Why Can't We Get Photos Of ALL Sides Of the Moon?

reply to post by SiglenDyn





Cooling magma.

reply to post by SiglenDyn

Lunar mare - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_mare
Ages ·
Distribution of mare ... ·
Composition

The lunar maria are large, dark, basaltic plains on Earth's Moon, formed by ancient volcanic eruptions. They were dubbed maria, Latin for "seas", by early astronomers ...

OP: Nice pictures in your post. I liked !!

Originally posted by miniatus
This thread makes my brain cry..

People need to get with the program.. science is a great thing, do your research... the entire moon has been imaged and mapped... Hint: no bases, no aliens.. lots of rock

Sun is in the west and the Moon is to East right? How come the light is coming from the Northern Side? Shouldn't it be coming from the direction of the Sun? The Western half? At least that is what my common sense tells me...I am sure there is a logical explanation from someone...I have heard most of the explanations about how the Sun causes the Moon to shine...I just haven't heard the one that convinces me this is the absolute truth.

Yes, but explain this to me.

reply to post by DaTroof


Thanks for the video, but how about explaining this to me...

Sun is in the west and the Moon is to East right? How com the light is coming from the Northern Side? Shouldn't it be coming from the direction of the Sun? The Western half? At least that is what my common sense tells me...I am sure there is a logical explanation from someone...I have heard most of the explanations about how the Sun causes the Moon to shine...I just haven't heard the one that convinces me this is the absolute truth.

There were 2 problems I had but most of you have only addressed one of them...what about this...

Sun is in the west and the Moon is to East right? How come the light is coming from the Northern Side? Shouldn't it be coming from the direction of the Sun? The Western half? At least that is what my common sense tells me...I am sure there is a logical explanation from someone...I have heard most of the explanations about how the Sun causes the Moon to shine...I just haven't heard the one that convinces me this is the absolute truth.

reply to post by BrokenAngelWings33

The ecliptic, the path the Sun follows, does not go from due east to due west nor does it pass directly overhead.
Try turning on the ecliptic line in Stellarium and play with that to see how it works. You'll notice (when you zoom in on the Moon) that the lit side lines up with the ecliptic. There is a bit of variation because the Moon is not exactly on the ecliptic.

reply to post by BrokenAngelWings33


Look here some info on the LRO and how to use its image map.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

These might help as well

Moon Rotation




Moon libration



We see 59% of the Moons surface due to libration.

Also there is NO dark side only a far side!!!!

reply to post by BrokenAngelWings33

Don't let all those 'images' of the Lunar far side fool you into believing they have taken photos of the far side of the Moon. If you look into the instruments and film or CCDs you will find that they used Laser Altimeters, Infrared and Ultraviolet wavelengths, spectroscopic methods and photomultipliers to build those images. You can not just take a normal camera up there and get a photo, and as I have said before, the colour video cameras they tried to use on the far side showed nothing, and that is the only proof I will accept that anyone could see the Moon if they were on the far side when it is being lit by the Sun. Light in space behaves very differently from what we are told, and it really is very dark out there.

reply to post by BrokenAngelWings33


I have an idea:

Let's put shock-collars on everyone and if they ever use the phrase "dark side of the moon" outside of a discussion about Pink Floyd albums, ZZZZZZTTT!!!

I'm being silly, of course. It's the phrase I hate, not the people. It causes an unreasonable amount of confusion, as evidenced by the OP.

There is the near side that we can see from Earth, and the far side that we cannot see from Earth.

Both of these sides receive the same amount of sunlight over the course of a lunar "day" (~29 Earth days).

At any normal given time, one-half of the Moon is lit by the Sun. That half can include parts of both the near side and the far side (this is the case right now, with the Moon just past 1st quarter).

The half-side of the Moon that faces the Sun at any particular time is the sunlit side of the moon.

The half-side of the Moon that faces away from the Sun at any particular time is the dark side of the moon ZZZZZTTT!!!! oh godda- asdfaretqwtxqalyioereacm

Originally posted by GaryN
Don't let all those 'images' of the Lunar far side fool you into believing they have taken photos of the far side of the Moon. ...

uhm ok .. maybe its just YOU thinking the darkside is called the dark side because its dark ?

with all given respect, but the far side is same way bathed in light as the near side whenever the moon happens to be between sun and earth.

the reason there are not that many photos of the dark side as from the near side is, that it is an expensive task to get there, taking pictures.
And yes of course they used laser altimeters and radar too, because what is it worth having a zillion of photo sniplets with no reference data into where the probe was, the very moment the picture has been made

And who wants to see that ? the near side is boring enough.

reply to post by TMJ1972


GaryN has long been of the opinion that light from the Sun or stars (or the reflected sunlight from the Moon and planets) can't be seen by the human eye in space. He thinks the only reason we can see the Sun, Moon, and stars is because of our atmosphere.

Did I get that right, Gary, or did I misrepresent your long-standing assertions on this?

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

Did I get that right, Gary, or did I misrepresent your long-standing assertions on this?

Hi SGIP, yeah, that's what I maintain, and will until proved otherwise...

When NASA can show me a simple video of the Moon from an ISS EVA, then I will believe that even the near side can be seen from space, when it is not being viewed through the Earths ionosphere." Why would they want to video the moon?" I keep getting asked, but really, GYFHAS, over 40 years in space and nobody wanted to video the Moon? No filters , no long exposures, and not even a tripod needed.
HD video of the Moon. Does that look too difficult for a highly trained astronaut to be able to do from space?
www.youtube.com...

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

Waters was a good friend of Kubrick, and Kubrick had the high speed f/0.7 lense that had not seen anything on the far side. Connect the dots. The lighting on the near side is also not from sunlight, and lighting conditions are very strange. Why did Charlie Duke keep saying "My God, it's dark out here!"?

reply to post by GaryN

The lighting on the near side is also not from sunlight

OK then, what is it from?

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
reply to post by BrokenAngelWings33

 

Here's a zoomable browser of the whole Moon using of pictures taken by the camera on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). You can get pretty close hi-res images the more you zoom in. If you want to see the far side, enter 180° in the box that says "center longitude". 180° longitude is the longitude for the "center line" of the far side.

LROC WMS Image Map


Here is an image gallery of pictures taken by the LRO camera. This gallery includes some extremely hi-res images (some as good as 30 cm resolution) of both the near and far side. Any image with a longitude of 90° to 270° degrees is of the far side:

LROC Image Gallery

These pictures Suck. I choose the dark side, zoomed in all the way on a random spot and it still looks like I'm a mile above the surface. I thought LRO images were supposed to look similar to google earth.. a lot closer to the ground.

Originally posted by JohnPhoenixThese pictures Suck. I choose the dark side...

ZZZZZTTT!!!

...zoomed in all the way on a random spot and it still looks like I'm a mile above the surface. I thought LRO images were supposed to look similar to google earth.. a lot closer to the ground.

The operative phrase is "looks like". Ever since the Ranger probes sent back the first close-up images of the Moon in 1964, people have been struck by the fractal nature of the lunar surface at low altitude. That is, as you get closer, you see smaller & smaller bumps, craters & rocks, but a 1000-foot crater from 10,000 feet up looks pretty much like a 100-foot crater from 1,000 feet, and that's tough to tell from a 10-foot crater at 100 feet up.
Ranger VII
Ranger VIII This one shows better examples, but has no narration.

That's because you don't have any known visual references (houses, trees, roads, etc.) from which to judge the scale. Try zooming-in on this LROC image, particularly the light area just left of center, ~3/4 of the way down the scan.

Far from "sucking", these are - by far - the best orbital images ever taken of the lunar surface.

reply to post by JohnPhoenix


This site provides closer view, in places down to 0.5 meter resolution.
target.lroc.asu.edu...

Originally posted by JohnPhoenix
These pictures Suck. I choose the dark side, zoomed in all the way on a random spot and it still looks like I'm a mile above the surface. I thought LRO images were supposed to look similar to google earth.. a lot closer to the ground.

They do not suck. You're just not using it correctly. Go to the "layers" window and open up the "LROC NAC footprints" and select "All NAC footprints". In the "Map options" window in the "Single-click action" section, change it to "Get footprint info".

You should see a bunch of orange rectangles appear all over the place. Click on one. A lot of them overlap, so you may get more than one. A new window will pop up with one or more NAC images to look at. Click on one of them and it should load up a high res image for you.

Originally posted by Saint Exupery

Originally posted by JohnPhoenixThese pictures Suck. I choose the dark side...

ZZZZZTTT!!!

...zoomed in all the way on a random spot and it still looks like I'm a mile above the surface. I thought LRO images were supposed to look similar to google earth.. a lot closer to the ground.

The operative phrase is "looks like". Ever since the Ranger probes sent back the first close-up images of the Moon in 1964, people have been struck by the fractal nature of the lunar surface at low altitude. That is, as you get closer, you see smaller & smaller bumps, craters & rocks, but a 1000-foot crater from 10,000 feet up looks pretty much like a 100-foot crater from 1,000 feet, and that's tough to tell from a 10-foot crater at 100 feet up.
Ranger VII
Ranger VIII This one shows better examples, but has no narration.

That's because you don't have any known visual references (houses, trees, roads, etc.) from which to judge the scale. Try zooming-in on this LROC image, particularly the light area just left of center, ~3/4 of the way down the scan.

Far from "sucking", these are - by far - the best orbital images ever taken of the lunar surface.

edit on 21-12-2012 by Saint Exupery because: I couldn't supress a grin.

O.k. so I'm zoomed in all the way on the light area. Still not impressed. If I did this in a desert region on earth I could discern individual features.. rocks at least. How close is this tightest shot supposed to be.. in terms of feet above the ground? I have no way to know that. If you tell me, i will compare that to google earth. They should look similar.

reply to post by JohnPhoenix

Google Earth uses aerial photography which gives higher resolution than satellite imagery.

LROC imagery get resolution as high as 0.25cm/pixel. The best you will see with satellite imagery of Earth is 0.5.

Originally posted by wildespace
reply to post by JohnPhoenix

 

This site provides closer view, in places down to 0.5 meter resolution.
target.lroc.asu.edu...

While this does appear to take me down much closer, I can see scale of 20 meters ( 60 feet) (at 0.5 meter resolution) across if using the lil ruler at the bottom - yet for me that still sucks because I cant make that whole 20 meter section full screen in high resolution. There is really no definition to speak of. If I cant see rocks or boulders clearly as I would on the ground.. or hovering above the ground then to me, Nasa needs to get it's act together and film much closer.

Why can't they send drones to do this filming much closer at least on the popular spots people want to look at? They have the technology. To me this is worthless for sightseeing up close.