580 a
Charles Duke

Moonscape at the Descartes landing site

Apollo 16, April 16-27, 1972, EVA 1, 119:34:32 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 AS16-113-18317” (NASA MSC) in red in top margin, with three filing holes in top margin

580 b
Charles Duke

The LM Orion at the Descartes landing site

Apollo 16, April 16-27, 1972, EVA 1, 119:36:20 GET

Vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with NASA MSC caption and “A Kodak Paper” watermarks on the verso, numbered “NASA AS16-113-18334” in red in top margin
20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in)

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Lot Essay

580 a
A frame from the panoramic sequence taken by Duke at the beginning of the EVA looking north from a point 20 m northeast of the spacecraft (to the 4 o’clock position relative to the LM hatch).

“A survey after landing revealed that although we had landed in a level area, a touchdown 25 m in any direction would have placed the LM on local slopes of from 6° to 10°. The LM landed in a subdued old crater, approximately 75 meters in diameter.
In general, the landing area is saturated with these old craters so that the few young sharp-rimmed craters provide a notable contrast to the pervasiveness of the old craters. In the immediate vicinity of the LM, a few 1- to 2-meter craters have glass-coated bottoms. This glass is cracked and wrinkled so that it looks like dried mud. A low percentage of the surface is covered by subrounded to subangular blocks. To the north, the Turtle Mountain ridge shields the traverse route of the third period of the extravehicular activity,” observed the Apollo 16 crew (NASA SP-315, p. 5.1).

119:32:44 Duke: Okay, I’m going to get the (Hasselblad) camera.
119:32:54 Young: All righty.
119:32:55 Duke: (Get) the pans.
119:32:57 Duke: Ya-hoo! Tony, this is so great you can’t believe it!
119:33:01 England (Mission Control): Oh, I believe it, Charlie. (Pause) When you get in the middle of your pictures there, you might give me a call and I’ll instruct you on some more (photos) we’d like.

580 b
Duke had to lean back in his spacesuit to get the top of the LM in this close-up picture as he inspected Orion after its landing on the lunar surface.

“You had to get in some strange positions. I remember standing there, to take up this way, I had to lean (straining) back and push the bottom of the camera up and sort of...You could rotate the PLSS control box (RCU) it up a little bit and elevate your camera; plus, by bending backward, you could get some more elevation on it,” said Charles Duke (from the ALSJ mission transcript at 119:36:28 GET).

119:35:53 England (Mission Control): Okay, and we’d like you to take pictures of the ablated paint (on the LM), Charlie.
119:36:00 Duke: Okay, I’ll do that. I’ll do it at f/8, at about 15 feet.
119:36:11 England: Okay, we’d like f/8 at 250(th of a second exposure) and f/11 at 250 of all of the ablated surfaces.
119:36:20 Duke: Okay. (Pause) (Laughing) If I can bend back that far, Tony.