Jettison of the S-IVB third stage following the first docking of the LM with the CSM in Earth orbit, 3-13 March 1969

Vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based paper, printed 1969, numbered "NASA AS9-19-2949" (NASA MSC) in red in top margin, with "A KODAK PAPER" watermark on verso, 25,4 x20,3 cm

This stunning oblique view shows the SIVB stage of the Saturn V rocket drifting below the Earth horizon as the Command Module docked to the LM Spider was orbiting over the Pacific Ocean, with southern California, Channel Islands, Salton Sea, Imperial Valley, Los Angeles Metropolitan Area in the background. The SIVB stage had just been extracted from the docked LM/CSM. A LM thruster quad can be seen in the foreground.

After docking with the LM Spider housed in the SIVB, the crew on board the CM Gumdrop “performed for the first time the tricky maneuver of withdrawing the LM from the adapter on the Saturn booster’s third stage, where it had been sheltered during launch” (Mason, p. 152).
Following extraction, the Apollo 9 spacecraft was “to adjust its orbit 2,000 feet away from the S-IVB stage. The S-IVB engine was then to restart twice, placing the stage in an Earth escape trajectory and into solar orbit. This would simulate a translunar injection of the stage for Apollo 10 and subsequent lunar missions”

www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo9.html).

From the mission transcript following extraction of the SIVB stage:
004:10:43 McDivitt: She’s right out there (the SIVB).
004:10:46 Scott: She sure is.
004:10:49 McDivitt: Heck, we’re going away from it, Dave. Good. [...]
004:11:45 Scott: We’re in good shape on the controls; we’re in minimum impulse, and we’re stable. [...]
004:11:51 McDivitt: Give me the Hasselblad, Rusty. [...]
004:11:54 Schweickart: Okay, here you go. Should be all set up, Jim. [...]
004:13:34 Schweickart: God, that’s beautiful! Could you see him real well, Jim? Because - He’s right out in front of me.