From the estate of Apollo 12 moonwalker Alan Bean—a group of four 5.5 x 5 images of solar flares on the limb, or edge, of the Sun, which were captured during the Skylab 3 mission as part of the Apollo Telescope Mount SO82A Experiment; these images were then sent to the Harvard College Observatory for further study. The images are matted together with a group of handwritten cards, which read: “Prominence / Filament on the Limb, Skylab 3, Sept. 1973, Harvard College Observatory” and “Al, many thanks for a superb job, Ed Reeves.” Framed to an overall size of 17 x 17. In fine condition.
Edmond (Ed) M. Reeves (1934-2008) served as a leader of solar space research projects at the Harvard College Observatory and at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. His space work began with rocket experiments in the early 1960s, progressed to the Orbiting Solar Observatory program in the mid-1960s, and culminated in the Extreme Ultraviolet Spectroheliometer on the Apollo Telescope Mount of the Skylab missions in 1973 and 1974. Reeves received NASA's Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 1974. This sequence of space instruments laid much of the early groundwork for our current understanding of the outer solar atmosphere. Accompanied by a letter of authenticity from Amy Bean, the daughter of Alan Bean.
