167 a
One of the rare and beautiful oblique views showing the lunar horizon taken by the Lunar Orbiter spacecrafts.
This medium resolution (partial view of Lunar Orbiter frame III-123M showing 24 of 28 framelets) was taken with the 80mm lens from an altitude of 53 km. Latitude: 7.67° N, longitude 27.57° W.

“The area is an oblique view looking north of an area of the Hortensius Domes. The largest crater in the foreground is Hortensius and is about 32 km across” (NASA caption).

The low altitude of the spacecraft, high oblique view and the low Sun elevation near the terminator emphasize details of the relief. Lunar domes are clearly visible, generally circular in form, with a diameter of 6–8 km, and rising as high as 400 m.

167 b
One of the rare and beautiful oblique views showing the lunar horizon taken by the Lunar Orbiter spacecrafts.
This medium resolution (partial view of Lunar Orbiter frame III-136M showing 23 of 26 framelets) was taken with the 80mm lens from an altitude of 47 km.
The site of Surveyor III and Apollo 12 which landed in April 1967 and November 1969 is in the center of the photograph.

“The Surveyor III target site is located in a 37 mile circle centered at 23.1° W longitude and 3.2°S latitude. When this picture is viewed with the band of edge data to the right, north is approximately at the right and the Sun is at the lower left. The view is looking to the west from the east in an area of the Ocean of Storms southeast of the Crater Lansberg. The distance across the base of the photograph is approximately 120 miles” (NASA caption).

167 c
Hughes Aircraft Company technicians check out the Surveyor III robot spacecraft for the scheduled NASA’s launch to the Moon. Surveyor III landed on the lunar surface in April 1967 and was visited and photographed by the Apollo 12 crew in November 1969.

Surveyor III was the first robot spacecraft to carry a surface-soil sampling-scoop; it remains the only probe visited by humans on another world.

167 d
Surveyor III was the second American lander which successfully explored the surface of the Moon, landing in a crater (subsequently named Surveyor Crater) 2.88° S latitude and 23.21° W longitude within several miles of the aiming point in the eastern portion of the Ocean of Storms.

Area portrayed is crater inner wall opposite that upon which spacecraft settled in off-level attitude. Horizon is several tens of yards or more from Surveyor’s TV camera. Rocks casting shadows may be about one foot across (first photograph).

View looking north across the interior of the crater in which Surveyor landed. Surface floor appears to be covered with rocks and is apparently uneven on a large scale as indicated by the shadowing (second photograph).

A narrow angle Surveyor III TV picture of large twin boulders north of the spacecraft (third photograph).

167 e
Surveyor III was visited and photographed by Apollo 12 astronauts two years later who brought back some parts of it to study, including its TV camera.

Lunar material picked up several feet away in sampler scoop and dumped on white surface of Surveyor III’s footpad #2 to enable close examination using a color calibration chart in the foreground (first photograph).

Surveyor III’s surface sampler scoop embedded in lunar surface during final penetration experiments with the device. Deep surface depression below scoop is one of four trenches furrowed by the sampler (second photograph).

One of the first photos of the probe showing some of the spacecraft, including an omni-directional antenna boom, landing leg and helium pressurization tank and valves (third photograph).

167 f
This photograph of a hand made mosaic of narrow angle pictures taken by Surveyor III’s TV camera and assembled by NASA / USGS provides a panorama of Surveyor Crater visited two years later by the Apollo 12 crew.


“View is due north of the spacecraft and clearly shows features identified in photos of the area taken by Lunar Orbiter III in February 1967. One of these features is the pair of large boulders in the upper center. Others include the rocky 42-foot crater beyond the twin boulders toward horizon and the crater in the foreground. Each narrow-angle frame
covers a six-degree field of view” (NASA caption).

167 g
[NASA caption] Surveyor III’s television camera photographs the Earth about midway through the eclipse of April 24. Brightest portion of the lighted ring around the Earth appears in the north polar regions – Alaska and the Bering Strait. The solar disc passed slightly north of Earth’s equator. This produced the extra brightness in the Northern Hemisphere. Picture was taken at 4:01 a.m. PST.

The photograph is “the first one in which man has been able to observe an eclipse of the Sun by his own Planet. Surveyor III took the view from the Moon with the wide-angle mode of its TV camera. Most prominent in the picture is the white cap of light caused by the bending of the Sun’s light as it passed through the Earth’s atmosphere.
The cap is much brighter than the rest because of the Sun’s proximity to that limb, causing a greater proportion of sunlight to be refracted. The beaded appearance around the remaining portion of the Earth’s atmosphere is due largely to the interruption of the band of light by overcast areas,” said J. J. Rennilson, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Cortright, p. 128).

The Apollo 12 astronauts were the only humans in history to witness such a view of an eclipse of the Sun by the Earth during their homeward journey from the Moon in November 1969.