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Lot 307
[Apollo 12] THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPH OF TWO HUMAN SHADOWS ON THE MOON Pete Conrad, 14-24 November 1969, EVA 1
14 – 28 April 2025, 12:00 CEST
Paris, Avenue HocheSold for €256 inc. premium
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[Apollo 12] THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPH OF TWO HUMAN SHADOWS ON THE MOON
Pete Conrad, 14-24 November 1969, EVA 1
Printed 1969.
Vintage gelatin silver print on fibre-based paper [B&W version of NASA image AS12-46-6843].
Blank on the reverse, numbered "AS12-46-6843" in the top margin (issued by NASA / United States Geological Survey, Flagstaff, Arizona).
20.3 x 25.4 cm. (8 x 10 in.)
Historical context
Taken by Pete Conrad as part of a panoramic sequence looking west from the rim of Middle Crescent Crater, the image immortalizes, for the first time, the shadows of two human beings on the surface of another world, the silhouettes of the Apollo 12 moonwalkers as they observe the edge of this vast, subdued crater—more than 300 meters across. "Wow, a monster!", exclaimed Conrad as he captured the photograph (see mission transcript).
This impressive location was visited near the end of their first extravehicular activity (EVA). Conrad had hoped to capture a portrait of both astronauts using a self-timer, but despite his best efforts, he couldn't locate it while on the lunar surface, making this photograph the closest attempt.
Printed 1969.
Vintage gelatin silver print on fibre-based paper [B&W version of NASA image AS12-46-6843].
Blank on the reverse, numbered "AS12-46-6843" in the top margin (issued by NASA / United States Geological Survey, Flagstaff, Arizona).
20.3 x 25.4 cm. (8 x 10 in.)
Historical context
Taken by Pete Conrad as part of a panoramic sequence looking west from the rim of Middle Crescent Crater, the image immortalizes, for the first time, the shadows of two human beings on the surface of another world, the silhouettes of the Apollo 12 moonwalkers as they observe the edge of this vast, subdued crater—more than 300 meters across. "Wow, a monster!", exclaimed Conrad as he captured the photograph (see mission transcript).
This impressive location was visited near the end of their first extravehicular activity (EVA). Conrad had hoped to capture a portrait of both astronauts using a self-timer, but despite his best efforts, he couldn't locate it while on the lunar surface, making this photograph the closest attempt.
Footnotes
Pete Conrad on the lost self-timer:
"Al and I never quite got the picture that we really wanted to get. What I wanted to do, if we got down to the Surveyor, was stick a pole in the ground and put the camera with a timer on it, so both of us could stand in front of the Surveyor and have our picture taken. All the PR guys would leap on that photograph. It would obviously be the one that they'd publish all over the world, and someone would eventually ask the question: Who took the picture?
So, I threw a self-actuating timer for the Hasselblad in my pocket. Unfortunately, we had the timer in the bottom of the rock bag, and we spent a great deal of our rest period trying to find the damn thing. We never did find it and the picture never got taken. When I got back to the LM and was putting the last of the rocks in the rock box, why lo and behold, the timer showed up. I was very unhappy and I gave the timer a big heave. I've always thought that about two million years from now when somebody's up there going through the site of our landing and everything's so well documented, they're going to come up with this little blivit that has no part number on it and they're not going to know what the hell it was."
—Pete Conrad (Schick and Van Haaften, p. 41)
From the mission transcript when the photograph was taken:
118:17:06 Conrad: Get right to the edge of this crater and photograph it. Get a pan in it, and then we won't have to come back this way. Look at that. That crater's spectacular, isn't it? Wow, a monster! [...]
118:17:59 Bean: Why don't you go ahead and pan... (Garbled under Pete)
118:18:00 Conrad: Yeah, let me get to 74 (feet focus).
118:18:03 Bean: Okay.
118:18:04 Conrad: Seventy-four...
118:18:05 Bean: You ought to have two fifty (that is, 1/250th of a second exposure).
118:18:06 Conrad: f/8, right?
118:18:08 Bean: (Two) Fifty, and you're looking...
118:18:09 Conrad: Okay.
118:18:09 Bean: . ..down-Sun. You ought to have (f/)8 over there, and (f/)11 right there. And (f/)8 over there.
118:18:14 Conrad: Yeah. (Counting pan frames) 1, 2, 3...
118:18:19 Bean: Beauty.
118:18:20 Conrad: ...4. You can... better believe it. 5. Now, let me go back to f/11 (for down-Sun).
118:18:27 Bean: Okay.
118:18:28 Conrad: We'll have to smoke to get back to that LM. We're a long way.
Watch more
CLICK HERE: Apollo 12 - Pinpoint For Science (1970)