Nasmyth, James Hall, James Carpenter. The Moon : Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite. 2nd ed. London: John Murray, 1874.

The Face of the Moon: Galileo to Apollo

An Exhibition of Rare Books and Maps

Masursky, Harold; Colton, G.W.; and El-Baz, Farouk, eds.

Apollo Over the Moon: A View from Orbit. – Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1978. (NASA SP-362).

The Apollo missions brought views of the lunar landscape to an entirely new level. Thousands of images were recorded on high-quality film that could be brought back and developed, rather than encoded and transmitted. Many of these images, some of them absolutely breathtaking, can be found in the various Apollo Mission Reports and Preliminary Science Reports, in the NASA Special Publication (SP) series. Other NASA publications, such as the Educational Publication (EP) series, also present selected photographs from the Apollo missions. Perhaps the best collection of Apollo photographs is Apollo over the Moon, which contains images from the entire Apollo mission program.

It seems fitting to conclude this historical review of depictions of the face of the moon with a photograph taken by the last of the Apollo missions, Apollo 17. It provides a stunning oblique view of the crater Copernicus, looking southward from the Montes Carpatus (Carpathian Mountains). Image source: Masursky, Harold, Colton, G.W., et al. Apollo over the Moon: A View from Orbit. Washington: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1978, p. 161.

View Source »