NASA's Apollo Lunar Surface Journal (ALSJ) records the details of each mission's time on the lunar surface as a timeline of the activities undertaken, the dialogue between the crew and Mission Control, and the relevant documentary records. Each photograph taken on the mission is catalogued there and each photographic sequence is also recorded. This page tabulates the Apollo 14 panoramas and, where appropriate, provides updated representations of the panoramas blended using more recent technologies than the originals. Although the taking of panoramic photos on the surface featured highly in the plans of all the landings, the process by which the astronauts were trained to take them is not well recorded (Phinney is probably the best source). Although some members of the astronauts corps were acknowledged as being "camera buffs", the majority had little or no experience of the principles of photography, and all required training in the use of the chosen camera, the Hasselblad 500 EL, long considered as one of the best cameras available. As good as the cameras were, the astronauts had to overcome dealing without a viewfinder, and manually changing the aperture and exposure settings to make allowance for the low Sun angles, all while wearing a spacesuit. Each frame for a panoramic mosaic would require individual changes, for example.
Context Despite the successes of Apollo 11 and Apollo 12, Apollo 14 was something of a "Recovery Mission" following the incomplete nature of Apollo 13. Since the decision had already been made for Apollo 13 to visit the Fra Mauro Formation for scientific purposes, this was simply moved forward to be Apollo 14's destination as well. Also, since the mission was designated as an "H" Mission, the profile was similar to the earlier H missions, Apollo 12 (and 13), which called for two EVAs rather than the 3 later in the program. Like Apollo 12, the majority of these EVAs occurred "off-camera" as the TV camera was not designed to be portable. The crew were equipped with the Modular Equipment Transporter - a hand-pulled, "workbench" that made its only appearance on this mission. It featured in one of the two highlights from the EVAs as the crew gamefully tried to manouvre it to the rim of Cone Crater before giving up just 20m short of their goal. The other highlight, and probably the event that the mission is best remembered for, was when the Commander, Alan Shepard, attached the head of a golf club to a rake handle and struck a couple of golf balls. In terms of photography, Apollo 14's crew proved to be less "trigger-happy" than the preceding Apollo 12 crew and only took 417 pictures on the Moon, compared to 583 on the earlier mission. However, 288 of these were components of 17 distinct panoramas and ALSJ lists another 25 sub-panoramas within this list. The post-mission Preliminary Science Report indicates that the crew took 15 panoramas but appears to have missed the "Station C" and "Weird Rock" pans (see below). In some cases, the complete, 360° panoramas were impacted by the low Sun angle and greater detail can be gained by omitting the down-Sun exposures from the panoramic sequences, hence some of the sub-panoramas. To assist in gaining bearings, the Lunar Module (LM) Antares, landed with its door and ladder leg (AKA "+Z strut") pointing approximately 20° north of due west. The Sun's elevation was between 13° and 15.5° for EVA 1, and 122° and 24.3° for EVA 2.
Non-EVA (LM-based) panoramas Being the 3rd mission to land on the Moon, the emphasis on taking 'Contingency' photos had declined by the time of Apollo 14. Subsequently, only three LM-based panoramas were taken; on landing, between the two EVAs, and prior to departing.
EVA Panoramas - EVA 1 The Apollo 14 crew, Alan Shepard and Ed Mitchell, whether constrained by their workload or otherwise, were less inclined to pause to take photos than their predecessors. The taskload for the first EVA was heavily focussed on the deployment of the ALSEP (Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package) about 120m west of the Lunar Module. This was a fairly labour-intensive process requiring the astronauts to unstow the ALSEP's packages from the LM, carry them to the required location, and then deploy them, which, in some cases, involved the rolling out of long cables for the experiments. Consequently, there would have been little time available to record anything other than required pictures.
EVA Panoramas - EVA 2 The profile of the second EVA was completely different to the previous day's; the deployment of the ALSEP had been completed so it was now time to venture further afield and explore the area. Shortly after reaching the surface, the astronauts set off to the east with the goal of climbing to the rim of the nearby Cone Crater. It would prove to be perhaps the least successful of the mission segments in the whole Apollo program. Due to the ground's topography their journey appeared to be a series of reaching a ridge only to find that another one then lay beyond it. As well as the burden of ascending for most of the way to the rim, the crew were also pulling a Modular Equipment Transporter (MET - "rickshaw") which was used to hold some of their equipment and most of their collected samples. This encountered difficulties in traversing the lunar surface and had to be lifted and carried by both astronauts on several occasions. With the whole EVA being carried out beyond the coverage of the static TV camera back at the LM, Mission Control eventually called a halt to the proceedings on the grounds that the crew were exerting themselves too much and required that they return to the LM. Subsequent photographic analysis revealed that they were probably no more than 20m/60' from the rim when they were called back. Consequently, it is probably not surprising that photography didn't feature highly on this EVA.
Post mission analysis The primary purpose of taking the panoramic images was to provide the context, or placement, of the activities undertaken during the EVAs. The initial analysis was presented in the Apollo 14 Preliminary Science Report. The images continue to be revisited periodically with new, cleaner, representations of the panoramas after being processed by increasingly sophisticated software packages. Examples of these include LPI's Apollo Surface Panorama page, NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) 'Anniversary' Panoramas,, Mike Constantine's Apollo: The Panoramas, and Andy Saunders' Apollo Remastered.
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