From the Earth point of view:

- Eclipse of the Moon is the Earths shadow covering the Moon,

- Eclipse of the Sun is the Moon shadow covering the Earth (just a spot shadow, since the Moon 1/4 the size of the Earth)

Now, make an imaginary trip to the Moon and change your point of view. For the observer located on the Moon:

- Eclipse of the Earth is the Moon shadow on the Earth (always a spot shadow, so never complete eclipse),

- Eclipse of the Sun is the Earth shadow on the Moon. The angular size of the Sun viewed from Earth and Moon is almost equal, and is equal to the Moon angular size viewed from Earth (and this makes total solar eclipse on Earth so exciting), the Earths angular size viewed from Moon is about 4 times larger, so the solar eclipse viewed on Moon would be almost always complete, but not so exciting as shown at the artistic view from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipses_on_the_Moon, which is not realistic in our solar system.

You can see that conditions for both eclipses on Earth are identical to the conditions for respective eclipses on Moon (Sun, Earth and Moon aligned, either Earth or Moon is between the other two). It means that on each Moon eclipse on Earth the Sun eclipse also happens on Moon.

You can find helpful schemas of eclipse here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse), including eclipses from outside the system Earth - Moon.

Alexandru,

Thanks you for these explanations. As far as I know, the six visits to the Moon by astronauts did not happen during eclipses, so that no one has ever seen an eclipse from the Moon so far. (I did not compare with eclipse tables, but otherwise there would have been reports about observations). But I am not sure about instruments on unmanned missions to Moon's surface or on missions orbiting the Moon. So my question was whether there were observations by some instruments. But perhaps such observations are not of scientific interest, so that no corresponding efforts have been made.

Wolfgang

Dear Wolfgang,

all Apollo landings occurred during Lunar day, thus the Earth "more or less" between Moon and Sun.

Check this image https://moon.nasa.gov/resources/199/earth-eclipses-the-sun-apollo-12/

or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRz56VbQRjM

showing an eclipse during the Apollo12 mission (not from the surface though).

The ALSEP stations worked many years on the surface of the various Apollo landing sites, thus did "observe" eclipses (but dit dot take images).

Dear Stephan,

Thank you very much for this information. This is exactly what I wanted to know.

Best regards,

Wolfgang

according to my best knowledge, there was no direct eclipse observation during the Apollo program from the Moon's surface. However, Apollo-12 crew (Conrad, Bean and Gordon) saw a solar eclipse in the return leg.

Thank you for this addition.

Best regards,

Wolfgang

Not yet but I will be there for one for sure

During the lunar eclipse of April 24 1967, Surveyor III took photos of the eclipsing Earth while sitting on the eclipsed lunar surface. See for example photos 67-H-483 and 67-H-484 on this Surveyor III webpage:

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/mapcatalog/Surveyor/press_releases/surveyor_III/

The quality is not exactly great, but the "ring of light" is clearly visible.

Regards,

Thomas

Thank you, Thomas, for this valuable addition. It seems that these were the first (and so far only) pictures of a solar eclipse-by-Earth from the Moon's surface. Meanwhile, the astronomer and science journalist Daniel Fischer draw my attention to the page

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140407.html

showing these Surveyor III images in an animated form with some comments.

Daniel also pointed to his German text on images of a 2009 eclipse by the Japanese lunar orbiter Kaguya:

https://skyweek.wordpress.com/2019/02/10/vor-10-jahren-sofi-durch-die-erde-vom-mond

This text contains also links to English pages about these Japanese observations and to a video:

http://global.jaxa.jp/press/2009/02/20090218_kaguya_e.html

http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2019/01/22/ok-heres-earth-eclipsing-the-sun/

https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/ask-ethan-how-bright-is-the-earth-as-seen-from-the-moon-627eb1554ca9

http://space.jaxa.jp/movie/20090218_kaguya_movie01_e.html

Best regards,

Wolfgang

There are probes orbiting the moon at quite a low altitude, 31 miles, or 99.999999945% of the way to the surface :- ), and at the Lagrange point between the Earth and the Sun ( see graphic ).

See https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/LRO-captures-eclipse-from-the-moon and https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/87675/an-epic-eclipse

Thank you, Michael John Patrick, for this addition. This is another aspect of eclipses - the Moon's shadow on Earth during a (terrestrial) solar eclipse as seen from outside.

There have also been a number of deep space probes that have used a gravity assist slingshot approach and departure around earth ( https://www.planetary.org/articles/20130926-gravity-assist ), and frequently they test out the sensors for the m eventual intended rendezvous by imaging by imaging the Earth-Lunar system as they go by - one of these might have been coincident with an eclipse.

For aesthetics, planing, sheer ingenuity and persistence, my favorite is Carmichael's photo from a Southwest Airlines flight: https://petapixel.com/2018/08/27/this-eclipse-photo-was-shot-from-a-commercial-plane-at-39000ft/ ( https://joncarmichael.com/collection/108 )