"pan" <pan### [at] syixcom> wrote:
> Actually, Surveyor II took a picture of a solar eclipse from the moon.
> Images were retrieved by Apollo 12 crew who also snapped a nice picture
> in space (not on the moon's surface).

Hum - I forgot about the Surveyor probe indeed (it was Surveyor 3 though, not
2). That would have been a chance to get some nice shots of a "lunar solar
eclipse".

Unfortunately, you are a bit misinformed: Apollo 12 did not retrieve any
photographic images from the probe, neither did the probe carry any
photographic camera in the first place. It had been sitting around on lunar
soil for three years already, and when it had been built, probably nobody had
expected a manned mission to land anywhere close. So all the Apollo 12 crew
took home was some parts of the probe, probably to examine some problems
experienced (including the TV camera) and learn some lessons from it.

The eclipse shot from Surveyor 3 is actually a very bad black-and-white shot,
that had been transmitted years earlier already, and - as the beautiful Apollo
12 shot indicates - does the event no justice whatsoever.

The Apollo 12 shot, on the other hand, was taken comparatively close to earth,
so it, too, can only hint at how it might look in reality from the moon.

Post a reply to this message