Some of the First-Ever Photos Taken in Space Have Been Lovingly Restored https://petapixel.com/2025/10/22/some-of-the-first-ever-photos-taken-in-space-have-been-lovingly-restored-gemini-mercury-remastered/ #digitallyrestored #photorestoration #spaceexploration #Post-Processing #apolloprogram #andysaunders #spaceflight #astronauts #hasselblad #remastered #Sponsored #spacerace #Features #restored #mercury #Analog #apollo #gemini #NASA
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Some of the First-Ever Photos Taken in Space Have Been Lovingly Restored
This 717-Gigapixel Photo is the Highest-Res Ever Captured of Artwork
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has released an interactive photo of The Night Watch painting by Rembrandt in a staggering resolution of 717-gigapixels. The museum claims it is the highest resolution photo of artwork ever captured.
The photo was taken as part of Operation Night Watch, the largest and most comprehensive investigation into Rembrandt's masterpiece ever undertaken. The goal of the program, which started in 2019, is to optimally preserve the painting for the future. Last year, the team restored parts of the painting that had been lost to a series of attacks on the painting in the past using artificial intelligence.
The Operation Night Watch research team at work. | Rijksmuseum
At 717 billion pixels, the museum says that the distance between two pixels in the photo is just five micrometers (0.005 millimeters), which means the size of one pixel is smaller than a human red blood cell. The museum says it used a 100-megapixel Hasselblad H6D-400MS camera to shoot 8,439 individual photos that each measured 5.5 centimeters by 4.1 centimeters. These photos were then stitched together using artificial intelligence. The final file size of this gigantic image is a whopping 5.6 terabytes.
The individual shots had a depth of field of 125 micrometers (1/8 millimeter). The Rijksmuseum explains that in order to ensure that every photo was in focus, the surface of the painting was first scanned with lasers and the camera had to be fine-tuned before the photo was taken. Immediately after taking each photo, a neural network checked for color and sharpness.
Once again, the researchers of Operation Night Watch have succeeded in pushing the boundaries of what was thought possible," Taco Dibbits, Director of the Rijksmuseum says. "Thanks to this image, the public can marvel at Rembrandt's masterpiece in even smaller details."
The museum says this level of detail makes it the largest image of a work of art ever taken and is four times larger than the photo of The Night Watch that the museum posted on its website in May of 2020. That photo, which was 44.8 gigapixels in size, was already impressive, but with this jump in resolution, the researchers are able to study the painting even better.
The museum says that this new photo is sharp enough that neural networks can now examine the painting very quickly for similarities in pigment particles or the mapping of all lead soaps, which was not possible with the previous photo.
The Rijksmuseum says that the second phase of the project will begin on January 19 where the team will continue its restoration work on the painting using the information it now has thanks to the new high-resolution photo.
The navigable, full resolution image can be viewed on the Rijksmuseum website.
Image credits: Photos by the Rijksmuseum's Operation Night Watch.
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AI Photography Restores Missing Parts of Rembrandt’s ‘The Night Watch’
For the first time in 300 years, viewers can enjoy "The Night Watch" -- the iconic painting by Rembrandt -- in its entirety thanks to high-resolution photography and computer learning efforts.
The famous masterpiece is a 1642 painting by the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn and is currently displayed in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum. The painting has been on display in numerous homes throughout the centuries prior.
One of the features the painting is celebrated for is its size, which measures 142.9 inches by 172 inches. However, in 1715 the canvas was trimmed by 23.6 inches from the left side, 9 inches from the top, 4.7 inches from the bottom, and 2.8 inches from the right. Not as an act of vandalism, the trim was performed so that the painting could fit between two doors at Amsterdam's city hall, The Guardian reports.
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This left parts of the painting missing, but with the combination of high-resolution photography of what remains as the original, computer models of the painter's techniques that leverage artificial intelligence, and a current copy of the full painting by Gerrit Lunden -- which is on display in London's National Gallery -- Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam was able to temporarily restore it.
This is not the first time the painting has undergone restoration. "The Night Watch" has suffered numerous attacks in the past: it was slashed first by a jobless shoemaker and former Navy chef and later by an unemployed school teacher. It was also sprayed with acid by an escaped psychiatric patient. As such, it has been the subject of numerous complex restoration measures.
As part of the latest restoration, the team used convolutional neural networks -- a type of AI algorithm that helps computers understand images -- which helped recreate what was lost pixel by pixel.
"As part of our renovation of The Night Watch, last year we took the most detailed photograph of the painting ever and we had a lot of information," Taco Dibbits, director of the Rijksmuseum, says.
"We did three types of algorithms: one to single out the perspective distortions and to correct those; the second to recognize the color scheme of the original and to project that on the pieces that are missing; and the third one is the brushstrokes -- the technique that Rembrandt used. Then you get a computer reproduction that looks as much as possible as The Night Watch."
After that, a canvas was printed in scale and attached to the original painting, where it will remain for three months so that the museum visitors can enjoy the original composition as the painter intended it.
Dibbits explains that the "newly augmented original" will be removed after three months because he doesn't want to deceive the public and trick people into thinking that they are viewing the original in its entirety.
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This Guy Remastered Photos of Earth Shot by Apollo Astronauts
Toby Ord was disappointed at the selection of Earth photos available compared to views we have of other planets, so he decided to try his own hand at restoring older Apollo astronaut photos of Earth to reveal more of our planet's beauty.
It all started when Ord, an Oxford research fellow in philosophy, was struck by the beauty of Saturn photos captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft but couldn't find comparable photographs of Earth.
"It wasn’t that Earth itself was any less beautiful, but that there were no photographs which did justice to that beauty," Ord writes. "How could this be?"
He discovered that most Earth photos are either taken too close (e.g. from the ISS in low Earth orbit), or with unrealistic computer-aid compositing, or with the wrong cameras (by spacecraft on scientific rather than photographic missions).
The compositions Ord did like were the photographs shot by NASA astronauts on Apollo missions to the Moon.
"To find truly great photographs of the Earth — portraits of our planet — we have to go back to the 1960s and 70s," Ord says. "The Apollo program, with its nine journeys to the Moon, is the only time humans have ever been beyond low Earth orbit; the only opportunity they have had to take photographs of the whole Earth. They did not waste it."
"Apollo 8. The moment humans first saw the whole Earth with their own eyes. Floating in space, the Apollo 8 crew saw the Earth at this unexpected angle, with North to the lower-left. It was taken on the way to the Moon, from a distance of 27,000 km."
Those astronauts were equipped by NASA with high-end camera equipment, including Hasselblad cameras, Zeiss lenses, and 70mm Kodak Ektachrome film.
Read also : There are 12 Hasselblad Cameras on the Surface of the Moon
Unfortunately, the Apollo photos found in NASA's archives aren't up to par with the technical quality of modern digital photography.
"Each available image was marred by low resolution, bad image compression, blown-out highlights, or washed out colors," Ord writes. "These were the defining photographs of our time, the best representations of our fragile Earth — but they were neglected; mistreated."
Upon learning that many raw film scans are available to the public online, Ord decided to try his own hand at remastering the photos.
"To my lasting surprise, the preliminary adjustments for levels and white balance saw it come to life — already surpassing the reproduction used on Wikipedia," he says.
An unprocessed scan (left) and Ord's restored version (right).
Ord has since scoured over 18,000 Apollo photos of Earth to find every good shot of the whole planet. And over "many long evenings," he has painstakingly worked to create new digitally restored versions for the world's eyes.
"Apollo 11. After 22 hours on the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin return to orbit aboard the ascent stage of the Lunar Module, ready to join Michael Collins and begin the long journey home. Collins, who remained in orbit on the Command Module, is behind the lens. Every other human is in front of it." "Apollo 12. As Apollo 12 slips out of the Earth’s shadow, and the eclipse comes to an end. The astronauts again see the Sun shine out brilliantly from behind the Earth’s silhouette. In just four more hours, they would be splashing down into the Pacific Ocean."
The goal was to be true to Earth and the original photos, and Ord did edits that included removing dust/scratches, removing crosshairs, adjusting black points, adjusting contrast, and setting white balance (based on clouds or ice).
"I decided my role wasn’t to create startling new interpretations of the images—to make my own mark—but to be relatively conservative and stay as true as I could to what the scene would have looked like, and what the photographer was trying to capture," Ord tells My Modern Met.
"Apollo 11. Taken by the Apollo 11 crew on their way home. In this image, North is down. Near the centre is the southern tip of Africa, pointing upwards. Sunlight glints off wetlands and rivers." "Apollo 8 — ‘Earthrise'. One of the most famous photographs of all time, it was taken by Bill Anders and is the first color earthrise. It is displayed here it is in its original orientation, with North up. We can see night falling across Africa and clouds over Europe and the Americas. Because it was one of the first photographs of Earth in public circulation and highlighted its fragility by contrast with the barren lunar surface, Earthrise became an environmentalist icon." "Apollo 11. A view of Earth from the Lunar Module before it separated and descended to the lunar surface. Taken by Buzz Aldrin." "A haunting image of a crescent Earth surrounded by reflections from the Lunar Module, where the crew of Apollo 13 had been taking shelter since the accident. Parts of Asia and the Indian Ocean can just be made out in what is almost indistinguishable from a crescent Moon. They were 80,000 km and seven hours away from safety." "Apollo 14. A dramatic crescent earthrise, in black and white. Taken by the crew of Apollo 14 as they came around the far side of the Moon for the final time before heading home. A thin slice of the Pacific Ocean is all that is visible." "Apollo 13. A study in blue and white. We can see half the Earth, with ice in the Arctic and clouds over the Pacific. Taken by the crew of Apollo 13 as they left the Earth on their ill-fated journey to the Moon. This was two days before the explosion." "Apollo 12. A slender crescent Earth, taken by the crew of Apollo 12 on their way home. North is up. A sliver of the Pacific Ocean is visible, with clouds showing the pink and orange of sunset." "Apollo 12. An exceptionally slender crescent Earth, taken by the crew of Apollo 12 on their way home. The glare of the sun from the top-left has washed out the image, but granted it an ethereal quality." "Apollo 14. A crescent Earth, glowing amidst the reflections from the Command Module's window. Taken by the crew of Apollo 14 on their way home." "Apollo 17. A surreal crescent earthrise. Taken by the crew of Apollo 17, a day after they had reunited in lunar orbit. They would have no idea that it would be more than fifty years before someone else will again touch the Moon." "Apollo 17 — ‘The Blue Marble'. One of the most famous photographs ever taken. The crew of Apollo 17 captured this image of the Earth five hours after liftoff—29,000 km into their journey to the Moon."
"While I’m very pleased with how these restorations turned out, they are not the last word; not the definitive images," Ord writes. "There are also many people who could do a better job of the restoration. I’m a passionate amateur and was proud to be able to play a part, but there are professionals whose technical skills and judgment far surpass my own. […]
"Finally, and most importantly, new photographs will be taken. Since I began this project, a new mission to the Moon has been confirmed, planned for 2024. The photography of the Artemis program should rival — or even surpass — that of the Apollo program. I can’t wait."
You can find a larger selection of Ord's remastered Apollo photos on his website.
Image credits: All photographs by NASA and edited by Toby Ord. Captions by Toby Ord.
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