From John Beaderstadt:
Phil on Sun, 28 Sep 2003 13:39:56 GMT,
which said:

Hello Jonathan ....

Of course! It was also suggested to post an inquiry in this newgroup.

You asked this question in alt.astronomy and I know you read the
replies. Didn't you trust them?

It does seem a more appropriate group. Besides, it's really none of
our business if you didn't trust the answers from there.

IIRC, there really wasn't very much about the earth that was
distinguishable from the moon.

Q: "When the first moon landing accurred in July, 1969, and the
astronauts looked back towards Earth, what continents did they see?"

An interesting point made in the astronomy forum is how high in the
lunar "sky" the Earth was. For an astronaut standing at the North or
South Pole of the Moon (+/-90degLat) the Earth is found right on the
horizon. But standing at the lunar equator at 0-Lat/0-Long, the Earth
is found straight overhead. With Tranquility Base at 1degN/23degE,
Neil and Buzz had to get their eyeballs angled ~66deg upward to see
anything of the Big Blue Marble.

The point that might get missed by the astronomy forum is how
difficult it can be to look up that high when helmeted in a
restrictive spacesuit.

Also, as stated by someone in that forum:

"In the lunar sky Earth was at an altitude of about 60 degrees due
west at the instant Armstrong set foot on the Moon."

That's ~10% worth of "fudge factor" (by the simple calculation I
cranked out).

Repost:
You asked this question in alt.astronomy and I know you read the
replies. Didn't you trust them?

So Phil might be tempted to respond with that classic oxymoronic
phrase popularized by Ronald Reagan:

"Trust, but verify"!

*

As an aside, it would be great to take this ALSJ table of landing site
coordinates:

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/alsjcoords.html

....and add a column to list how high the Earth was in the lunar sky.

*

And this thread is a great place to retell Gene Cernan's story about
this photo from Apollo 17 capturing Jack Schmitt, the US flag, and the
Earth high up in the lunar sky:

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/history/...ges/721200.GIF

The way I remember Cernan relating the story, the Earth was too high
up to capture it all while holding his camera in any normal way, so he
held the camera between his knees and clicked this amazing shot.
Cernan can be seen by looking closely at the reflection in Jack's
visor. With a higher resolution scan of this photo we could zoom in
for a better look.

But the basic point is that it was a steep angle up, and 17 had the
lowest angle of all six landing sites.


~ CT