India's Chandrayaan Blasts Off To The Moon!

weedwhacker, sorry for not answering before.

You are obviously right, we are limited by our physical capabilities, and we can only overcome those by artificial means (as far as I know), and that is what we have been doing since we learnt about it.

Daltonisn (colour blindness) was used during World War II as a way of interpreting reconnaissance photos, because camouflage was thought for people with normal vision, and colour blind people could detect some of the camouflage because of their different way of seeing things.

And that is the reason behind the use of different filters, in that way we can get specific responses according to specific wavelengths, and that shows some of the difference between material that may look the same with "normal" vision.

Infrared light, for example, is very useful to distinguish between different materials, with different chemical components reacting in different ways, so infrared is used in several wavelengths to distinguish between different rock compositions.

In the same way, ultraviolet light can show some differences, the better known difference being fluorescence, things that emit visible light when they get ultraviolet light (that is how we see light from fluorescent lamps, the light they emit is almost all ultraviolet, but the inner fluorescent coating transforms it to visible light), and although less used, it is also useful to detect different materials that look like the same under visible light.

The difference between traditional film cameras and digital cameras is not much, some makers even use the some camera body with different backs, some backs with a support and transport mechanism for film and other backs with a digital sensor.

The biggest difference is the size of the sensor in consumer cameras, while film is (usually) 35 millimetres wide, the sensors are smaller, making the camera behave differently. That is why some cameras have a comparison to 35mm cameras, so people can see the difference.

And while the sensors are usually sensitive to infrared light (but most cameras use a filter to block it), film is also sensitive to other frequencies, that is why film can be affected by X-rays.

One thing I posted some time ago, that I did not knew why the Rovers' cameras show the right colours if we use the orange instead of the red filter, my sister (who is a professional photographer) said that it could because they were expecting an overall red tint on the photos or because of thinner, less light scattering, atmosphere.

PS: this is how a colour blind person would see your avatar.

Chandrayann recovering from heat stroke

News: India lunar craft problem 'fixed'

Excerpts:

Indian space scientists say they have corrected a major heat problem that threatened India's first unmanned lunar craft Chandrayaan 1.

They say that the craft is now functioning normally after the heat was brought down.

... It reached lunar orbit in the first week of November.

But soon after that the temperature inside the probe went up to 50C, endangering the mission.

Project director M Annadurai told the BBC: "Due to various measures we took, now the temperature has come down below 40C.

"All the 11 instruments carried on board are working normally."
...
A lot of onboard equipment was switched off and the satellite was tilted by 20 degrees. "The lunar probe has also been brought back to its original position," M Annadurai added.
...

reply to post by ArMaP


ArMaP,

I think Lisbon is a beautiful city, with wonderful food....but I won't go into the Political ramifications...(except to say....from what I've learned, the Portuguese were the NASA of their era....the Portuguese sailors were innovative, learning how to navigate --- besides using the Stars for latitude, learned how to navigate longitudude as well....using accurate clocks...)

For the navigationally-challenged in the audience, allow me to explain:

As I mentioned, a ship in the 15th or 16th century could sail, along a course, using the compass and nightly star sightings, in order to stay true to course....East and West. Problems developed, in those days, when they attempted to sail North/South, when out of sight of the Coastline.

You must recall that at this period in history (the 15th century) trade with Asia was difficult, overland. Some trade was accomplished by sea, but required a long voyage, by ship, around the horn of the Asian Continent, and back. This was accomplished, in that era, by staying within sight of the shore, and using the stars to determine the latitude....those are what you would consider the 'horizontal' bands around what we now know is the Globe...

The ability to exceed the sight of land, and to investigate the currents that existed in the Oceans, and then return safely to one's origin....well, the Portuguese were instrumental in this endeavor....that's why I refered to them as the era's 'NASA'.

How did they do this?? It involved a top-secret device (at the time) that actually involved....time! It required the invention of a time-piece that could actually keep time on a a ship's-deck, even as the ship was tossed at sea. See, THIS is how degrees of LONGITUDE could be measured, in those days.

Remember, LATITUDE can be considered as the horizontal bands around a spherical planet....usually defined as begining at the Equator, then theoritically slicing through.....at equal spacings, much like a Layer Cake....

LONGITUDE is a bit more complicated, though.

NOW, before you slice that orange, let's put it up, so that the 'core' is now vertical...different from the last example...but, imagine we have ALREADY sliced it into micro-thin slices, as described before, but he haven't taken it apart yet.....because he have more slices to make.

Let's pause, for a bit, imagine the Earth as that Orange....after we've done the 'theoritical' cuts....let's change those 'cuts' to just lines on a map....OK?

NOW....it is Well-Known that Latititude can be determined based on heading, and star-sightings. ("latitude" is...how far North or South you are)....

Longitude, well, in the old days, before GPS....depending on your known latitude at the start, and heading and speed, you would NOT know your 'longitude' with any accuracy, since it was dependant on heading and speed, from your last known position. See...'speed' was the problem....hence, we have the term 'knots'....something the British Navy invented, I believe....essentially, a rope, previously tied into knots, was deployed aft of a vesell, and the 'knots' were counted, as they went over the transom....again, with no accurate timepiece!!!!!

Back to the problem of arraying co-ordinates on a Globe! See, you can slice the Orange, as I indicated before....that would be the Latitudes.....but, what if you took the SAME Orange, and cut into it the different way??

Take a different orange (because we've bollocked the first one, but keep it in mind, nonetheless) and take this new orange, and stand it on its stem, then slice it down the middle....and keep slicing, AS THIN AS YOU CAN, keeping the core up the middle....what you imagined is how the LONGITUDINAL lines bisect the imaginary Earth......

Let's put all of this together, in our minds, and picture for a bit....

Step away, in you mind, from the Earth, and picture the Orange....

Sliced laterally, and then vertically.....THESE are the 'virtual lines' that have been 'drawn' on our Globe, which we call 'Earth'

If you live in parts of Great Britain, then you live in WHAT IS REFERED TO as the 'Meridian'...or "GMT"...'Greenwich Mean Time', or, as the French like to call it, "UTC", or 'Universal Co-Ordinated Time'.....(In French, the 'UTC' makes sense, as in...well, you'd HAVE to look up the French translation).... but, it's the same thing. I mean, when you see 'GMT' and 'UTC' in the same paragraph, they mean the same thing......


'

A step towards Chandrayaan II & beyond to manned missions
Flight Acceptance Hot Test of Indigenous Cryogenic Engine Successful

We certainly got a lot of "bang for bucks" in the Chandrayaan I mission [aka - taxpayers pay bucks only to bang their heads later].

More images, probably taken some time ago but only published now.

Moon images

From The Hindu:
Chandrayaan instrument throws new light on moon surface

From Moon Daily:
Raytheon's Chandrayaan-1 Sensor Successfully Activated

reply to post by sentinel2107


Good! But what the heck happened to the rest of the hi-res images of Luna? Is this all they've got to show? Crap! I guess we'll have to wait for a couple of years until they map the Moon completely, before we can go anomaly hunting!

Update Dec 30 2008

ISRO officials, say that almost 3200 images taken by the probe would be revealed very soon. These include images from the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) as well, one of the key equipments aboard the Chandrayaan.

These images are being analyzed closely at ISRO's Ahmedabad-based Space Applications Center. They include the ones that were taken from a point very close to the lunar surface. The last photograph taken by the MIP was at a height of just two odd kilometers from the lunar surface! Scientists are busy studying the features of the lunar surface before they release the photographs for viewing by the general public.

Hmmm.....So these images are being analyzed closely at ISRO's Ahmedabad-based Space Applications Center? Smells fishy, what? Busy air brushing anomalies, huh? Lol!!

Hope for the best! cheers!


www.techtree.com...


[edit on 30-12-2008 by mikesingh]

Six new images (although from just two areas) from Chandrayaan available here, and only identified as "far side".

reply to post by ArMaP


I find it really annoying that ISRO doesn't identify what area/craters we see in the images. "Far side" isn't excactly helpful...

reply to post by ziggystar60


Yes, specially with higher resolution images, for what we know the biggest feature we see may have been just noticeable on the old photos.

A trickle of New Images from ISRO:

Looky looky here...

reply to post by sentinel2107



And still without ANY information about which areas and which craters the images show... Something weird is going on here.


But thanks for keeping us updated, sentinel.

Originally posted by sentinel2107
A trickle of New Images from ISRO:

Looky looky here...

Wow! I wonder if anyone has seen these anaglyph images through colored glasses?

Cheers!

Originally posted by ziggystar60
And still without ANY information about which areas and which craters the images show... Something weird is going on here.

Yes that is very weird...

reply to post by mikesingh


I have seen them, and they do not look that good, the anaglyphs from Mars Express are much more impressive.

I think these images have too much contrast.

I.....

ah nm!

wZn

Originally posted by ArMaP
reply to post by mikesingh

 

I have seen them, and they do not look that good, the anaglyphs from Mars Express are much more impressive.

I think these images have too much contrast.

Damn! Ok, so I wonder what happened to the hundreds of images the MIP took on its way down to the surface? I think these guys at ISRO are plain lazy. What else can one expect from government departments??

Jeeez!

[edit on 9-1-2009 by mikesingh]

And I think this is what many here would have been waiting for..


timesofindia.indiatimes.com...

Mike.. can you get ArMap & Co. the images so he can point out those landers?

Did we manage to confirm whether the images were indeed 5meters per pixel res, using that ISIS 3 thingie?