Last Earthset: crescent Earth setting over the dark side of the Moon, creating a "Bull Horns" illusion, 7-19 December 1972

Vintage chromogenic print on resin coated paper, printed 1972-73, (NASA AS17-152-23279), with NASA caption numbered "72-H-1632", "72-HC-977", "G-73-5364" and "A KODAK PAPER" watermark on verso, (NASA Goddard SFC), 20,3 x 25,4 cm

The incredible last photograph taken by humans of the Earth from the Moon: a beautiful crescent Earth is setting over the darkside of the Moon, creating a “Bull Horns” illusion.

[NASA caption] …
Apollo 17, the last lunar manned flight, was launched December 7, 1972. The Apollo 17 crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on December 19, 1972. Cernan and Schmitt spent 75 hours in the Taurus-Littrow mountainous region of the moon, southeast of the Serenitatis Basin.

“As I orbited the Moon, and the Moon was in turn making its twenty-eight-day orbit around the Earth, I could watch the Earth change from three quarters to one-half and on down to a crescent.”
Ronald Evans (Kelley, plate 49)

“For more than six days Earth has been our friend in the lunar skies. That fragile peace of blue with its ancient rafts of life will continue to be man’s home as he journeys even further in the solar system.”
Harrison Schmitt (National Geographic, September 1973, p.306)