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The Apollo Missions to the Moon
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On the night of September 14th 2013, my mission was to capture pictures of the landing sites of the Apollo Lunar missions. The story that resulted in these pictures began several decades before.

The Apollo program was the third human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It was first conceived during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

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The Apollo missions would use a three-man spacecraft to follow on from the one-man Project Mercury which put the first Americans in space, and Project Gemini, a two man craft (1962–66).
Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" by the end of the 1960's. Kennedy proposed this in an address to Congress on May 25, 1961.

The first manned flight of Apollo was in 1968 and it succeeded in landing the first humans on Earth's Moon from 1969, with five further landings through to 1972 when Apollo 17 landed. Apollo missions 18 to 20 were cancelled.

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The night of September 14th gave me a good chance of catching all the landing sites in one night, with some degree of shadow on most of them to help pick out details. However, these weren't the best times for good shadows on every area. The DSLR picture above, was taken at the start of the evening, and shows the Moon at 62.3% Phase, 366682 Km from Earth.

Click the picture to the right for more details and images of the landing sites.

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Text about the missions via Wikipedia

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