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LRO-LCROSS Webcast Part 1 of 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EDMGH1Esq4

LRO-LCROSS Webcast Part 2 of 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1u7tX_4TyI

Live video feed start at approximately 5:20 a.m. PDT on Tuesday, June 23, 2009.

NASA TV plans live coverage of LRO orbit insertion starting at 5 AM

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/lcross-l...ngby/index.html

Real-time images from LCROSS

... that's 2.20pm BST I reckon. Seriously, when I rule the world I'm going to pass a law that makes everyone who gives a time for an event also give the time of that event in GMT or BST, in brackets, after "EST", "PDT", "Mountain Hillbilly Time" or "Huh! Hammer Time!"

Seconded!

1:20pm BST I reckon.

Apart from the few odd weeks when the UK's switch to summer time, but the US hasn't - then Eastern is -5, Pacific is -8.

5.20am Pacific, plus 8, is 1.20 pm UK.

5:10 a.m. PDT (1:10 p.m. GMT) is, I'm fairly sure....WRONG . 5.10 PDT is 12.10 GMT, 1.10pm BST. NOT 1.10pm GMT.

Thirded

And just to complain a little more, it took me ages to realize that ET is not (always) Eastern Time but Ephemeris Time.

So the transmission starts at 5:21:06 am ET EDT ERT

Oh - and...
"5 - 6:30 a.m. - LRO Spacecraft Enters Lunar Orbit - Live Event - GSFC (Public, Media and HD Channel)"

It's 5.20 am Eastern now...but this hasn't started.

So I'm very confused.

(no longer confused - coverage is just about to start)

It's about to start now .... 5:20am EDT ... as indicated on Twitter. LCROSS I think is at 5:20 PDT

EDIT: LRO coverage has started on NTV media channel

EDIT2: Apologies I havent been able to create a realtime simulation for it ... a very interesting side effect of using javascripts in there is that the times are automatically converted into local time! I will try for LCROSS, but cant promise

http://lroupdate.blogspot.com/

Burn process has started, but NASA TV is silent here...

NTV silent here also.

Tried restarting NTV - and sound is back.

good blog. twitter not updating. nasa tv sound is very weak

EDIT ... NTV try media channel. seems better than public channel

Past stable capture point passed

Burn process completed successfully.

LCROSS - Video emissions just started, but we're getting at the moment only live-telementry based graphics. No real-time pics from the moon yet

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/lcross-l...ngby/index.html

First images streaming in!

The first pictures of the moon appeared!

Just figured out how to screen-grab a very long movie on my Mac for this thing....and BINGO - the pictures have started!

Are you going to record it?

You gotta love the automatic gain setting on that rocketcam...

EDIT: Lol, "execute payload auto-gain OFF" "compiling, 0 errors, 0 warnings... GO to send"

That's what I call real-time commanding!

That is the point It's slow and painfull at the moment - but if it works and I can run it back at 10x speed or something - it'll be a hell of a view

Sounds like they're sending up commands to tweak the cameras.

Apparently, I've gotten spoiled with Kaguya images.
Still, this is pretty awesome.

Some people will say that there are better-looking images from telescopic observations. This is true, of course, but the images we're getting have a great value - we see that the cameras are functional and working well. In October we're going to see much more.

Managed to quickly create a LCROSS realtime simulation:
http://www.dmuller.net/realtime/realtime.php?mission=lcross

I have not yet been able to verify the trajectory data but the output seems reasonable

Currently taking a screen shot once a minute, to connect all together later as a gif Don't know how it'll work out.

Call me crazy, but these commanding sequences and readbacks on the fly are more exciting than the visual light camera. Looks like the auto-gain OFF was for NIR cameras only.

Heck I'm not complaining. I don't see this part of the moon very often with my telescope anyway

Yes, please do... at my work site they have flash disabled on our pc's ... I see nothing but black screen

Craig

I did it for you - not the best quality, but anyway

DEFINITELY!

If only the slews would take the brightest portion of the disc across camera FOV center, we might get a decently exposed image.


... or not.

Loving this! V v v cool! Who else is pretending they're approaching the Moon in an Apollo?

I hope they will have this for the lunar impact on 9 Oct!

This is my latest set of images:

Just you Stu The downlink is finished as far as I can tell - going to see what the video looks like now

Oddly enough, the frames still keep changing. I thought they could be buffered on the ground, but how much buffer would this make? 16 kbits doesn't allow for a lot...

I'm unable to see any changes over the past few minutes.

There are occasional bleeds of the overexposed regions, something I wouldn't attribute to flash stream artifacts but variations in onboard gain. I dunno.

Yeah, thought so. I can live with that

You were not alone, Stu.. That was my plan as well..... to relive APOLLO for a moment.

I intend to watch the impact FROM HOME.

Thanks Zvezdichko, for the screen shots.

Just glad all went well this morning... LRO in orbit and LCROSS on it's way.....

Craig

Here's some candy.
It's about a megabyte. The final frame is set to last for 1.5 s.
Click to animate.

Thanks for the screenshots. I couldn't see anything, the frames were black. Problem with Flash?

It works fine for me when I open it from the post.

It is blank for me now. Anyone else seeing pictures ?

That would be manned spaceflight, which is not allowed. I'm pretending I'm a robot approaching the Moon. :-)

--Greg

Bingo - the whole thing at 100x speed. Kind of cool.

I have just visited the Space Realtime Simulation.

My suggestion are to add other milestones:

• The second loop around the Moon orbit in 38 days and
• Later, comes the final site selection will be made 30 days prior to impact.
• The time of the separation (around 9:40 hours before of impact -Still not sure-) of Centaur and Shepherding Spacecraft.
• The impact of Shepherding LCROSS (October 9, 2009 at 11:30 UT (7:30 a.m. EDT, 4:30 a.m. PDT), +/- 30 minutes).
• The impact of upper stage of Centaur around 4 minutes later than LCROSS spacecraft.

Thanks SpaceListener for the suggestions; I appreciate such input because I do miss obvious stuff (occasionally) :-) I will work them in when time permits. This mission somehow slipped under my radar, for one it's not quite exactly interplanetary, and I only recently and by accident found the type of trajectory data which I need for my simulations to work.

As for the final impact timeline, if memory serves me right, it is the Centaur that will hit first, creating a plume through which LCROSS will fly through. LCROSS follows 10 minutes behind the Centaur, allowing for 4 minutes of measurements in the plume ... or something like that.

Will work on this mission shortly.

Don't know if this is the proper place to ask. Couldn't we have a dedicated LRO subforum? Threads on this mission are starting to multiply. I like things neat and tidy.