268. [Apollo 11] LITTLE WEST CRATER: the landmark Neil Armstrong explored after skilfully avoiding it during LM Eagle's historic landing Neil Armstrong, 16-24 July 1969 Printed 1969. Vintage chromogenic print on fibre-based Kodak paper [NASA image AS11-40-5955]. With "A Kodak Paper" watermark on the reverse, numbered "NASA AS11-40-5955" in red in the top margin (issued by NASA Manned Spacecraft Centre, Houston, Texas). 20.3 x 25.4 cm. (8 x 10 in.) Historical context The most stunning moonscape witnessed during the first mission to another world. Shortly before re-entering the LM, Neil Armstrong ventured alone to the rim of Little West Crater, approximately 65 meters east of Eagle, to capture this dramatic photograph. The 30-meter-wide, several-foot-deep depression was a hazard Armstrong skilfully avoided in the final moments of landing. The image reveals the crater's rugged interior, strewn with rocks and boulders, and highlights the stark contrast between sunlit terrain and the pitch-black shadows of the lunar surface. Armstrong's unscheduled exploration of the crater's rim marked the farthest point traversed on Apollo 11—a spontaneous act of scientific curiosity that underscored the vital role of photography in documenting the mission. "I went the farthest. While Buzz was returning from the EASEP, I went back to a big crater behind us. It was a crater that I'd estimate to be 70 or 80 feet in diameter and 15 or 20 feet deep. I went back to take some pictures of that; it was between 200 and 300 feet from the LM. I ran there and ran back because I didn't want to spend much time doing that, but it was no trouble to make that kind of a trek – a couple of hundred feet or so. It just took a few minutes to lope back there, take those pictures, and then come back." Neil Armstrong (1969 Technical Debrief, from the ALSJ mission transcript at 111:12:31 GET) Literature LIFE, 11 August 1969 National Geographic, December 1969, pp. 768-769