"A little curiosity from someone who doesn't have the tools to be able to plot LRO's orbit, etc... All of the images I've seen seem to be taken under mid- to late-afternoon sun angles..."

The orbit plane is fixed. Over the course of a month all lunar longitudes pass under it. But over the course of a year the sub-solar longitude also makes a full circuit of the moon relative to the spacecraft orbit. The very first images were taken practically on the terminator. Right now the spacecraft is seeing the sun much higher over the landscape (about 50 degrees above the horizon at the equator). In a month it will be looking down at noon. Two months after that it will be seeing morning longitudes. And so on. If you look at the LROC targeting spreadsheets, you'll see they said about Apollo sites that they wanted both low and high sun images. So changing sun angles are inevitable. The two Apollo 14 images show the changing sun angles a month apart.

The same applies to Chandrayaan and Kaguya... there were specific seasons for imaging, with other times making more use of other instruments. The multispectral stuff is better done at high sun, the Chandrayaan radar imaging was, I think, done when the imaging was not, and so on.

As for Apollo 12 - be patient! (Those crazies don't even know LRO exists.)

Phil

Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy has it right-- nothing will convince a hoaxer. They're already imagining quite a lot. They can imagine a little more. Someone here linked to the Cosmic Log over at MSNBC and I was surprised to follow a link out to a breathless article about a "New Cydonia." Because of great moderation here, we don't hear from the nutcases. But they're out there. Let's not think that anything will stop them from being nutcases. What's great is that every post so far was making light of them, but trying to appease them is the last reason there need to be photos take of the A12 landing site.

Nutcases are allowed to post on BAUT, but they will be asked to backup their claims. If they are unable, but continue talking bullcrap they will be booted out from the board.

I'm happy that UMSF is a good place for discussing image processing techniques, mission imagery, science data and not conspiracy theories, how NASA alters the colors of Mars, etc... etc.. But I also have the feeling that this place is starting to get empty. Is this because people like us are already the minority?

I remember that when I was 12 (now I'm 22) I watched the FOX TV production and I almost got convinced that they never walked on the Moon. This didn't last for long. Curiosity killed the cat. After I started learning more and more about space exploration, I understood how silly these theories are. But this is not the big problem. The big problem is that these productions are smartly disguised as "documentaries" so people have the feeling everything said there is true.

As for LROC images - I wondered why the press cared little about them. I do hope they will be included in some kind of documentaries so people interested in the subject will see that there's independent evidence.

I've said it before, here and elsewhere, it really is getting tiring repeating it and it's entirely off topic for this thread and this forum as a whole. However - I'll say it again.

If someone doesn't think we went to the moon, then LROC images are not going to change their mind. Indeed, they're the opposite of 'independent' evidence.

As for this place getting quiet? Visits to UMSF are steady.

Jan, 72k Feb 75k. Mars 79k. Apr 77k. May 88k. Jun 72k. Jul 80k. Aug looks like it'll be about 70-72k.

308 registrations in 2009 so far. 2008 saw 394 in total.

It is natural that when there's not much going up 'up there' - there isn't much going on 'down here'. Spirit's not moved in months, Opportunity has sat infront of a rock for a fortnight. Cassini is quiet after the equinox. September, LRO in final orbit and a Messenger flyby. October, LCROSS. November, two Enceladus flybys and a Rosetta Earth Flyby. etc etc. And hopefully - Opportunity foot to the floor and Spirit kicking up the dirt in the not too distant future.

Doug's French is slowly getting better.

May wee.

If I remember my high school French from 37 years ago, I believe it runs:

Janvier
Fevrier
Mars
Avril
Juin
Julliet
Aout (sorry, don't have an easy way to add diacriticals here)
Septembre
Octobre
Novembre
Decembre

And the days of the week are:

Lundi
Mardi
Mercredi
Judi
Vendredi
Samedi
Demansche

Spelling could be atrociously wrong, of course...

-the other Doug

If you subtract the anomalous bump in registrations in 08 on either side of the Phoenix landing you'll probably find that the "background" rate of new registrations is actually up for 09.

If "everyone" is going over to the other forum to discuss conspiracies let me be the first to wave goodbye. Those of us who have invested several years of recreation time at UMSF are here for what it is, not to be part of the popular crowd.

And May is to be found about 1800 miles off the coast of Brittany

Too right. The civility & extremely high SNR of UMSF are both unequaled, and that's been the direct result of ongoing hard work by Doug & the admins. Anybody who wants pseudoscience & sensationalism has a wide variety of other options, and happy trails to them.

Re lack of LRO press attention: Sad to say, but lunar exploration does suffer from a "been there, done that" vibe amongst the general public, and it's been that way for decades, Z. LCROSS may produce a spike of interest, but as we all know even space exploration in general has a hard time winning mass media attention for very long. It's really a systemic problem that's hardly unique to LRO.

Well, I frequent BAUT to *debunk* conspiracies, not to be a part of the popular crowd. And I do start threads about exotic conspiracies, but these questions don't come from me, but from friends of mine who trust me and who finally get convinced that all space conspiracy theories are silly and not worth discussing.

There are people who are asking questions with strong mind. This is my job - to answer these questions. But sometimes I'm not good enough (don't have enough skills) to do this - asking questions on the right board is well

As for UMSF - I'm doing my best to contribute when it comes to foreign/Russian missions. This autumn will be very busy coming up with the launch of Phobos-Grunt and browsing the so called .ru-net is not an easy task.

Too much offtopic. Back to lROC imagery.

Interesting article (Page 1 & 2) on Russia's future manned spaceflight plans here.

Check out the author's (Anatoly Zak) website -- Russian SpaceWeb too -- excellent resource.

John
-----------
A Moon Site

New? M104061987RE.tif image on http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/data/pr/tiff/?C=M;O=A

Does someone know how the code is build off ?
M = month
1= day
0=?
4=Orbit height
..
..
re=right
etc etc

Can't find an explonation on the Nasa site.

Just move the cursor over "Name", "Last modified", "Size" and "Description". C is the field to sort on, O is the order, A for ascending and D for descending. No orbital mechanics involved

I think he was asking about the naming convention. See http://geo.pds.nasa.gov/missions/lro/docs/...lroc_av_sis.pdf

Individual EDR files will follow the naming convention:
[TARGET][MET][INSTRUMENT][PRODUCT].img
Where [TARGET] is a single character denoting the observation target [(M)oon, (E)arth,
( C ) alibration or (S)tar]; [MET] is a nine digit number reflecting the Mission Elapsed Time of
acquisition (with a single digit for partition which denotes a reset of the MET); [INSTRUMENT]
is a single character denoting the instrument, e.g. ( R )ight NAC, (L)eft NAC, (M)onochrome
WAC, ( C)olor WAC, (V)is WAC, or (U)v WAC; and [PRODUCT] is a single character to
denote (E)dr.

The new image 2amazing mentioned is now on the LROC browse page. It's in Balmer, a big smooth-plains-floored basin near the limb, and one of the Constellation priority targets.

http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse

Here's a crop... ejecta blocks south of the fresh crater. Some of them hit the ground with enough horizontal velocity to roll away from the crater - these are the first boulder tracks I've ever seen away from steep slopes (Hey James!)

Click to view attachment


Phil

There's a nice image at the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project site comparing a Lunar Orbiter III high-res shot of the Apollo 14 landing site with the latest LROC image. It's very easy to see the changes imparted to the site from Apollo 14!
Comparison of Lunar Orbiter III and LROC image of Apollo 14 site

M104061987RE.tif

M=moon
104061987 = time in minutes?
How can you calculate whitch time/date this picture was taken.

The 104th of June, 1987?

More likely it's a count of seconds since some time which is probably specified somewhere in the documentation. But I prefer the idea that it's the 104th of June.

Phil

nearly ok oDoug...
Jeudi and not judi (so Jeudi is a mix of your judi and ...Jedi)
Dimanche and not Demansche

Juillet and not Julliet
Août (I've got the right key board )
and as Doug pointed out you've missed Mai (which is a Maymonth and not a Mayday...sorry I couldn't resist)

...and I don't want to hear your spelling

It's certainly counting up in seconds. I usually just make an Excel spreadsheet that takes the time quoted on an official release and the MET and then set up a formula that can calculate the date for any MET. But for LROC it doesn't really seem to be necessary, since they're putting the UTC time on all the Zoomify images. For instance this one which we're told is from Tue Aug 04 14:51:59 UTC 2009. Taking the whole nine-digit number as the date, it counts up from April 18, 2006, but I think it's more likely that the first digit isn't part of the counter, so it counts up from June 18 at 14:32:12. This was exactly 7 hours before launch. Maybe that was when they booted the spacecraft computer?

--Emily

Sounds like the difference between UT and MST where the LROC operations center is. Maybe some time system confusion there. Presumably somewhere they have documented the definition of MET 0 in UT (or better, ET.)

I'm a little surprised they used MET; we usually use some arbitrary time like 0 Ephemeris Time ("epoch of J2000").

The first digit is probably what they meant by "a single digit for partition which denotes a reset of the MET".

I've seen clearer pieces of PDS documentation

Hai Emily

Not every file and images match this methode.

Sometimes the date is not correct or time

See excel attachment.

The "nacl" and "nacr" files use the convention that the LROC hardware uses, where are images have an arbitrary 32-bit ID, reported in the file names as 8 hex digits. You can't glean anything more from these filenames without having access to the commands.

Obviously the PDS releases will be cleaned up and conform to the EDR documentation; it seems these public releases are using various naming conventions. (I'm just speculating, I have nothing to do with this stuff.)

I played with the images a little and did some basic editing, basically (but not limited to) reducing noise, sharpening and increasing contrast. Not as good as you can do it, but at least I tried. Imageshack and GIMP tricks.

Edit : Second photo

Answer by e-mail from webmaster http://lroc.sese.asu.edu 30/08/09 11:27 PM

More or less the exact same thing I said in post 166, no?

Yep

Yes, this one has alot of boulder tracks. Qualitatively, it is interesting how thin the dust layer is as evident of the difference between the width of some boulders and narrowness of their track. How deep is the soft stuff supposed to be?

Click to view attachment

New image...

http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M103668324R

Zoom in... and in... and in... until your jaw hits the floor, or your face hits the boulders, whichever happens first..!

A fantastic new picture today, Tsiolkovsky's central peak, with approximately a zillion boulder trails...

The caption ask the question - are the blocks from the peaks, or were they thrown there by distant impacts? I think we can safely say they are local. If rocks were thrown around as the question implies, flat areas would be covered with them too. But on the flat areas away from fresh craters and slopes they are rare. And rocks scattered all over this region could hardly collect preferentially on steep slopes and summits. In fact they should preferentially collect elsewhere because most rocks falling on slopes would roll off immediately.

Phil

Its awfully nice of them to be providing these nice images with lots of boulder trails for us to ponder.

Probably not a good place to attempt a landing...

Click to view attachment

These LRO images are purely amazing. Zoomed fully in and sliding around, the images seem to go on forever. I've spent literally half an hour with some of these recent ones (especially the Necho crater) going through constant cycles of "What's over there?" [sliding the mouse] "Oh wow."

Truly amazing.

Relaese date 1 sept 09.
Image captured 31 jul 09.

When we become the high res images (0.5 meter per pixel)?

Or is there a problem with the LRO?

update excel file (see attachment)

Here we go again...

People really, I mean really, need to be more patient re image releases. Seriously, compared to The Old Days we are spoiled rotten.

Thanks, Stu. Frankly, if I were moderating I would ban this topic, because the debate is not going to reach closure in this forum.

Note that LRO is not scheduled to be put into the circular 50 km mapping orbit until 15 Sept. I haven't worked out the ground track speed in the present orbit, but it may exceed the max clock rate of the NAC for square pixels.

What's everyone's thoughts as to why lots of big boulders like to sit atop lunar mountains ? (except the ones that roll doon!)
Thanks for pointing to these fascinating close ups Stu

The topic doesn't need banning. What needs to happen is people need to stop being so ******* impatient and ungrateful. Yes, it's frustrating not to have EVERY mission release EVERY raw image taken within hours or days of them being taken, like the MER and Cassini missions do, but really, come on, we're not entitled to it, and the people working on these missions are very, very busy. MER broke the mould, but we can't expect every other mould to be broken too.

I went around JPL, saw the people working there, I know just how busy people like them are. Trust me, the people behind space missions have better things to do than make sure enthusiasts like us have a daily fix of pictures to look at when we get *back* from work. We should be grateful for anything and everything we get, and not get all narky when the flow from the data pipe slows down sometimes.

And before anyone says anything, yes, I know the argument about "Well, we've paid for them so we deserve to see them!" but that's not how the world works. "We" also pay for our governments' scientists to develop new medicines, alloys, plastics etc for us, but we don't moan and groan about not having access to their daily lab test results, graphs and meeting minutes, do we? The only difference here is that NASA's missions produce easily-understood, gorgeous pictures that we 1) we can work on on our home computers, and 2) go "oooh!" over when we see them.

No new images from LRO today? Go look at the Cassini raw page and marvel at pictures of Saturn's rings streaked with the tapering shadows of its moons. No new Cassini raw images yet? Go take a look at the SOHO site and enjoy amazing views of coronal mass ejections and solar prominences. No new SOHO images yet? Go take a look at NASA's Planetary Photojournal, where you'll find new images from other missions... If nothing there takes your fancy, go back to Exploratorium and click on some of the links to raw image pages you missed because you were busy that day, there'll be something new for you to see there. Then there are blogs from mission scientists to read, papers to download, podcasts to listen to. Come on people! The internet is a Stargate we can all step through. We're spoiled for choice!

I don't want to dampen anyone's enthusiasm for image viewing and armchair exploring but seriously, I wish I had a time machine, so I could take some of the young 'uns here back to the days of Voyager, when we had to wait literally months before we were able to drool over encounter images...

Can we move on please. Further posts on this will be deleted.

A look at the bigger picture

Click to view attachment

A previous LROC scan of Tsiolkovskiy's south-eastern, outer rim sector can be 'searched' for in these other, impressible (AND 'zoomable') moon-surface resources -- AS-M-0481 orAS-M-1324.

John

God, it would be damn difficult to scan the whole floor of this huge crater

Several other snapshots from the strips.

Edit: New added

Edit: One more

Edit: Last

Two nice boulder tracks on Tsiolkovskiy's peak. I like the one made by the elongated boulder.

Here is an odd set of boulders, sitting in the the middle of a area of craters, but not part of a crater. Is it one boulder that fractured on landing?


Click to view attachment

Wow...

Click to view attachment

Imagine seeing that happen...

Here's a spectacular group of huge boulders near the top of Tsiolkovskiy's peak. Must be quite a scenery seen from the ground. Can you imagine yourself hiking in there?

I can imagine some 1/6 g rock scrambling and bouldering going on there! Looking at such rough terrain makes me wonder if there are any (much) smaller versions of the permanantly shadowed craters at the poles? A crevice or crater in the middle of such an outcrop would be sheltered from sunlight at comparatively low lattitudes I imagine.