@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyz2026-04-11 23:32:50
Just noted interesting parallels between #ArtemisII and Apollo 11 and 12, involving #SolarEclipses, either by the close Moon or by the Earth: during or after each of the three missions the astronauts described these events as their visual highlights. The Artemis II crew has done this several times - and in the post-flight press conference after #Apollo11 Neil Armstrong did it, too, in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz6nzutr7RU#t=42m19s in the segment from 42:20 (in the transcript https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED059051.pdf on PDF pages 21--22).
What he was describing is the eclipse just before arrival at the Moon of which I had re-processed the best image in https://www.facebook.com/dan.fischer.393/posts/pfbid02mf6UK3L2j5SgPiQsJk9JVYmo6XvZwDDZ23BYpXwJPDszaSpUYzuinkMyHzh9RF8Rl -> https://skyweek.wordpress.com/2024/07/25/allgemeines-live-blog-ab-dem-25-juli-2024/#Jul26 (and he is mistaking the zodiacal light they saw and photographed with the solar corona, the very same mistake made repeatedly during Artemis II).
Finally, a solar eclipse by the huge Earth observed from Apollo 12 just before splash-down was described by Alan Bean as "the most spectacular sight of the whole flight" while it happened: https://skyweek.wordpress.com/2019/11/24/eine-fette-sofi-fur-apollo-12-durch-die-erde/ (no images of totality were taken but Bean later painted the view from memory). The reason I had looked up the Apollo 11 presser was to see how this famously well-prepared post-lunar mission presentation looked like and when it happened: 19 days after their return.
