Apollo 17 was our last manned mission to the moon. The first two Apollo missions were the “safe” ones: go to the moon, land, the astronauts do a little exploring and “returning them safely to the Earth.” Apollo 11 had 2.5 hours of EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity) during which time they collected 21.55kg of samples. The EVA time and collections increased for each successive mission culminating on Apollo 17 at just over 22hours in 3 EVAs on the surface with a total collection of 110.4kg of geologic samples. This last mission was the only mission with a professional geologist, Harrison Schmitt a member of the crew.

In this image we can see the landing site for Apollo 17, in the Taurus-Littrow Valley, marked with a “o” above center. Immediately above that marker is what was called North Massif and below it, brighter here, is South Massif that define the valley. All the EVA activity with the rover took place between these mountains, an area just a bit larger than the marker itself. The large shallow crater above this marker is Littrow (32km dia), and below and a little to the right is a similar sized but deeper crater Vitruvius (31km). To find the landing site locate these two craters and then look for the line of 4 mountains between them. The mountain chain points right to the crater Gardner (19km) and above it is Miraldi (41km). At the bottom of this image is the crater Plinius (44km) partly cut off by the edge of the image and above it Dawes (19km). There is much more to see here but the point is that you can take the average amateur telescope and easily see the area explored by our astronauts on Apollo 17!