Customer Reviews

Moon 3-D: The Lunar Surface Comes to Life

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The reviews criticizing the 3-D effects in the book are unfair. Read the opening text and you will see that these are 3-D pictures made by the astronauts using a very crude method of leaning two directions to get two different angles of a scene. The photos were later processed to work in the red-green 3-D method. The resolution was as good as possible using the cameras available to the astronauts in the sixties and we should be grateful they exist at all.

Many of these photos have never been available in a book, Mr. Bell's text is excellent and my five year old son loves it all. I'm in agreement that perhaps separate 3-D glasses should have been included, instead of the viewer fixed to the book. It is a bit awkward to use, but as a father of small boys, I'm glad that the 3-D viewer can't get misplaced.

I also like the other 3-D book by the author, Mars 3-D. The 3-D effects in that one are a bit more effective, made with higher resolution cameras and technology.

You can believe everything good that Amazon reviewers have written about Moon 3-D: The Lunar Surface Comes to Life (Hardcover). I suggest that you also buy a good set of 3-D glasses (i.e., red-blue) as the ones built into the cover do not work very well, and would lead you believe everything bad that reviewers have written about this book. Amazon offers a good line of plastic full frame and clip on glasses for between 6 and 12 dollars which can also be used for certain videos.

Great fun, highly educational, etc. You can buy a pair of 3D glasses for pennies and use those if you don't like the built-in design, which I personally do (although viewing can sometimes be awkward, but you never lose your glasses this way). The quality of the 3D photos was addressed by another reviewer, but for all that they're not bad at all. Not quite as fun as Mars 3D, but a joy to read through. Definitely more interesting than a 2D book on the moon.

MOON 3-D: THE LUNAR SURFACE COMES TO LIFE is the next best thing to actually walking on the moon: it offers photos in 3-D with special built-in lenses that offer a 3-dimensional look at the moon. These 3-D photos were taken during robotic space and human exploration missions and include photos shot by the Apollo astronauts on their Moon walks. A perfect gift for any astronomy buff who would live the lunar experience!

I was surprised to hear that there were stereo images taken of the moon by our Astronauts. Stereo Images that were planned as part of a mission objective. But the camera used wasn't a stereo camera. It was a large format Hasselblad (65mm). And the simple act of clicking the shutter, advancing the film and leaning to the left or right, then retaking the same image from a slightly different perspective would capture the image in stereo -- A simple trick that could later be used to make 3D images. How simple! The results are astonishing! The fact that this information almost disappeared from history (until this book by Jim Bell) is reason enough to buy it. It makes a perfect compliment to the Mars stereo images.

The photos are small and the viewer is difficult to use. Instead of 3D glasses, the viewer is built into the book, so you have to hold it sideways to view the pictures. Some of the pictures are really striking, but some of the others are very hard to see the 3D effect.

Many of the photos are not of the moon at all, but of spacecraft and astronauts.

This is the worst example of 3D imagery I have ever experienced. The registration is off, the viewer is difficult to use and and the images simply lack depth or are impossible to focus on. This book is a rip off. Intense disappointment.