Apollo 12 Landing Site

Move your mouse over the image to see just where.

Apollo 12 was the second manned landing on the Moon.  The lunar module landed at 06:54:35 UT on 19th November 1969 in the Oceanus Procellarum (but see note below), at lunar coordinates 3.01°S 23.42°E. The landing was only 180 metres from the old Surveyor-3 spacecraft which had landed there on 20th April 1967.  The astronauts recovered parts of Surveyor so that the effects of prolonged exposure to the lunar environment could be studied. This is a smaller-scale picture compared to my others here, and also covers the landing site of Apollo 14, which was only about 180 Km away.  The scale markers are 100 Km north and west. The picture was taken with my LX200 on 25th October 2004 at 22:57 UT when the Moon was 12.6 days old.  The Sun was rather high in the lunar sky, so there are few shadows to bring out the detail.

Note: The LPI (see reference below) gives the landing site as in Oceanus Procellarum, but this region was usually designated as the northern part of Mare Nubium.  In the 1970s the area was given the new name Mare Insularum (Sea of Islands) even though there is little evidence of a basin underlying it.

Here is another picture covering the landing sites of both Apollo 12 and Apollo 14.  This picture was taken when the Sun was much lower in the lunar sky, which brings out the details better. The scale markers indicate approximately 100 Km north and east. The picture was taken with my LX200 on 18th February 2005 at 20:54 UT when the Moon was 10.0 days old.

Full details of the mission can be found at the web site of the Lunar and Planetary Institute

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