LUNAR ORBITER III

View of lunar surface from Lunar Orbiter III.
February 2, 1967
Vintage gelatin silver print
8 x 10 inches

This oblique photograph was taken by the Lunar Orbiter III of secondary site 8 in its mission to photograph potential manned landing sites on the Moon. This is a single frame taken with the Orbiter's 80 mm focal length wide angel camera and is composed of 24 of the 26 framelets which make up a complete wide angle frame. This is an oblique photograph looking south. The large crater is Theophilus. Theophilus is in an area to the west of Mare Nectaris and is approximately 97 miles in diameter. Viewed with the band of edge data to the right, north is approximately at the lower left corner and the Sun is at the left. This photograph was taken February 2, 1967, and relayed to Madrid station of the Deep Space Network March 3. Lunar Orbiter was at an altitude of 34.2 miles when it took this picture. The streak across the center of the picture is a film processing imperfection. Lunar Orbiter is managed for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by the Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia. The Boeing Co., Seattle, Washington, is prime contractor.

67-H-308