Couldn't they have taken the picture in the shadow of their capsule and point the camera at the stars? Because of no atmosphere to reflect sunlight I think they could have easily captured beautiful images of brightest stars ever.

Maybe they just didn't think of that. In hindsight that would have been a great thing to do, to show us how sky looks from the Moon. They were scientists after all and they were supposed to document what they saw, including the stars they saw, I would think. And there were multiple missions to Moon. Why didn't anybody think of doing such a simple thing?

I would think that if I were on moon and looked up I would say "Wow I've never seen stars shine so brightly, I better take a picture so I can show folks back home ..."

SEEN: https://www.etsy.com/listing/757288317/milky-way-starry-nigh...

> Couldn’t they have ...

> Why didn't anybody think of doing such a simple thing?

Your second test at home is to take a photo of the stars. Bonus points if you can do it in one photo and with technology that existed in 1969.