Spacelog Apollo 8

Key moment TV broadcast 3: views of the moon: Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Houston, this is Apollo 8 with the TV going. Over.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. Reading you loud and clear. We see your TV. It is a little bit—little bit clearer.

Roger. The moon is very bright and not too distinct in this area. I will give you a shot of the horizon.

Roger.

How's that look? Is it on the top of your picture?

Apollo 8, this is Houston. It's a good picture—the horizon—we can't see many terrain features as yet.

Roger.

Apollo 8, Houston. We are beginning to pick up a few craters very dimly; the whole thing is pretty bright.

Roger. There is not much definition up here either out on the horizon. We are now approaching the craters See and Bassett.

Roger.

I'll shift to the rendezvous window.

Roger, Bill.

Apollo 8, Houston. We want to take the DSE.

Roger. You've got it.

Roger. Looks like we've got a real good picture now.

Okay. That's the crater Brand.

Roger.

Sorry we missed Carr.

Me, too.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. We are going to need a cryo fan cycle sometime during this pass.

Roger. Can we wait till sunset?

Roger. We can wait.

Okay. I think we are coming up on Miller right now.

There's a very new bright impact crater; should be in the field of view now.

Roger, Bill.

You see it in the upper part of your screen.

Say, Bill, how would you describe the color of the moon from here?

The color of the moon looks like a very whitish gray, like dirty beach sand with lots of footprints in it.

Some of these craters look like pickaxes striking concrete leaving a lot of fine haze dust.

Roger. We have the horizon, Bill.

Apollo 8, Houston.

I believe these are the craters now Bassett and See.

Roger, Bill. If you have the polarizing filter handy, try flipping it in front, would you?

Roger.

Jerry, as a matter of interest, there's a lot of what appears to be very small new craters that have these little white rays radiating from them.

Roger, Jim.

Roger. We see the filter going over it. Apollo 8, this is Houston. Looks like we have too much light. The polarizing filter doesn't help much. Go ahead and remove it again.

Roger. It's removed.

Looks like we just got —

Roger. We're just passing over the crater Borman, and there's Anders out there; Lovell is right south of it.

Roger. The TV is breaking up now. Okay. We are back with a good picture. Looks like we just have too much light. Our definition is rather weak.

Roger.

Also, we're fogging up the window here, Houston, among other problems.

Roger, Bill. The other window is better than that one.

Okay.

Much better picture, Bill; much better.

Alright. The right side of the camera is pointing retrograde. We are now passing abeam of the crater Houston; I will show the camera over there once for the folks in Texas.

Roger.

It's a big and sprawly one; it's got those two impact craters, one to the right and one to the left.

Roger, Bill.

How's your picture?

Still about the same, Bill. It's—the terrain's pretty bright. We are not getting much definition at all; definition on this side is much much better.

Okay. I think—Okay. We are leaving the window; that gives you an idea how bad our window is.

Roger. This picture now is much better; I guess the light levels are decreasing now.

Okay. We are coming up on the crater Collins.

Roger. What crater is that just going off.

That's some small impact crater.

Roger.

We will call it John Aaron's.

Okay.

If he'll keep looking at the systems anyway.

He just quit looking.

Jerry, another ID feature: these small impact craters have dark spots in the center where it appears that they buried in it and hit some new material down below and scattered a lot of fine white dust around them.

Roger. Understand, Jim.

Apollo 8. This is Houston. Looks like we can see Collins now.

Roger. There is Collins for you.

And Collins is right on the edge of Smythe's Sea which we are about to pass over.

Roger.

Apollo 8. This is —

We are now going across the Smythe Sea. Go ahead.

Roger. We just saw a Stellenword go by.

Roger. He was really in a hurry.

Roger. Picture is much improved now; getting better all the time.

Roger. The terrain here is, as you can see, not well defined. We are going to start a roll to the left, in order to come across the target area, with the television —

Roger.

— landing site area.

Roger, Bill.

How is that crater in—right in the middle look now?