NASA Releases First Interactive Mosaic of Lunar North Pole

reply to post by Box of Rain


GaryN is like God, his mind moves in mysterious ways.

LRO imaged the far side using the same cameras it used for near side, so there's no difference there. Video footage of the far side was taken by GRAIL, Kaguya, and perhaps some other spacecraft, as well as 16mm film and Hasselblad imaging by Apollo missions.

Back on topic: here's the Moon's North Pole for your exploration pleasure, using the QuickMap and WMS Browser.

Same for the South Pole: QuickMap, WMS

These sites can be used to pull individual LROC image strips for closer exploration. I've heard that, by using certain image processing, you can even look into the craters that are in permanent shadow.

reply to post by Box of Rain


That video is strange, the Earth seems to jiggle sideways as it rises. It is a series of still images made into a movie though, not a real-time video.

This was supposed to be the first video of the far side (what took them so long) of the Moon, but again, the camera goes into the IR, and can take still images, so I don't think it was a 'real' video.

www.nasa.gov...

(and he has not claimed that it WOULD be too dark on the near side)

The near side has Earthshine, and some airglow. The far side has the Sun, so it should be easy to take a video with an off-the-shelf video camera. Never been done.

In lunar orbit,it was possible to see all the features on the lunar surface in Earthshine as easily as they were seen on the sunlit portion of the Moon. Transition across the terminator from the sunlit portion to the Earth!it portion was rapid, and there was no time required for the eye to adjust to the Earthshine to pick out details on the lunar surface.

So, going from full sunlight, about 1 million Lux, to Earthshine at about 10 Lux, no dark adaptation was required to see the same details. So they either have amazing eyes, or the difference in brightness was not that great, and can probably be put down to airglow, which is also present above the Moon when the Sun is up.

On Apollo 17 they took a photograph of the crater Schluter, just in Earthshine. It looks the same as the other images from orbit.

From:
www.lpi.usra.edu...

"There is no dark side in the moon, really. As a matter of fact it's all dark"

Waters was a good friend of Kubric. Nobody thinks he was trying to tell us something?

GaryN
That video is strange, the Earth seems to jiggle sideways as it rises. It is a series of still images made into a movie though, not a real-time video.

That's what all movies are 'frames per second' is a clue there.

This was supposed to be the first video of the far side (what took them so long) of the Moon, but again, the camera goes into the IR, and can take still images, so I don't think it was a 'real' video.

www.nasa.gov...

No - they mean it is GRAIL's first video of the far side, not that it was the first video. The Apollo missions recorded film footage of the far side. It's easy to find.

The near side has Earthshine, and some airglow. The far side has the Sun, so it should be easy to take a video with an off-the-shelf video camera. Never been done.

The far side has been filmed with a video camera. See above. Airglow is light produced by molecules in an atmosphere independend of other light sources. Airglow on the moon is not going to be significant because there is a negligible atmosphere, if it exists at all. If it does exists it will also exist on the far side.

In lunar orbit,it was possible to see all the features on the lunar surface in Earthshine as easily as they were seen on the sunlit portion of the Moon. Transition across the terminator from the sunlit portion to the Earth!it portion was rapid, and there was no time required for the eye to adjust to the Earthshine to pick out details on the lunar surface.


So, going from full sunlight, about 1 million Lux, to Earthshine at about 10 Lux, no dark adaptation was required to see the same details. So they either have amazing eyes, or the difference in brightness was not that great, and can probably be put down to airglow, which is also present above the Moon when the Sun is up.

On Apollo 17 they took a photograph of the crater Schluter, just in Earthshine. It looks the same as the other images from orbit.

They used a special film to get those Earthshine photographs. On other missions they used special lenses. You can see clear details of the lunar surface in Earthshine from 250000 miles away, why do you think it would be difficult from 50 miles up?