Apollo 12 Hasselblad Self-Timer

Copyright © 2004 by Eric M. Jones and Ulrich Lotzmann.
All rights reserved.
Last revised 24 October 2006.

Just before Pete and Al started down into Surveyor Crater, Houston asked them to stop for a moment and take a rest. They used this opportunity to take a first look in the sample collection bag in the middle of the Hand Tool Carrier (HTC) for a secret timer they had brought from Earth for use with the Hasselblad.]

133:54:09 Conrad: Al, I'll tell you what let's do. Get right over here, and we'll park all of our gear, take ourselves a little rest, go over your photo plan, and then we'll have at it.

[Pete's statement about going over the "photo plan" may be a reference to the secret timer.]

[Jones - "Tell me about the timer."]

[Conrad - "The timer goes on the Hasselblad; and nobody knew we had it."]

[Bean - "It was a little auto-timer."]

[Conrad - "We were going to put the camera on the stake (the extension handle which could be mounted on the HTC to give a steady camera mount) and both of us were going to walk over to the Surveyor and have our picture taken."]

[Bean - "The timer went off in 30 seconds or something."]

[Conrad - "And we knew that PAO (Public Affairs Office) would put that photograph out before they'd put anything else out. Then somebody was going to ask the question 'Who took the picture?'"]

[Bean - "But we couldn't find the timer."]

See, also, the Apollo 12 episode of the Tom Hanks / HBO production From the Earth to the Moon.

 

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