A few days ago, on 17 May 2013, Frederick Doyle died at age 93.

For those who don’t know, Frederick Doyle was a space photographer and photographic mapping specialist at NASA. He was appointed chairman of NASA’s Apollo Orbital Science Photographic Team in 1969, where his responsibilities included the planning of the camera systems and direction of orbital science photography for the Apollo lunar missions 13 to 17. Many famous images of the moon, including mappings of the mountains of the moon, came to us courtesy of Mr Doyle.

Beyond his moon imagery, Doyle directed photography projects on space missions to Mercury, Venus and Mars. He was also a principle investigator on the Landsat satellite photography projects, as well as on Skylab. The images of earth created under his supervision have given scientists greater insights into topics like climate change and deforestation.

Frederick Doyle may not have been a household name, but as a science photographer he certainly made a huge contribution to the field of space photography and the mapping of the earth’s surface.

To see more of his wonderful images, have a look at Apollo Over the Moon: A View from Orbit.