632 a
Harrison Schmitt, Eugene Cernan, or Ronald Evans

Sunset over the lunar farside seen during the first revolution of the spacecraft around the Moon

Apollo 17, December 7-19, 1972, orbit 1, 090:45:19 GET

Unreleased photograph, vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with “A Kodak Paper” watermarks on the verso, numbered “NASA AS17-151-23108” in red in top margin (NASA MSC)

632 b
Harrison Schmitt, Eugene Cernan, or Ronald Evans

Lunar farside horizon over Craters Schlieman and Star Chaplygin

Apollo 17, December 7-19, 1972, orbit 2, 091:05:43 GET

Unreleased photograph, vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with “A Kodak Paper” watermarks on the verso, numbered “NASA AS17-151-23155” (NASA MSC) in red in top margin

632 c
Harrison Schmitt

First photograph of the Earth setting over the dark side of
the Moon

Apollo 17, December 7-19, 1972, orbit 2, 092:46:00 GET

Unreleased photograph, vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with “A Kodak Paper” watermarks on the verso, numbered “NASA AS17-151-23175” (NASA MSC) in red in top margin
20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in)

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Lot Essay

632 a
An oblique photograph, taken looking north west toward the horizon 123 km above the backside
through the 80mm lens, showing the tortured relief of the Moon over the 81-km crater Korolev (right) and the 110-km Crater Doppler (cut off at the top center) accentuated by the low Sun illumination of 5°. At the bottom of picture, the lunar terminator is the boundary between day and night on the Moon.
Latitude / longitude: 14.6° S / 157.4° W.

090:XX:XX Schmitt: Look at that! Isn’t that pretty?
090:XX:XX Evans: See it, Gene?
090:XX:XX Cernan: No.
090:XX:XX Evans: It’s back here.
090:XX:XX Cernan: What are you looking at?
090:XX:XX Evans: It’s the sunrise, terminator. [...]
090:45:19 Cernan: Okay. We’re rounded out a little bit more now. [...]
090:45:XX Evans: Can you swing out and get - get a shot of Korolev while I go to the next one?
090:45:XX Cernan: Manischweitz! That’s Korolev. That’s that big ridge, Jack...
090:45:XX Schmitt: That’s what it is, yes.
090:45:XX Cernan: ...that we saw coming in, only we’re so much closer now. We’re rounding off...
090:45:XX Schmitt: We came in from a lot higher - Korolev and on up and around.

632 b
Taken looking north west toward the horizon with the 80 mm lens during revolution 2 from an
altitude of 94 km, and a Sun elevation of 53°.
The 80-km crater Schliemann is at the lower right; the bright ray 1.5-km crater Star Chaplygin (today Chaplygin B), located on the northwest rim of Crater Chaplygin, is at the top of picture. Latitude / Longitude: 3.3° S / 154.3° E.

“There are changes in the color of the moon as you traverse from Sunrise to Sunset. At sunset [...] you think the Moon is brownish. [...] Then the brownish gets lighter brown, and pretty soon you get over to high noon. [...] And you look out there and it’s bright, bright, really, really bright. [...] You look around - where in the world are my sunglasses? And the damn things have floated off somewhere,” said Ron Evans (Chaikin, Voices, p.42).

091:05:43 Cernan: Oh, there’s the Star Chaplygin, Ron. See it? Out here?
091:XX:XX Evans: I - I don’t see it yet, but...
091:XX:XX Cernan: Yes. Oh, it’s beautiful! Right on the - right on the - on the northern - Ron, let me get my [garble]...
091:XX:XX Evans: Oh, yes.
091:XX:XX Cernan: See it?
091:XX:XX Evans: Okay, I see it coming up there.
091:XX:XX Cernan: Oh, man, beautiful.
091:XX:XX Evans: That’s Chaplygin?
091:XX:XX Cernan: Yes, that’s Chaplygin.
091:XX:XX Evans: Oh, okay. The star Chaplygin, okay, is on the north...

632 c
As the spacecraft rounded the western limb of the Moon for the second time and arrived over the backside, the crew photographed with the 250mm telephoto lens this exceptional view of the gibbous Earth about to disappear below the dark lunar horizon.

“Very often on Apollo, the crews would take photos of Earthrise over the Moon’s sunlit horizon. On this occasion, one of the Apollo 17 crew has had the wit to take a unique series of shots showing Earth setting behind the Moon’s night-time horizon” (AFJ mission transcript at 092:45:53 GET).

092:45:37 Overmyer (Mission Control): America, Houston. We’re about 3 minutes until LOS (Loss of Signal) and everything is looking great. No changes since our Go for DOI (Descent Orbit Insertion). We’ll expect to see you at 93:34:24.
092:45:53 Cernan: We’ll see you at 93:34:24, Bob.