page_title: Skylab
section_title: Cameras and film
hierarchical_section_title: Skylab / Cameras and film
caption_attribution_description: English: As the crew of Skylab 2 departs, the gold sun shield covers the main portion of the space station. The solar array at the top was the one freed during a spacewalk. The four, windmill-like solar arrays are attached to the Apollo Telescope Mount used for solar astronomy.
context_page_description: Skylab was the first United States space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three separate three-astronaut crews: SL-2, SL-3 and SL-4. Major operations included an orbital workshop, a solar observatory, Earth observation, and hundreds of experiments.
  Unable to be re-boosted by the Space Shuttle, which was not ready until the early 1980s, Skylab's orbit decayed and it disintegrated in the atmosphere on July 11, 1979, scattering debris across the Indian Ocean and Western Australia.
context_section_description: There was a variety of hand-held and fixed experiments that used various types of film. In addition to the instruments in the ATM solar observatory, 35 and 70 mm film cameras were carried on board. A TV camera was carried that recorded video electronically. These electronic signals could be recorded to magnetic tape or be transmitted to Earth by radio signal. The TV camera was not a digital camera of the type that became common in the later decades, although Skylab did have a digital computer using microchips on board.
  It was determined that film would fog up to due to radiation over the course of the mission. To prevent this film was stored in vaults.
  Personal (hand-held) camera equipment:
  Television camera
  Westinghouse color
  25–150 mm zoom
  16 mm film camera (Maurer), called the 16 mm Data Acquisition Camera The DAC was capable of very low frame rates, such as for engineering data films, and it had independent shutter speeds. It could be powered from a battery or from Skylab itself. It used interchangeable lenses, and various lens and also film types were used during the missions.
  There were different options for frame rates: 2, 4, 6, 12 and 24 frames per second
  Lenses available: 5, 10, 18, 25, 75, and 100 mm
  Films used:
  Ektachrome film
  SO-368 film
  SO-168 film
  Film for the DAC was contained in DAC Film Magazines, which contained up to 140 feet (42.7 m) of film. At 24 frames per second this was enough for 4 minutes of filming, with progressively longer film times with lower frame rates such as 16 minutes at 6 frames per second. The film had to be loaded or unloaded from the DAC in a photographic dark room.
  35 mm film cameras (Nikon)
  There were 5 Nikon 35 mm film cameras on board, with 55 mm and 300 mm lenses.
  They were specially modified Nikon F cameras
  The cameras were capable of interchangeable lenses.
  35mm films included:
  Ektachrome
  SO-368,
  SO-168
  2485 type film
  2443 type film
  70 mm film camera (Hasselblad)
  This had an electric data camera system with Reseau plate
  Films included
  70 mm Ektachrome
  SO-368 film
  Lenses: 70 mm lens, 100 mm lens
  Experiment S190B was the Actron Earth Terrain Camera
  The S190A was the Multispectral Photographic Camera 
  This consisted of six 70 mm cameras
  Each was an Itek 70 mm boresighted camera
  Lenses were f/2.8 with a 21.2 degree field of view.
  There was also a Polaroid SX-70 instant camera, and a pair of Leitz Trinovid 10 x 40 binoculars modified for use in space to aid in Earth observations.
  The SX-70 was used to take pictures of the Extreme Ultraviolet monitor by Dr. Garriot, as the monitor provided a live video feed of the solar corona in ultraviolet light as observed by Skylab solar observatory instruments located in the Apollo Telescope Mount.
caption: Skylab as SL2 mission departs
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "4400", "Image ImageLength": "4600", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image Software": "Microsoft Windows Photo Viewer 6.1.7600.16385", "Image DateTime": "2013:07:22 08:46:33", "Image ExifOffset": "2290", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:06:10 12:53:54", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:06:10 12:53:54", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2700", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2700", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}