Arsenal Kiev SKD Space Camera

Single lens reflex camera SKD Nr 6800002 for perforated 70-mm-film in detachable special film magazine Nr 6800002A. Negative format 50x50mm, magazine capacity 100 images (or 180 images when using a special thin-base film). Polished glass pressure plate in front of the film. Lenses: Standard lens Arsenal Vega – 12 – S 2,8/90 Nr 67002 (double Gauss type, focussing to 0,7m) and tele lens Arsenal Tair – 33 5,6/300 Nr 670005 (straight Tair design by Prof. Volossov, lens is fixed at infinity position), both interchangeable in a special breech-lock bayonet. Foldable pointing device above the reflex finder. Focal plane shutter ½ - 1/1000 and B. The camera documents the technical data of each image on the film, using four small windows adjacent to the corners of the image window: 1. Time (clock) and colour filter in use (in a round window of 5mm in diameter) 2. f-number 3. exposure time 4. focal length of the lens in use (2. to 4. appear in three square little windows 5x5mm; the analogue watch, f-number and exposure time are keyed-in automatically, while the used type of lens and the filter type have to be set manually by turning small wheels on the body). This data system is achieved by four small objectives behind the windows that focus on electrically lit scales (f-stop, exposure time etc.) and a small battery-driven electric analogue watch (in the size of a wristwatch, with black dial and white hands) that sits in the camera bottom. The SKD is a historically important camera, mounted in the Zond-7 spaceship (an automated version of the Universal spaceship Soyuz) it was used by the USSR to take 35 outstanding colour photographs of the Moon and the earth rising above the Moon on August 11th, 1969, on a circumlunar flight. The spaceship returned to the earth safely on August 14th,1969.