Name: The first view of the Earth from the Moon, August 23, 1966
Brand: Lunar Orbiter I
Price: 1400.00 GBP
Availability: SoldOut

Taken by a Kodak camera aboard the Lunar Orbiter I spacecraft

The first view of the Earth from the Moon
Lunar Orbiter I, August 23, 1966

Vintage gelatin silver print on fiber-based paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with NASA HQ caption numbered “66-H-1378” and dated “October 24, 1966” on the verso
20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in)

Cortright, pp. 84-85; Chaikin, Space, pp. 72-73; Newhall, pp. 118-119; Hope, p.16; Thomas, p. 128.

Zürich, Kunsthaus, Salzburg, Museum der Moderne, Fly me to the Moon, March-June 2019 and July-November 2019; exhibition catalogue, p. 62, no. 20, illustrated.

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Lot Essay

This high resolution photograph (full view of Lunar Orbiter frames I-102H2) was photographed with the 610mm lens from an altitude of 1198 km above the Moon over the 233-km Crater Pasteur (cut off at right) and the 173-km Crater Hilbert (cut off at left). The view is centered on a point of latitude: 14.68° S, longitude 104.34° E on the lunar farside.

This photograph is the re-enhanced version of the image which was transmitted to Earth on August 23, 1966 and first released a few days later. It was released again by NASA on October 24, 1966.

The NASA caption presented the photograph with Earth on the left of the Moon (since Earth’s North Pole was at the top) and described the view as “The world’s first view of the Earth taken by a spacecraft from the vicinity of the Moon”; but the world’s media instinctively rotated the image to show Earth above. It is a sight that has only ever been seen by the later Apollo astronauts as they came around the farside of the Moon and faced the Earth.