Dominique Ciccolella
Sale Coordinator and Expert Liaison
This auction has ended. View lot details
You may also be interested in
![[Apollo 11] LITTLE WEST CRATER: the landmark Neil Armstrong explored after skilfully avoiding it during LM Eagle's historic landing Neil Armstrong, 16-24 July 1969 image 1](/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg1.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%2Flive%2F2025-03%2F19%2F25639331-252-1.jpg&w=2400&q=75)
![[Apollo 11] LITTLE WEST CRATER: the landmark Neil Armstrong explored after skilfully avoiding it during LM Eagle's historic landing Neil Armstrong, 16-24 July 1969 image 2](/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg1.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%2Flive%2F2025-03%2F19%2F25639331-252-4.jpg&w=2400&q=75)
![[Apollo 11] LITTLE WEST CRATER: the landmark Neil Armstrong explored after skilfully avoiding it during LM Eagle's historic landing Neil Armstrong, 16-24 July 1969 image 3](/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg1.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%2Flive%2F2025-03%2F19%2F25639331-252-3.jpg&w=2400&q=75)
![[Apollo 11] LITTLE WEST CRATER: the landmark Neil Armstrong explored after skilfully avoiding it during LM Eagle's historic landing Neil Armstrong, 16-24 July 1969 image 4](/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg1.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%2Flive%2F2025-03%2F19%2F25639331-252-2.jpg&w=2400&q=75)
Lot 268
[Apollo 11] LITTLE WEST CRATER: the landmark Neil Armstrong explored after skilfully avoiding it during LM Eagle's historic landing Neil Armstrong, 16-24 July 1969
14 – 28 April 2025, 12:00 CEST
Paris, Avenue HocheSold for €256 inc. premium
Looking for a similar item?
Our Post-War and Contemporary Art specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistAsk about this lot
Sabine Cornette de Saint Cyr
Head of Department
Chloe Mayot
Senior Cataloguer
Marion Richard
Specialist
[Apollo 11] LITTLE WEST CRATER: the landmark Neil Armstrong explored after skilfully avoiding it during LM Eagle's historic landing
Neil Armstrong, 16-24 July 1969
Printed 1969.
Vintage chromogenic print on fibre-based Kodak paper [NASA image AS11-40-5955].
With "A Kodak Paper" watermark on the reverse, numbered "NASA AS11-40-5955" in red in the top margin (issued by NASA Manned Spacecraft Centre, Houston, Texas).
20.3 x 25.4 cm. (8 x 10 in.)
Historical context
The most stunning moonscape witnessed during the first mission to another world.
Shortly before re-entering the LM, Neil Armstrong ventured alone to the rim of Little West Crater, approximately 65 meters east of Eagle, to capture this dramatic photograph. The 30-meter-wide, several-foot-deep depression was a hazard Armstrong skilfully avoided in the final moments of landing. The image reveals the crater's rugged interior, strewn with rocks and boulders, and highlights the stark contrast between sunlit terrain and the pitch-black shadows of the lunar surface.
Armstrong's unscheduled exploration of the crater's rim marked the farthest point traversed on Apollo 11—a spontaneous act of scientific curiosity that underscored the vital role of photography in documenting the mission.
"I went the farthest. While Buzz was returning from the EASEP, I went back to a big crater behind us. It was a crater that I'd estimate to be 70 or 80 feet in diameter and 15 or 20 feet deep. I went back to take some pictures of that; it was between 200 and 300 feet from the LM. I ran there and ran back because I didn't want to spend much time doing that, but it was no trouble to make that kind of a trek – a couple of hundred feet or so. It just took a few minutes to lope back there, take those pictures, and then come back."
Neil Armstrong (1969 Technical Debrief, from the ALSJ mission transcript at 111:12:31 GET)
Printed 1969.
Vintage chromogenic print on fibre-based Kodak paper [NASA image AS11-40-5955].
With "A Kodak Paper" watermark on the reverse, numbered "NASA AS11-40-5955" in red in the top margin (issued by NASA Manned Spacecraft Centre, Houston, Texas).
20.3 x 25.4 cm. (8 x 10 in.)
Historical context
The most stunning moonscape witnessed during the first mission to another world.
Shortly before re-entering the LM, Neil Armstrong ventured alone to the rim of Little West Crater, approximately 65 meters east of Eagle, to capture this dramatic photograph. The 30-meter-wide, several-foot-deep depression was a hazard Armstrong skilfully avoided in the final moments of landing. The image reveals the crater's rugged interior, strewn with rocks and boulders, and highlights the stark contrast between sunlit terrain and the pitch-black shadows of the lunar surface.
Armstrong's unscheduled exploration of the crater's rim marked the farthest point traversed on Apollo 11—a spontaneous act of scientific curiosity that underscored the vital role of photography in documenting the mission.
"I went the farthest. While Buzz was returning from the EASEP, I went back to a big crater behind us. It was a crater that I'd estimate to be 70 or 80 feet in diameter and 15 or 20 feet deep. I went back to take some pictures of that; it was between 200 and 300 feet from the LM. I ran there and ran back because I didn't want to spend much time doing that, but it was no trouble to make that kind of a trek – a couple of hundred feet or so. It just took a few minutes to lope back there, take those pictures, and then come back."
Neil Armstrong (1969 Technical Debrief, from the ALSJ mission transcript at 111:12:31 GET)
Footnotes
Literature
LIFE, 11 August 1969
National Geographic, December 1969, pp. 768-769
Watch more
CLICK HERE: Apollo 11 - For All Mankind (1969)