Buzz Aldrin setting up the Solar Wind Experiment on the lunar surface, the lunar module "Eagle" behind him, July 16-24, 1969
Vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), numbered 'AS11-40-5872' in red on top margin on recto, with 'A Kodak Paper' watermarks on verso

This lot is offered without reserve.
This lot has been imported from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.
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Lot Essay

As requested per his checklist, Armstrong took this historic first photograph of Aldrin on the lunar surface in order to document the Solar Wind Experiment.

“Many of the pictures taken by Armstrong will always be considered as classics of lunar surface photography. Here, rim-lit by the Sun to the left, Aldrin unfurls the aluminium sheet of the Solar Wind Experiment; behind him is the Lunar Module. Footprints can be seen in the foreground, also the linear tracks which were formed by the cable of the lunar surface TV camera. The shapes of light on the left were caused by the Sun shining almost directly into the camera lens.” (Arnold, plate 17)

“Stepping out of the LM’s shadow was a shock. One moment I was in total darkness, the next in the Sun’s hot floodlight. From the ladder I had seen all the sunlit moonscape beyond our shadow but with no atmosphere, there was absolutely no refracted light around me. I stuck my hand out past the shadow’s edge into the Sun, and it was like punching through a barrier into another dimension.”
Buzz Aldrin (from his 1973 book Return to Earth)