SHELF LIFE

Alongside my childhood collection of toys, there were always books. Each Christmas or birthday would bring at lease one book and I eagerly scoured libraries for interesting info on space travel. Luckily, 95% of these books have withstood the rigours of growing up and are still with me today.

This occasional series of bloglets will look at these book in some detail and where possible, link up with John Sisson's fabulous blog - Dreams of Space, which covers vintage space books in much more detail and probably predates Moonbase Central in its posting.

But before I move on to books proper,I'd likle to look at one of the smaller items in the collection, but no less a powerful one. A few years ago,blog supporter Andy B kindly sent me a pack of 1969 Woodmansterne Colour Slides, commemorating the lunar landing.

The slides show a selection of timelessly famous shots of the Apollo 11 mission, from Neil Armstrong taking that magical step, to splashdown safely in the Pacific.All the slides are colour positives, designed for projection with a 35mm device. Unfortunately, this presented problems as carousel projectors have been mothballed to make way for modern digital ones.

The solution tro fully appreciating these beauties was to scan with a flatbed scanner using a special attachment on the lid. This enabled me to digitally capture copies of the slides, which could then be loaded into Photoshop for adjustment, as time had discoloured the emulsion, lending an orange cast to the film.