“HE WAS A TOURIST, a quarter-million miles from home. And like any traveler, he wanted to bring home a special memory.

So Apollo16 astronaut Charles M. Duke Jr. came up with a plan. Several months before his scheduled 1972 mission to the moon, Duke receveid permission from NASA to leave behind a family photograph. The picture—of Duke, wife Dorothy, and sons Charles III and Thomas—was taken by a friend in the Dukes’ Houston, Texas, backyard several week before the April 16 liftoff.

Astronaut Duke was given intensive photography training prior to the mission. He was taught about f-stops, exposure, and learned how to operate a custom Hasselblad camera. He took thousands of practice pictures and hundreds on the moon. But he never considered himself much of a photographer. “Just a point-and-shoot man,” he said decades later.

In the final hour of the final day of his three-day visit to the moon, Duke took out the shrink-wrapped family snapshot and gingerly placed it on the lunar surface, near the crater Descartes. It was a gift, his message to whoever might one day stumble upon it. He then took a snapshot of a snapshot. Evidence. A memory.” (Who We Were by Michael Williams, Richard Cahan and Nicholas Osborn, Chicago Cityfiles Press, 2008, p. 238).

Actually, he took at least three snaphotd : AS16-117-18839, AS16-117-18840 and AS16-117-18841, though the last one is clearly the best shot.

Previously on Skandalon: Apollo, Nicholas Osborn.

“At the suggestion of Joe O’Dea, Thomas Schwagmeier has created an overlay of his Apollo 11 traverse diagram on a football (soccer) pitch. The location (red dot) from which Neil took his partial pan at the rim of East Crater is reasonable correct. As of May 2008, his exact route is unknown. Better information may become available from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter once it reaches lunar orbit later in 2008.”

NASA Headquarters: “Apollo 11 lift-off” (July 16, 1969). Photo ID : KSC-69PC-442.

NASA Headquarters: “Apollo 11 Saturn V from the control room at the Kennedy Space Center after rising about ten times its own length.” (July 16, 1969). Photo ID: KSC-69PC-387.

“Apollo 11 space ship lifting off on historic flight to moon during which astronauts Edwin Aldrin & Neil Armstrong walked on lunar surface.” Photo by Ralph Morse, Cape Canaveral, FL, US, July 16, 1969.

Launch time was 9:32:00 a.m. EDT.

Same photo without the watermark from NASA Headquarters, photo ID: S69-39961).

“Spectator’s feet protuding out of driver’s-side window while waiting for takeoff of moon-landing mission, Apollo 11, at Cape Kennedy, Florida.” Photo by Bill Eppridge, 1969.

Bill Eppridge comments: “A man’s feet in a car during launch. I was on the beach for lift-off and photographed a lot of spectators. It was a a leisurely photo position.” (read more over at Eppridge’s blog).

“These three were among the thousands of persons who camped on beaches and roads adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center to watch the Apollo launch. An estimated one million persons visited the Spaceport area to see the historic flight, this nation’s first attempt to land Americans on the lunar surface.”

“Spectator dozing while waiting for takeoff of moon-landing mission, Apollo 11, at Cape Kennedy, Florida.” Photo by Bill Eppridge, 1969.