Spacelog Apollo 8

You should see the horizon now in the top of your picture.

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.

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?