Apollo Remastered - The Book
Apollo Remastered is the multi-award winning, record breaking Sunday Times and #1 Amazon bestselling non-fiction book, featuring over 400 full-page photographs taken during the Apollo missions to the Moon. For the first time, every image has been digitally remastered from the original flight film, or HD transfers of the 16mm ‘movie’ film, to produce the highest quality Apollo photographs, and the most complete photographic record of these historic missions ever published.
The book covers every Apollo mission, as well as some of the preceding Mercury and Gemini missions that helped pave the way. In addition to many never-before-seen images, every classic image - including some of the most iconic and reproduced photographs of all time, are included and presented in unprecedented detail and clarity.
The unique application of digital processing to the 16mm ‘movie’ footage helps create a sense of intimacy, allowing us all, for the first time, to ride along with these space explorers on the greatest of all human expeditions.
All imagery has been sympathetically restored; the result of extensive research and generous input from several of the select few humans who made the voyages, in order to accurately present what they actually witnessed, and provide a mesmerizing retrospective of humankind’s greatest adventure.
The Contents
Every Apollo mission from Apollo 7 to Apollo 17 is covered chronologically, and each is introduced with a preface to provide an overview of the mission and the photography. Illuminating captions accompany every image, including details of what can be seen, the camera equipment used and quotes from the astronauts at the moment they were taken. They allow the reader to follow each mission individually, and the program as a whole - from the first views of the curvature of Earth, to setting foot on the Moon, and our last steps on the Moon during Apollo 17.
In addition to the 400 pages of photographs and captions, further chapters cover the history of space photography, the development and use of the special photographic equipment, and details about the scanning and digital processing techniques applied.
Apollo Remastered is a large format book containing 456 pages, measuring 29.8cm x 31.6cm x 3.6cm and weighing 3.3kg.
The Design and Print
Design
The design concept is to evoke a feeling of strolling through a gallery with each turn of the page - the image is overwhelmingly the focus, with pertinent information available adjacent to it, but without distracting from the image itself. To accomplish this, the captions are of a standard format and printed in a subtle ‘Moon grey’ color.
The information in the captions are an important element of the book - as well as providing technical data, they are intended to add even more perspective to what can be seen in the image, so that the reader may better imagine witnessing the events first hand. They also help tell the story of each mission, and the whole Apollo program chronologically.
Every effort has gone into each stage of the print process, to ensure the photographs in the book are of the highest quality and accuracy. The expertise of pre-press specialists, countless stages of digital proofing, and assessing / amending the prints as they came off the presses at some of the world’s finest printers have helped achieve this goal.
Color accuracy is particularly important and difficult to achieve, especially given the amount of greyish tones in the photographs. Representing the high dynamic range, crystal clear vistas (a result of the airless environment), and the super-deep black void of space witnessed by the Apollo astronauts, required a specific approach to printing. Many papers, printing processes and ink types were assessed. The result is a high quality coated paper, printed with a single color ‘K’ black border and a rich black ink for the photographs. A coat of varnish is then applied to the photograph only; excluding the border, to help improve contrast and allow the photographs to ‘pop’ from the page and produce exceptional contrast.
Many panoramic shots, seamlessly stitched together digitally, are presented across two pages, and further gatefold pull-outs are included throughout the book to help better comprehend the scale of the lunar landscape, and portray the stunning vistas witnessed by the Apollo astronauts. Unfolded, they produce 32inch (82cm) wide panoramas.
Releases / Editions / Reception
Apollo Remastered was first released in the UK by Particular Books (Penguin Random House) in September 2022, and in the U.S. by Black Dog And Leventhal (Hachette) in October 2022. In the UK, the anticipation of release led to the book becoming the No.1 biggest selling non-fiction book and biggest selling hardcover book on Amazon, on pre-orders alone. In the week of release it became a Sunday Times bestseller - the most expensive book ever to do so, and was the No.1 biggest selling book at Blackwell’s and No.1 with independent bookstores on Hive, in addition to appearing on other bestseller lists. It quickly went on to become the highest grossing photography book of the last 20 years and the biggest selling book on the Apollo program since records began. Media reaction and reviews can be found here.
The project and book received the Royal Photographic Society Award for Scientific Imaging in 2023, and the space community Space Hipsters book of the year award for 2022. It was also shortlisted for Book Of The Year at Barnes & Noble (U.S.) where it was a top 10 bestseller, and listed in New Scientist’s ‘Best Books Of The Year’ 2022 and TIME Magazine’s ‘Best Photobooks Of The Year’ 2022.
Apollo Remastered was translated into French in 2023, and will launch in China in 2024. It is currently on its 4th printing in the UK and 3rd printing in the U.S.
From The Publisher
Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the last steps taken on the Moon, this unique, definitive book about the Apollo missions reveals hundreds of extraordinary, newly-restored, and all-new images from the NASA archives that provide a never-before-seen perspective on the Apollo endeavors.
In Houston, Texas, there is a frozen vault that preserves the original NASA photographic film of the Apollo missions. For half a century, almost every image of the Moon landings publicly available was produced from a lower-quality copy of these frozen originals. Over the last few years, NASA image restorer Andy Saunders has been working hard. Taking newly available digital scans and applying painstaking care and cutting-edge enhancement techniques, he has created the highest quality Apollo photographs ever produced. Never-before-seen spacewalks and crystal-clear portraits of astronauts in their spacecraft, along with startling new visions of the Earth and the Moon, offer astounding new insight into one of our greatest endeavors.
This is the definitive record of all Apollo missions and a mesmerizing, high-definition journey into the unknown.
