Astronaut Buzz Aldrin will enjoy a sentimental reunion with a Hasselblad 500EL ‘moon camera’ next week on live UK television. Aldrin will be part of the BBC 2 Stargazing Live show with Brian Cox and Dara O Briain – and he will use the specially adapted 500EL Data Camera, complete with a 39 Mpix CCD digital back, to take pictures on location at Jodrell Bank and in the studio. The programme will also mention the $30 million Google Lunar X competition in which private teams must land a robot on the moon and send back HDTV ‘mooncasts’ – by the end of next year. The show will air on BBC 2 on Wednesday, 18th March.

Press Release

Actually, it is rocket science

Buzz Aldrin, legendary former astronaut and the second man to walk on the moon will enjoy a sentimental reunion with a Hasselblad 500EL ‘moon camera’ next week on live UK television.

Aldrin will be part of the BBC 2 Stargazing Live show with professor Brian Cox and presenter Dara O Briain – and he will use the specially adapted 500EL Data Camera, complete with a 39 Mpix CCD digital back, to take pictures on location at Jodrell Bank and in the television studio.

BBC assistant producer Chris O’Donnell said: “We want to reunite Buzz with this camera – which is in itself an historic artefact. It will be a nostalgic reunion and once he has familiarised himself with it we hope he will take some shots during the day. We also plan to use the camera to embrace important scientific points with our experts. Photos taken on the moon with the Hasselblad are incredibly important in the quest to understand how the moon was formed and conditions in the early solar system.”

He added: “Buzz will answer questions as part of the viewer feedback and I am sure they will include questions about which are his favourite pictures – and which shots he was actually required to capture by NASA.”

The programme will also mention the $30 million Google Lunar X competition in which private teams must land a robot on the moon and send back HDTV ‘mooncasts’ – by the end of next year.

Said O’Donnell: “One of the milestone prizes on offer is an extra $5 million for pictures of Apollo artefacts on the moon – which of course would include the Hasselblad camera that astronauts left on the surface.”

Watch the show (broadcast in two back to back episodes) on BBC 2 on Wednesday March 18. (Also available on BBC iPlayer immediately after broadcast until seven days after the final show.)

*iPlayer is not available outside the UK but website clips are available worldwide and the BBC plans to tweet pictures of Buzz Aldrin taking pictures on the day.

Your Comments