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Pete's Head Crater Pan

Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 2002-17 by Eric M. Jones.
All rights reserved.
Scan credits in the Image Library
Last revised 2 May 2017.

 

[Pete's pan taken on the west rim of Head Crater contains frames AS12-49- 7201 to 7216.]

Frame 7213 shows Al running from right to left with Head Crater behind him and the LM and a portion of the high-gain antenna in the distance on the righthand side of the image.

Frame 7214 is centered on the LM with Head Crater in the foreground. During the mission review, Pete noticed how much of the LM and the S-band antenna are below the apparent horizon. However, after a little arithmetic, we realized that this is due to undulation of the terrain. They are currently about 150 meters from the LM whereas, on a perfectly spherical Moon, the distance would have to be about 3 kilometers for the lower 3 meters of the 7 meter-high spacecraft to be below the horizon.

My thanks to Journal Contributor Brian McInall, whose 2017 Planimetric Map of the crew's activities at Head Crater convinced me to re-evaluate my long-held belief that Pete had taken the pan a short time earlier at the Triple Crater. I concluded that the available photos - and the transcript - support Brian's result. My overriding goal for the ALSJ is to 'get it right', and progress toward that goal would be impossible without the help of worldwide community of ALSJ Contributors.

 

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