[Credit: Pat McCracken, NASA ]
Oh man, more homework! Now I have to look up the lunar ephemeris for the launch date ... figure out the geometry ... but hmmm. I notice that the plume shadow would be a plane, and the intersection with the moon has to do with the angle of the plume and the POV of the photograph, so hmmm. As Lagrange said, “I must think further on this.”
Hmm, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a shuttle plume shadow cast on the sky. I’ve seen one cast on the ground (and it wasn’t a straight line either), but not on the sky. Something new every day.
Seems a bit unusual to me.