437 a
Richard Gordon, Pete Conrad, or Alan Bean

Eclipse of the Sun by the Earth

Apollo 12, November 14-24, 1969

Unreleased photograph, vintage gelatin silver print on fiber-based paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), numbered “NASA AS12-53-7904” (NASA MSC) in black in top margin

437 b
NASA / Unidentified photographer

Return to Earth

Apollo 12, November 14-24, 1969

Three vintage gelatin silver prints on fiber-based paper, each 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with NASA HQ and KSC captions on the verso
20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in)

437 a
Light, plate 108 (variant).

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Lot Essay

437 a
Apollo 12 was about 30,000 nautical miles away from home when the Earth moved directly between the Sun and the spacecraft.
Depicted is a scene only visible in space, and which the Apollo 12 astronauts were the only humans to witness and photograph with the Hasselblad camera and black and white film (as they were out of color film).

“Now, we saw an eclipse coming back on Apollo 12, which nobody else had experienced before,” remembered Richard Gordon. “It was a beautiful sight. It was very, very impressive. It looked like a damn diamond ring... We were pretty close to the Earth for the eclipse, so it was pretty good size, but only a very small crescent of the atmosphere was illuminated, and then the Sun kind of... went behind the Earth, and then came back out around the corner again...
The Earth was totally black; we couldn’t see a damn thing on the Earth. Just black, I mean, nothing was illuminating it. There was the black of space, the black of the Earth that you couldn’t distinguish anything on, and then we saw a little crescent of atmosphere...” (Chaikin, Space, p. 126).

From the mission transcript during the eclipse:
240:33:39 Gordon: We’re getting a spectacular view at eclipse. We’re using the Sun filter for the G optics, looking through, and it’s unbelievable.
240:33:48 Weitz (Mission Control): Roger. Understand, Dick.
240:33:57 Gordon: The reason it looks so much different is the limb of the Earth is eclipsing it. It’s not quite a straight line, but it’s certainly a large, large disk right now. Looks quite a bit different than when you see the Moon eclipse the Sun.
240:34:15 Weitz: Roger.
240:34:18 Bean: Anybody down there know how I - what we can set the camera at to use the Sun filter on it? To - to - take a couple of shots of this eclipse right through it?
240:34:31 Weitz: Stand by and we’ll check.
240:34:35 Bean: They’d better hustle.
240:34:38 Weitz: Okay.
240:34:47 Bean: Funny thing is, you cannot see the Earth at all when you just shield your hand from the Sun and look out right next to it where the Earth should be. It’s not there at all. When you stick your smoked glass up, you can see where it’s cutting the - the Sun. Otherwise, it’s completely invisible.

437 b
The first image shows the landing of the Command Module in the Pacific Ocean at the successful completion of the lunar landing mission. The second image shows the crew walking from the recovery helicopter to the quarantine facility visible in the third image.