Apollo 11
While there were 6 flights during the Apollo program where humans landed on the Moon, the Apollo 11 mission was the big one: a human being set foot on the surface of the Moon for the first time. On July 16, 1969, a Saturn V rocket launched headed for the Sea of Tranquility with Neil Armstrong, “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins on board. Armstrong and Aldrin later walked out onto the surface, while Collins flew the getaway vehicle in lunar orbit.
In the lunar module Eagle, Armstrong and Aldrin landed at the edge of a large region known as the Sea of Tranquility. The “seas” on the moon are large, dark areas that you can see with the naked eye. They are basaltic plains formed by lava flowing in and filling low areas formed by impacts long ago. Samples brought back from the Sea of Tranquility taught us that the moon was much older than we thought - billions, not millions, of years old!
Up Close
The landing site, dubbed Tranquility Base, is at the southern edge of the Sea of Tranquility. Using a small 6" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and an astronomy camera I was able to get a wide view of the southern section with the large crater Theophilus in frame. Take a look below at the field of view the telescope was pointing at and the resulting image:
A larger telescope could show finer details and get in a little closer, but it’s still fascinating to witness the surface up close and personal, a view the astronauts must have seen as they anxiously approached from orbit.
Can We See the Lander?
Among other human leftovers on the moon, the landing stage of Eagle is still on the Moon’s surface at Tranquility Base. Only the ascent stage was used to return the astronauts to orbit. Unfortunately, we can’t see details that small from Earth for two reasons. Due to the effects of seeing - blurring from turbulence as light passes through the gases of Earth’s atmosphere - we are limited when trying to image small objects from the surface. Additionally, telescopes have a limit to how small of details they can resolve that is related to their size (aperture) and it would take an extremely large telescope to resolve details on that scale. Even the Hubble telescope, which is not subject to the effects of our atmosphere, can’t resolve details with that small of angular diameter. A satellite orbiting the moon such as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), however, is close enough to do the job! Here’s an LRO photo taken in 2012 showing the leftover landing module and some other objects.