[Click on image to enlarge] Keith’s note: This image was taken on 21 November 1966 by Lunar Orbiter II at an altitude of 44 miles. The image is taken from frame 92, Framelet 445, and has resolution is 0.98 meters/pixel. As such the large boulder that has left a trail is around 6-7 meters in diameter. The image on the left shows the highest resolution image available online at LPI. On the right is the raw unproceesed image we retrieved this afternoon. While the large boulder’s trail is seen in both images, the details of that trail and the rest of the boulder field are much sharper in our newly retrieved image.
By coincidence this large boulder is very similar in size to “House Rock” a large boulder north of the Haughton Mars Research Station on Devon Island. That’s me standing on top if it.
This rock is a favorite place to pose for photos and was named after the large rock that Astronaut Jack Schmitt posed next to during the Apollo 17 mission.
“House Rock” is the name of the big boulder found by John Young and Charlie Duke at their “Station 11” near the rim of North Ray Crater during the third EVA of the Apollo 16 mission.
The big split boulder in the Apollo 17 photograph posted on your web site is not House Rock. It is sometimes referred to as “Tracy’s Rock”, as explained in the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal (at 165:28:58).
Great work! I am surprised you were able to find a boulder track that they did not find when they originally searched the images back in the ’60s.
http://the-moon.wikispaces.com/Boulder+Tracks
Small correction: That’s 21 November 1966, not 1996. 😉
21 November 1966