible to the original.
The Cathedral was looking rather lovely as we headed back to join the queue to the presentation.
Inside - the moon was also very impressive - this is the face we usually see from Earth suspended in the Nave of the Cathedral.
This is the 'dark side' of the moon which has only been seen by astronauts...
This is the tomb of John Gower who was a renowned poet in the 14th century (he was Poet Laureate to Richard II and Henry IV) and was a good friend of Geoffrey Chaucer:
Then it was time to listen to the lecture by Andy Saunders. He started by admitting that he's been obsessed with the moon and the Apollo programme since he was very small and that he'd been frustrated that there are no photos of Neil Armstrong on the moon as he was the one holding the camera! He was also frustrated as the original film was extremely thin (to save weight), so the negatives were used only once to produce photographs and then put in a freezer to store them. So every copy of the photographs are copies of copies, and obviously, the quality degrades every time they are copied.
However, recently the 35,000 negatives were thawed, cleaned, and digitally scanned by NASA. So Andy decided to see what he could to to enhance the photographs (which are all in the public domain as NASA has made them available to everyone). He was able to do this kind of thing:
Or this (which I found truly amazing). This is Jim McDivitt, Commander of Apollo 9 docking with the lunar module manually while they were in low Earth orbit (in 1969!). He is doing this by looking through a small window, at something that is slightly out of his vision, while having the flip the way his craft is moving to line up the two craft. No wonder he is concentrating so hard.
Andy has had unprecedented access to the photos to ensure that key moments in the history of space exploration are clear and identifiable (and even managed to get a shot of Neil Armstrong on the moon by using film from the lunar lander camera.
There were also amazing panoramas which Andy had managed to assemble from films the astronauts took during the different missions including wonderful ones of the moon in the true colours they should be (so often the photos have been 'adjusted' to look grey).
During the presentation the cat who lives in the Cathedral decided to join in - this is Hodge - who was fascinated by the laser pointer Andy was using LOL!
Andy is an excellent speaker, and the hour-long lecture with photographs was so interesting. If you want to read more his website is here (with lots more photos and background to the project). He is also on Facebook with even more photos here. Mr Cee and I really enjoyed it - we're such geeks!
Today we have been out for breakfast at a local garden centre and wandered around the antiques fair they were holding. I did manage to resist many things including a full sized anatomical figure showing the muscles of the human body (!). I did buy a small glass t-light star because it was pretty. We've also managed to get some groceries, and now we are relaxing.
Today's question: 15 - Mushroom Day: Do you like mushrooms? Do you have a favourite type of mushroom? In what dishes are you most likely to use mushrooms?
I love mushrooms! I love them all and one of my favourites is mushroom stroganoff.