I was playing around with Stellarium and found that four days after Apollo 14 took off from the moon, there was an eclipse (i.e., a lunar eclipse as viewed from the earth, but a total solar eclipse as seen from the Fra Mauro Highlands.)

Now I know that all of the Apollo mission landed on the moon during lunar morning for a number of reasons (I assume temperature is No. 1) But obviously, being on a red-glowing moon (and seeing a ring-of-fire earth) would have been quite a sight to record had Apollo 14 occurred four days later. I'm just curious if it was even possible (what with launch windows, lunar surface temperatures, etc.) for Apollo 14 to have been on the moon during the eclipse.

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I think that would be stretching it. As I recall, the missions were to land in the lunar morning, when (a) the surface had not warmed up much, and (b) the sun angle was low enough to produce extensive shadows. For a mission during a full moon, it would not have been at Fra Mauro but further west.

I can't think of a scientifically compelling reason to have men on the moon during an eclipse. The lowered light levels would make EVAs more dangerous, and the CSM might have been able to "arrange its own eclipses" (to steal a phrase) on the way to or from.

Fred

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Iirc, Apollo 17 experienced an eclipse of the Sun by the Earth (at long range, you dang nit-pickers) on the way back from the Moon.

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I think you mean Apollo 15. A few days after Apollo 15 left the moon, there was an eclipse as you described. NASA planned to watch the eclipse with the tv camera on the abandoned lunar rover. Unfortunatly, the battery failed before the eclipse, otherwise we would have had quite a show.

The main reason for the morning landing was so that the low sun angle being behind the astronauts would give them a good look at their landing site. Lots of shadows and such.

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LOL. You're right about Apollo 15. But I did, indeed, mean Apollo 14. I just hadn't looked into Apollo 15 yet.

Apollo 15 looks to have been a better bet; the eclipse occurred only a day or so after Apollo 15 launched from the moon (compared to Apollo 14's eclipse being four whole days after.)

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I had thoughts like this while watching the 20 February eclipse. We've got to do an Orion mission during an eclipse!

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