[Calvin’s Dad]…of course, the world was in Black and White back then…[/CD]
< googles > Aha! Found a copy of that strip!
I think this qualifies as on topic: This part of your post is, I think, kinda brilliant in a twisted, Doper sort of way. 
I hadn’t thought of this before, but now I’m actually wondering about it. Not every moment on the moon was filmed, and these guys knew that it would be a long, long time before anyone visited their landing site again. Even if trips to the moon continued with regularity.
So, now I’m really wondering if someone like Buzz did leave a message like this, to be found hundreds of years in the future, long after they’re dead, and every so often, still think about it and go 
Or, maybe go 
Some of those astronauts were actually real cut-ups!
Actually I think the History channel runs Hitler shows 8 hours a day , they only do 4 on UFOs.
Then why put quotes around visits?
I find I’m turning into Calvin’s dad…and it’s great! 
Not for most of a decade now. I long for the old Hitler days, now it’s all Ax Men and Monster Quest.
To address just this portion of the op - I don’t know if this qualifies, but personal messages certainly were left on the moon by various astronauts. For example - Charlie Duke, on Apollo 16, left a picture of his family on the moon (wrapped in clear foil, with the names printed on the back). And before he left, took a picture of it. See here for some background and a photo of the photo.
Also, film cameras were the original Hi-Def. Conversion to video degraded the quality. Going back to the film and recording to Hi-Def video restores that quality almost on par with the source.
Hahaha. That’s totally the kind of screwup I would make if I were an astronaut.
I’m guessing by your question that you’ve never seen the HBO miniseries From The Earth To The Moon. They have a scene in the last episode featuring this exact moment from Apollo 17, including how the “cameraman” back on Earth had to time the pan and zoom-out perfectly, before the liftoff. Simple trick, actually, but neat that it worked.
BTW, as anyone who has seen the series will attest, it’s one of the best things ever put on television-- can’t recommend it enough!
That’s why we have to settle for oil paintings of the Apollo 12 mission.
I watch it several times a year. I really like the episode about Apollo 1.
I was really bored yesterday & put Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in my Netflix instant queue. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that portions of this film score were recycled for use in a few episodes of From the Earth to the Moon. I suppose it made the Costner movie more entertaining, because I was sitting there going “Now that’s the music that played when Buzz Aldrin walked in space”.
O/T, I know, but the late Michael Kamen composed both scores, and I think he was second only to James Horner in his brilliance/sheer laziness in incorporating/ripping off his previous scores.
The 1940s color broadcasts were just field tests. Article in Life magazine.
The first color broadcasts shown to the general public occurred in January 1950, and the first commercially-sponsored color programs came in June 1951.
(I wrote most of that history of color television article at Wikipedia.)