The LM Spider preparing for the first docking of two Apollo spacecraft following its maiden spaceflight, 3-13 March 1969

Vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based paper, printed 1969, with "A KODAK PAPER" watermark on verso, numbered "NASA AS9-21-3236" (NASA MSC) in red in top margin, 20,3 x 25,4 cm, laminated (probably the original condition)

Four hours after undocking from the CSM Gumdrop, the crew of the LM “jettisoned the descent stage, and then fired the ascent engine for the first time in space. From their adjusted position about 10 miles below and 80 miles behind the Command Module, they began their approach to a rendezvous and docking.

Following docking, the LM, which had no heat shield to protect it, was jettisoned before reentry and commanded to fire its vital ascent engine (whose dark bell protruding from a nest of foil thermal insulation is at the center of the photograph) to fuel depletion.

McDivitt and Schweickart enthused that the LM was a “great flying machine. And when it’s just the ascent stage alone, it’s very quick. It snaps to the controls like a fighter plane, or a sports car. It was super to fly!” (Reynolds, p. 123).

From the mission transcript as the two spacecrafts re-joined for rendezvous:
098:21:45 Scott (Gumdrop): Oh, I see you out there coming in the sunlight.
098:21:48 Schweickart (Spider): Great.
098:21:51 Scott (Gumdrop): You’re the biggest, friendliest, funniest looking spider I’ve ever seen.

Literature:
Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, Cortright, ed. (NASA SP-350), p. 191.