D. Scott; J. Irwin [Apollo 15]

509 a
Station 1 was located on the east flank of Elbow Crater which is visible in the background as well as the near wall of Hadley Canyon. Scott holds a tong in his right hand.

“As Scott and Irwin arrived at their first stop at Elbow Crater, it soon became obvious just how productive the J missions (Apollo 15 to Apollo 17) were going to be. At this, their first stop, they were over three kilometers from the LM and, yet, had plenty of cooling water, oxygen, and time for field work. For ten minutes or so, they gathered rocks and soil, describing features that the TV couldn’t capture and taking photographs” (from the ALSJ mission summary).

509 b
A beautiful color effect is added to the lunar surface in this photograph which was light-struck when Scott took it to document the location of the first sample collected during the mission.
At right sits a device called a gnomon, used to provide a photographic scale by which to judge sizes of features. The gnomon indicated local slope and, by its shadow, the Sun angle; it also included a color bar to help analysts match photographic colors and tones to those of the actual scene.

509 c
Scott’s tongs are visible in his left hand as he uses his right hand to adjust the focus of his chest-mounted Hasselblad to take a picture of the rock.

122:41:41 Scott: Can you imagine that, Joe? Here sits this rock, and it’s been here since before creatures roamed the sea in our little Earth.
122:41:54 Allen (Mission control): Well said, Dave...
122:41:55 Scott: Hey, Jim?
122:41:56 Irwin: Yeah.
122:41:57 Allen: ...well said.
122:41:58 Scott: We ought to check the dust on the lens of these cameras. (Pause) And this has just got to be impressive.

509 d
“At Station 2, the crew turned a boulder over so that they could obtain samples from beneath it…which might tell just how long the rock had been lying where they found it” (from the ALSJ mission summary).

122:56:27 Scott: Jim, get a scoop of that underneath. Let me go around to the other side and get a picture.
122:56:30 Irwin: The underneath portion there?
122:56:31 Scott: Yeah.
122:56:32 Irwin: Okay. (Long Pause)
122:56:48 Scott: Okay; I got the pictures.
123:04:13 Scott: Okay. (Pause) Let me picture this here where my big foot went. (Pause) Okay; I got it, Jim. You can get your soil.

509 e
“On the steep slope of station 2, Scott and Irwin wielded rakes, scoops, cameras and sample bags, hammered a double section of core tube into the soil which would tell the geological tale of Mount Hadley Delta. By the time they were done, Scott and Irwin had spent fifty minutes at St. George. It was, by far, the longest and most productive geology stop that had yet been performed by an Apollo crew” (from the ALSJ mission summary).

The photograph shows the head of the lunar rake sitting on top of the boulder, the gnomon, Scott’s shadow and the far wall of the rille.

123:06:59 Irwin: I wouldn’t want to go up much farther on this slope. It’s too hard to get up.

509 f
A great frame of the second panoramic sequence captured by Irwin on the steep slope of station 2.

123:17:12 Irwin: Going to have a little moving base on that pan.
123:17:15 Allen (Mission Control): Roger, Jim...
123:17:16 Scott: (Garbled under Joe) still one.
123:17:17 Allen: ...no problem.
123:17:19 Scott: You know, a blurred picture isn’t much good.