First Moon Picture from Japanese Orbiter

I was on the web looking for pictures from the Japanese moon orbiter and found this image on space.com

Moon Picture

This is apparently the first picture released from the new orbiter. First thing that i thought when i opened the page was WOW, that looks like CGI. The moon surface looks so fake ! if this is the first image then im not holding my breath for the rest .........

I really do hope that this isnt the best that they can give us. Please please please give us some decent hi-res images of the moon Japan, dont suppress them dont air-brush them, dont show them to NASA
just post them on the web unaltered for all to see.

Just wondering what everyone elses thoughs are on this ? ..... interesting that the image is so bad..... dont you think !

Wow, talk about airbrushed! Look at the edge of the Moon -- total paint job! Amazing how they try to pawn this off as real.

Also, I was wondering what Mr J Lear thought of the first high-res shots of the Moon? Totally blue areas that look, uh, strange. Any thoughts, examples?

glad im not the only one to think that anhinga. For a minute i thought i was going crazy ....

I would love to hear what john lear says about them as well.

Very low rez, i can get better from my own telescope...

I hope this is merely a "taste" and we get the higher resolution stuff later.


I also got the vibe of CGI when i saw it. Maybe its just the filters on the camera.

Time will tell. If this is what we are gonna get from JAXA, then i think NASA has been talking with the Japanese on "covering up"

Oh come on, the japs havent had nearly as much practice at airbrushing as NASA has... give them time. This was their first shot and im sure they are working hard at getting better.

Looking forward to picture 2.... some time tomorrow when they are done brushing it.

[edit on 12-10-2007 by Copernicus]

For those with an interest here's a link to the JAXA mission specific page... never know what one might find KAGUYA of interest. I looked around pretty closely... no Hi-Res at all yet that I found.

Cheers,

Vic

Oh come on!!!

Why the hell do they show the moon as purple!!!

The moon is not suppose to be purple is it?

This is not looking very good so far, but we still have to wait to see what they really release once they are down there.

Oh boy.
This is NOT looking good.

This shot is heavily filtered.
But more than that, it is certainly not hires / hidef.
This is from 500 miles out in near vacuum?
I can do better from 230,000 miles away thru 40 miles of atmosphere with a 5" refractor:

files.abovetopsecret.com...

And this is reduced to about 75kb in order to post here.

Well boys, looks like the 'fix' is in.

Methinks Jaxa is taking it's cues from someone.
Hmmm.
I wonder who????


(Look guys. I'm a space agency with hidef satellites and stuff )


[edit on 12-10-2007 by Alexander the o.k.]

[edit on 12-10-2007 by Alexander the o.k.]

There's a recent post around w/ the high-res pic of the Moon. It's odd, there's blue areas all over the place but they still seem like land, I know Mr J Lear thinks there's an atmosphere but there's really manipulation going on at that point, the high-res shots are pretty detailed. I'll keep an eye on this one.... the photoshop job is awfully obvious, even on areas around their space gear is there manipulation.

Where are the appolo landing sites?

Looks to me this picture is simply a down-sampled version of the actual picture. Probably the bit depth was changed or they simply used a crappy compression thus the fair amount compressional artifact or 'pixelation'.

Any downsampled picture if downsampled and compressed a certain way would look 'CGI'.

What are you guys saying, that this was faked? C'mon. This conspiracy horse-manure is getting to far. Where's the proof that it was airbrushed?
Show me proof.

Oh a little bit computer graphics kindergarden level 101. Of course the picture is 'CGI' which means computer generated imagery. It's converted from 1's and 0's. What do you think that they that they used. Celluloid or something? Sheeeesh. This is not the 19th centure anymore folks.

you would think with some of the beautiful animation they can do with the gaming industry in cut scenes ... they could do a better job with a CGI. I would go for compressed and lowered bit-rates. For what purposes I have no idea.

Pretty disappointed when you hear talk of HD (which is lower quality than all the pictures from the past anyway). That picture isn't even SD. Oh well, I never expect much from these kinds of things anymore anyway. I will wait and see, but, keep my mind from high hopes.

I have no doubt that this was just a quick test, or perhaps a video frame from a lower than HD source. I look forward to seeing some great shots in the near future. For obvious reasons, if they wanted to fake it, then you would hardly know

People also need to understand, as much as the bitch and whine about evil NASA holding stuff back, they are the most forthcoming in terms of sharing data immediately. Both the English and the Japanese do not make results available in real time, or some times even days, weeks, or months later. So don't get too upset it Japan does not release info right away....it's not necessarily evidence of some vast cover up, merely an indication on how they do things.

reply to post by omnicron


Credit us with some intelligence omnicron, we know what CGI actually means .... what we are saying is that this pic really does not look that real (i think the term CGI is being used as a blanket term).

I originally posted this thread because i was very disappointed with the image that they released, you would have expected them to release a really neat hi-res image just as a taster of whats to come rather than an image that looks quite fake (although im not saying that it is fake).

Japan is just getting started on the space thing, you would think that a nation that is generally seen as one that deals in cutting edge technology would want to show off a little with there first images, sort of saying ... hey look at us ... we can do it to and hears a greate picture to prove it.

There are two cameras on the probe that are only for PR purposes, this was probably taken with one of them and not with any of the scientific imaging ones. The probe isn't even in it's final orbit yet and won't be till Oct 19th.

I don't see anything that makes this image look fake, it's just a low quality image, that's all. You guys shouldn't jump on the "it's a fake" bandwagon so easily, especially with no evidence/reason what-so-ever. As for the "purple moon" comment, that has to do with the colour balance settings of the image sensor, that's all.

There has to be some time alloted for downloading and processing of pics.
The question is, how much time is neccessary?
A week?.... 5 .....10?

In DOD JPL/ / Nasa's case they say that the 'principal investigator' meaning the guy who's in charge of that specific mission, has I believe, 6 months before turning over the data to jpl/DOD/NASA to publicly release.

What are we doing with the data during that time, guys?
Put it in a file cabinet?
Waiting for it to ripen and bloom?
Filter, manipulate, and censor?

I will take "Filter, manipulate, and censor" for $1000 Alex.

JAXA is following proscribed procedure, in my opinion.
Prediction:
We will see little more than what we saw from NASA/JPL in the 1960's in this new HIDEF/HIRES data from japan. (That's 60 years ago, people)
You read it here first.

I have been looking at this photo from Kaguya. The test says:

A photo from Japan's Kaguya/SELENE moon probe shortly after jettisoning one of two mini-satellites. The western rim Oceanus Procellarum is clearly visible in the image, which was taken on Oct. 5 about 497 miles (800 kilometers) from the Moon. Credit: JAXA

I have looked for the western rim of Oceanus Procellarum which is ‘clearly visible’ and I can’t find it. I can’t even find Oceanus Procellarum.

Here is what Oceanus Procellarum looks like from our vantage point here on earth:



Let me turn it sideways so you can look at. The top green line runs north and south. In others words north is at the right end of the line and south is at the left.



Ok so look at the area contained within the green border. It has only a very few craters like Aristarchus, Marius and a couple of others. It does not look like what we are seeing in Kaguya.

Now according to the text, “the western rim Oceanus Procellarum is clearly visible”. I don’t see the western rim of Procellarum being clearly visible. It certainly isn’t in the main part of the photo.

Allow me to direct your attention to the moons terminator. I have drawn a green line along it.



Now since all of the craters are not in the Oceanus Procellarum that means that they have to be on the farside. That being so, then the left end of the terminator has to be north. If the left end of the terminator were south, all of the craters would be in the Oceanus Procellarum which they are not.

Now before I dig my hole any deeper, are there any comments?

Um, the Moon is 2162 miles across... the spacecraft distance is 500 miles away in round figures. Hey does the size look right?

Cheers,

Vic

[edit on 13-10-2007 by V Kaminski]

Originally posted by V Kaminski

Um, the Moon is 2162 miles across... the spacecraft distance is 500 miles away in round figures. Hey does the size look right?

Cheers,

Vic

Thanks for the post Vic. I specialize in overlooking the obvious. I excel at the esoteric and obscure.

Thanks.

Originally posted by johnlear
I have looked for the western rim of Oceanus Procellarum which is ‘clearly visible’ and I can’t find it. I can’t even find Oceanus Procellarum.

There is more then just that one image, if you look at the shots taken before the one you posted you can see Oceanus Procellarum. Link. Unfortuately I can't find larger images on there site.

Originally posted by V Kaminski
Um, the Moon is 2162 miles across... the spacecraft distance is 500 miles away in round figures. Hey does the size look right?

If I understand you correctly, are you saying that the Moon appears to small? If so, the image was most likely taken with there wide angle lens, so that they could get part of the probe itself in frame. Wide angle lenses tend to make objects look much smaller then they really are.

EDIT: I also just noticed that these images are taken with the onboard camera that monitors the high-gain antenna. In other words, this camera isn't meant for sending pretty pictures, it's simply just a camera meant for monitoring some of the systems on the probe itself, thus the low quality.

[edit on 13-10-2007 by jra]