Apollo 11 Video Showcase

I was lucky enough to see the first moonwalk live on TV in the UK, even though I was quite young (6!) and it was in the early hours of the morning on the 21st of July 1969. It's great now to be able to collect together some of the original footage as well as new documentaries that relive that momentous occasion.

The moonlanding occurred at 4:17pm Houston (EDT) time (20th July) - 9:17pm British Summer Time, and the first steps on the moon were 10:56pm EDT, which was 3:56am BST(21st July) - and my parents got me and my older brother out of bed to watch it!

The photo (courtesy of NASA) is a composite of several frames taken by the astronauts of the Lunar Module. You can clearly see how bright the daylight (!) is - so the camera lens is stopped down, and with a fast shutter speed this creates the solid blackness of the sky. The astronauts commented that they could only see a few stars anyway due to the bright surroundings - the best place was to stand in the shadow of the LM.