Though 12 men have walked on the moon, only one could be the first. When Neil Armstrong, who died Aug. 25, touched down in 1969 on the lunar surface, he and fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin made history and photographed their landing site in detail.
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Farewell Neil Armstrong, the Ultimate Test PilotThis fitting panoramic tribute transports you to the Apollo 11 landing site and lets you see what Armstrong saw. Stitching together photographs taken by Armstrong himself, the full 360-degree view shows the flat volcanic regolith where the Apollo Lunar Module landed. Aldrin unloads material for seismology experiments in the background.
Best viewed in full-screen mode, the panorama lets you take control, panning and zooming across the landscape. This feature was created by Danish photographer Hans Nyberg, whose immersive panoramas Wired has featured in the past.
It is remarkable to have it since stitching together images like this had not yet been invented during the Apollo era, said Nyberg. Furthermore, the Hasselbad camera that Armstrong had fixed to his chest to take this series of photos had no viewer to look into — the astronauts just had to try and move around in correct steps to capture the entire scene.
Since Armstrong mostly manned the cameras, there are few high-resolution images of him on the moon. Aldrin took one panorama where Armstrong can be seen at the Lunar Module but the quality is not as good as the images in this one, said Nyberg.
Nyberg originally created his lunar panorama site back in 2004, but this more modern version can be seen in super resolution.
Image: Hans Nyberg
