Apollo+40: Apollo 11 in Lunar Orbit!

At 76:15:59, Apollo 11 came around the other side of the moon and regained contact with earth. Communications were "ratty" at first, but eventually the crew reported a near perfect LOI burn, resulting in a lunar orbit of 60.9 x 169.9 nautical miles (perfect would have been 60 x 170).

In the words of Commander Armstrong: "It was like - like perfect!"

About 13 minutes later, those of us on Earth heard these magical words from Apollo 11:

76:34:34 (Armstrong): Apollo 11 is getting its first view of the landing approach. This time we are going over the Taruntius crater, and the pictures and maps brought back by Apollo 8 and 10 have given us a very good preview of what to look at here. It looks very much like the pictures, but like the difference between watching a real football game and watching it on TV. There's no substitute for actually being here.

(CAPCOM): Roger. We concur, and we surely wish we could see it firsthand, also.

Landing approach! We'll find out tomorrow...