“Exceptional first photograph of an eclipse of Sun by the Earth, as seen from the surface of the Moon, Surveyor III, 24 April 1967”
Above per the description associated with a black & white version of another Surveyor III photo of this particular solar eclipse, as written by Victor Martin-Malburet…from a 2022 auction of his photographs conducted by Rago Wright, LLC. At:
search.app/oY8ManvGnKh3UmdB8
Further:
“Both sunrise and sunset on Earth are seen in this photo of the Earth’s disc passing across the sun as photographed from a vantage point on the moon. The picture was taken by Surveyor III’s television camera at 3:24 a.m. PST during the April 24 eclipse. On the upper left side of the disc, the sun is setting over Asia and the Indian Ocean. Lower right edge shows sunrise over the southeast Pacific. At this stage of the eclipse, the Earth and sun are 42 minutes into the period to totality. Brightest portion of the lighted ring around the Earth is in the northwest quadrant of the Earth as viewed from the moon. This is the eastern portion of the Asian Continent.”
Above, along with the photo, at/from the superlative LPI website:
www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/mapcatalog/Surveyor/press_rele...
Specifically:
www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/mapcatalog/Surveyor/press_rele...
Additionally, per NASA SP-184/“Surveyor Program Results”, from the section entitled "Eclipse of Sun by Earth, as Seen From Surveyor Ill", authored by "E. M. SHOEMAKER, J. J. RENNILSON, AND E. A. WHITAKER:
“In late morning of the first lunar day of the Surveyor III mission, an unusual opportunity occurred to observe an eclipse of the Sun by the Earth; this eclipse took place on April 24, 1967. Were it not for the fact that the spacecraft was tilted as much as 14.7° to the west and was oriented favorably with respect to azimuth, it would not have been possible to observe the Earth from a landing site at 23° W longitude because of the limited range of elevation angles through which the mirror can be stepped. To observe the Earth, the mirror was pointed upward and positioned at its highest permissible elevation step, and wide-angle pictures of the eclipse were obtained. The image of the Earth was reflected from very near the upper edge of the mirror. During the eclipse, two series of pictures (20 pictures total) were obtained through the color filters. The first series of pictures was obtained at approximately 11:24 GMT; the second set was obtained approximately 37 minutes later: The pictures were taken at two iris positions, and multiple pictures were taken through each filter.
During the eclipse, the Sun passed behind the Earth along a path that brought the position of the center of the Sun, as seen from the Moon, to within 15 minutes of the sublunar point on the Earth. At the time the Sun was most nearly centered behind the Earth, the projected center of the Sun lay northeast of the sublunar point. The sublunar point was at about 172° W longitude and 12.5° S latitude at the time the first series of pictures was taken, and at about 179° E longitude and 12.5° S latitude at the time the second series of pictures was taken. These positions are in the southwest Pacific. The limb of the Earth lay along western North America, the eastern Pacific, eastern Antarctica, the central Indian Ocean, southeast Asia, central China, eastern Siberia, and a short arc across the western Arctic Ocean.
In the first series of eclipse pictures, the Earth is partly surrounded by a halo of refracted light that varies greatly in brightness from one position to another along the limb. A very bright region, approximately 60° in arc length, lies along the northern part of the limb, nearest the position of the Sun. In the majority of pictures taken, parts of the image of the halo in this region are saturated. On either side of this bright region, the halo has a beaded appearance; small bright areas of short arc length are separated from other bright areas by sectors of the halo that are relatively faint. Most of these bright areas or beads are only a few degrees in length, but one relatively bright sector, about 20° long, is present that cannot be resolved into separate beards. At least 12 beads can be distinguished in the halo.
A gap ranging from about 50° to more than 90° is present in the images of the halo along the eastern limb of the Earth. Over most of the arc length of the gap, the halo is too faint to be detected with the exposures used, but over a short sector of the gap, the image of the Earth may have been cut off by the edge of the camera mirror.”
Note the lead author, none other than the man himself, Eugene M. Shoemaker.
The above at/from:
search.app/ibJEAHwSUcftLPyo9
and/or:
search.app/VrgotrvWU2m5KhaK9
Finally…interesting:
cohost.org/rc/tagged/eclipse?refTimestamp=1707980265964&a...
Credit: Brandt Hughes/cohost
And:
earthsky.org/upl/2015/04/sun-eclipse-by-Earth-from-moon-S...
Credit: EarthSky website
A genuinely rare photograph, for multiple reasons, in color at that!
