How was the Apollo lunar landing camera able to capture Neil Armstrongs first steps on the moon?
What NASA actually did was attach a camera to an extended arm on the landing craft. This camera was lined up with the exit port and was operated from within the craft. Hence, Neil Armstrong’s famous first step onto the Lunar surface was watched LIVE as it happened. As Armstrong started down the ladder he remotely deployed it, swinging it out from its storage position in the side of the module. Note how the left hand side of the video image is obscured by both the side of the Lunar Module and the arm of the storage compartment that lowered it. (The horizontal black bar across the middle is interference flickering across the TV screen it was filmed off.) The way the camera was mounted meant that these first pictures were actually upside-down and had to be flipped over once received on Earth. The same camera was then removed and used to send video pictures of the rest of the lunar activities from a stand on the lunar surface.
