The Clementine Mission to the Moon
Adapted from a 1995 presentation by Eugene Shoemaker

Imaging in 11 colors
Turning to Clementine’s cameras, they looked at the moon in 11 colors, sharply-defined colors as determined by interference filters on a filter wheel that could be rotated into the optical train of each principal camera. The colors were chosen by analysis of the spectral reflectance of the moon rocks and of samples of lunar soil. We chose the colors so that we could identify the major mineral constituents of the lunar surface.

Important were the spectral bands of the minerals pyroxene, plagioclase, olivine, and ilmenite. We wanted to be able to determine the proportions
of the different minerals so that we could identify and map the distribution of rock types.

Although most of the data from the two million images are still being interpreted, it has been possible to take some preliminary looks at the data. Using the ratios of only three colors, a global view of the moon, made at three different rotations separated by 120 degrees, shows pink
regions where there is very fresh rock; orange regions representing the highlands of the moon and mostly made of the mineral plagioclase; blue regions which are basaltic lavas; a light blue color indicating a high-titanium basalt; and an indigo color, which is a low-titanium basalt. (These artificial colors are merely a way of presenting differences in the color ratios.) You can see differences that reflect the rock types plus the effect of weathering.

Volcanic History of Central Oceanus Procellarum from Clementine Data

•We create a near true colour image using the 415 nm band to represent blue, 750 nm to represent green and 950 nm red. This image aids in distinguishing different compositional regions

Colour on composite: Blue
Typical units: fresh craters; some mare units
Interpretation: immature (crystal-rich); high-Ti lavas

Fig. 4. True Colour map. This map shows our studied region: Central Oceanus Procellarum. The Aristarchus region can be seen in the upper right corner (volcano with white central core). This image is produced such that the 415 nm band of Clementine represents blue, 750 nm represents green and 950 nm red.

I will ask John later...

Personally I am going with some kind of plasma energy generator or collector... the color is right for that and the wispy, luminous strands that you always see in and around Aristarchus indicate that... But I only started looking into that... LOL

I have to eat sleep and do the day job sometime you know.

The Apollo 11 crew mission logs record talks of glowing in and around the crater, Armstrong specifically describes it as "fluorescence" though even he says that not quite the right term, its brighter than that...

Found a document from 1961 that I am studying that indicates the intensity changes drastically at different times... report when done

Found this little curiousity in a trivia collection...

There is no shortage of TLP having been observed by reputable astronomers. William Herschel, one history's greatest astronomers (he discovered the planet Uranus in 1781), observed a red glow in the vicinity of the crater Aristarchus on 4 May 4 1783, at a time when that feature was situated on the unilluminated lunar hemisphere. Through his 225 mm reflecting telescope the glow appeared as bright as a star of magnitude 4.

Point right now is that in the above image, that pretty light electric blue is true color observed from Earth. So the Clementine argument is a mute point on that image...

One of the first real attempts to catalogue a large number of TLP sightings was made on behalf of NASA and published in a report which gave details of 579 mysterious lunar events dating from 26 November 1540 (pre-telescopic) to 19 October 1967 [4]. The catalogue appeared just a year before Neil Armstrong planted his size 11 boot in the Sea of Tranquillity; strange that such an important and well-funded Moon-landing programme chose to arm itself with some basic historical TLP data only at the very last minute.

Oh heres a good one...

One of the most notable TLP sightings occurred at 18:45 UT on 19 July 1969, when the crew of Apollo 11 observed the northwest wall of Aristarchus to be displaying some kind of peculiar luminous activity. At the same time, German astronomers Prusse and Witte of the Institute for Space Research in Bochum, observing with a 150 mm refractor, noted brightenings in Aristarchus lasting five to seven seconds

I like that one!!

The Moon is highly neglected by both professional and amateur astronomers alike. Neglected, in fact, to the point where research into TLP - which continue to take place, whether they are being monitored from the Earth or not - now lies solely in the hands of the enthusiastic amateur.

Being such a creature myself, I have spent many hours looking at the Moon and getting to know its surface. In more than 200 hours of telescopic lunar observation since 1982 I have been lucky to observe only one event that I am fairly certain was a TLP. On 31 May 1985, an apparent hill was seen on the floor of the crater Herodotus (next door to Aristarchus). This was unusual, since Herodotus has a flat floor! In a period of nearly two hours, from 20:00 UT onwards, the hill appeared to flatten and disappear, its sunlit face becoming dimmer, its shadow narrowing and fading. Alas, circumstances ruled out obtaining independent confirmation, but I have since learned that this temporary hill phenomenon has been observed in the past, taking exactly the same form as my own observation but occurring at an opposite surface illumination, ie., an evening sun rather than, in my case, a scene lit by a morning sun

Originally posted by zorgon

Originally posted by SteveR
very hard to judge the 3-D characteristics of these formations

Ah yes I am glad you brought that up Steve..
Try also the "Shaded Relief Airbrush"

Hmm, thanks for looking into this. Those two options you suggested have really poor image quality though. I don't think they're any more useful for the locations we're examining. If following this entire investigation through, after compiling a list of locations and saving them, I would cross over onto real telescopes and not continually rely on NASA imagery (except for the far side).

Originally posted by zorgon
Scopes:
Skywatcher 250px 10" reflector.
Skywatcher 80ED

Imaging setup:
SC1 modded Toucam pro 2.
SAC 8-2 webcam based B/W CCD

Thanks Zorgon. Look up the cameras he's using. Really crappy webcams and already he is matching the detail of Clementine's closest shots. There is plenty of room for improvement here!

(and plenty being withheld..)

Originally posted by undo
Select your preferred Lunar dataset below.

Clementine 750nm Basemap
Clementine Albedo (Natural Color)
Clementine Ratio (False Color)
Shaded Relief Airbrush
Clementine LIDAR Topography
Clementine UVVIS Multi-Band*

pdsmaps.wr.usgs.gov...

Originally posted by SteveR
Thanks Zorgon. Look up the cameras he's using. Really crappy webcams and already he is matching the detail of Clementine's closest shots. There is plenty of room for improvement here!

Hey give him a break... he is barely starting out... and as he says money is tight. That image was his first attempt at the mosaic and he has poor viewing conditions. I am sending him a filter we raised money for so he can filter out city light pollution..

Not too shabby for a beginner...OH and so far we only have the 80% 10 meg version.. he is refining the 100% 90 meg version and will send it on a disk...

Isn't foreign exchange wonderfull?

Here is another interesting clip on the Aristarchus angle...

* 23 October 1999
* Charles Seife
* Magazine issue 2209

REPORTS of curious flashes and fleeting clouds on the Moon may not be figments of wild imaginations, astronomers say. A new look at observations by the American satellite Clementine show that a small area on the Moon's surface darkened and reddened in April 1994. Why this happened remains a mystery.

For hundreds of years, people have reported seeing flashes, short-lived clouds and other brief changes on the Moon's surface. But astronomers have never been able to confirm the sightings. "The events were observed on many occasions, but most astronomers don't believe in them," says Bonnie Buratti of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

On 23 April 1994, around a hundred amateur astronomers reported seeing a possible darkening of the Moon, lasting 40 minutes, near the edge of the bright lunar crater Aristarchus. At the same time, the US Department of Defense's Clementine satellite was mapping the lunar surface.

Intrigued ...
The complete article is 334 words long.

Aristarchus crater is on the line where one of the Moon's bright areas and grey areas meet. It has long been suspected of having particularly diverse geology, says NASA scientist Dr Jim Garvin.

At Aristarchus, Hubble detected what appears to be an abundance of the mineral ilmenite, which is good news, says NASA lunar scientist Dr Michael Wargo.

By heating or passing an electrical current through ilmenite, it's a simple matter to release oxygen, which can be used for breathing and for rocket fuel, he explains.

Originally posted by SteveR
I had no idea that guy was directly involved with this thread or your project. I thought you stumbled on his work in search results . I am saying he is doing a great job matching the Clementine photos, and it's inspiring that there is plenty of room for improvement.

Nope originally found him by google search... simply traded for picture rights... only have the one big image so far...and you should have it on your computer as it was linked from the files I linked you to. Look at it and turn up the brightness just a little... see the colors?

I will post that later. Take a look though at the area around Aristarcus back out a bit and look at it on Nearside.tiff as well... Notice something unusual?

And I forget who posted this image of the Hubble Telescope shot of Aristarchus...

Animators:
Greg Shirah (Lead)
Alex Kekesi
Greg Bacon
Studio: SVS
Completed: 2005-10-12
Scientist: James Garvin (NASA/GSFC)
Instruments:
HST/ACS
Clementine/HIRES
Data Collected: HST: 2005/08/16 - 2005/08/21; Clementine:1998/02/07-1999/06/25

What color they are or are not also has nothing to do with whats IN the images... if a crater is blue or purple in false color, and shows the center blacked out or its in natural color with the center blacked out, the fact remains the CENTER IS BLACKED OUT... we are asking WHY... for what purpose... Seems a simple enough request, doesn't it?