Alpine shadows and the Apollo 15 landing site

Hi all,

Here are a couple of shots taken from the 26th March. The first is of
some dramatic alpine shadows together with the Vallis Alpes...

http://www.digitalsky.org.uk/lunar/2...llis_alpes.jpg

The second is of the Hadley Rille region on the Moon, which is where
Apollo 15 landed...

http://www.digitalsky.org.uk/lunar/2...mae-Hadley.jpg

Digging around, I came up with an interesting shot of the site taken
from lunar orbit during the Apollo 15 mission. The orientation and
lighting are not too dissimilar.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...dley_Rille.jpg

Seeing was very variable for the March 26th session, ranging from a
good 8/10 down to a poor 4-5/10. Lots of the poor stuff and only short
glimpses of the good stuff unfortunately.
--
Pete
http://www.digitalsky.org.uk

Pete Lawrence wrote:
Hi all,

Here are a couple of shots taken from the 26th March. The first is of
some dramatic alpine shadows together with the Vallis Alpes...

http://www.digitalsky.org.uk/lunar/2...llis_alpes.jpg

The second is of the Hadley Rille region on the Moon, which is where
Apollo 15 landed...

http://www.digitalsky.org.uk/lunar/2...mae-Hadley.jpg

Digging around, I came up with an interesting shot of the site taken
from lunar orbit during the Apollo 15 mission. The orientation and
lighting are not too dissimilar.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...dley_Rille.jpg
Excellent pictures! Thanks for sharing them.

Sorry for this question (hope not to attract trolling replies here), but
do you think, that with better equipment and a series of pictures it
were possible to obtain the last picture with its details also from the
Earth surface?

Claudio Grondi

Here are a couple of shots taken from the 26th March. The first is of
some dramatic alpine shadows together with the Vallis Alpes...

http://www.digitalsky.org.uk/lunar/2...Red-cropped-va...

Great work, Pete. The debris field around Trouvelot is also
really interesting.

The second is of the Hadley Rille region on the Moon, which is where
Apollo 15 landed...

http://www.digitalsky.org.uk/lunar/2...Red_Rimae-Hadl...

With Bradley Rille (L) and the Fresnel Rille complex (top)

Digging around, I came up with an interesting shot of the site taken
from lunar orbit during the Apollo 15 mission. The orientation and
lighting are not too dissimilar.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...lo_15_Hadley_R...

I like yours better. Less expensive - less dangerous.

Splendid,
Keep up the good work,
Ben

Claudio asked:
Sorry for this question (hope not to attract trolling replies here), but
do you think, that with better equipment and a series of pictures it
were possible to obtain the last picture with its details also from the
Earth surface?

It's been done by equipment substantially inferior to
Pete's. The trick is to have the shutter open at precisely
the right time. Good seeing is everything.

Ben

On 28 Mar 2007 09:57:34 -0700, "Ben" wrote:

Claudio asked:
Sorry for this question (hope not to attract trolling replies here), but
do you think, that with better equipment and a series of pictures it
were possible to obtain the last picture with its details also from the
Earth surface?

It's been done by equipment substantially inferior to
Pete's. The trick is to have the shutter open at precisely
the right time. Good seeing is everything.

Hi Ben-

Do you have any examples? I think pulling off an amateur image as good
as the Apollo image is something of a long shot. The resolution of the
image looks to be around 175 meters per pixel, with the finest resolved
structures between 2 and 3 pixels. That requires a telescopic resolution
of better than 1/4 arcsecond. That's theoretically possible with a scope
in the 16-20" aperture range, but at that size, you'll rarely have
correlated seeing across the 1.25 arcminute scale of this image, so even
lucky imaging techniques will be difficult.

I'm not saying that it's impossible to match the resolution of the
Apollo image, only that I think it's at the very edge of what's
possible, and I'm not sure it's been done. You'd certainly need a fairly
large aperture and superb seeing conditions.

The scanned Apollo image is quite small; I wonder what the resolution is
on the original film?

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

On 28 Mar, 17:57, "Ben" wrote:
Claudio asked:

Sorry for this question (hope not to attract trolling replies here), but
do you think, that with better equipment and a series of pictures it
were possible to obtain the last picture with its details also from the
Earth surface?

It's been done by equipment substantially inferior to
Pete's. The trick is to have the shutter open at precisely
the right time. Good seeing is everything.


No, to my knowledge the Apollo shot is still unsurpassed and well
above what the current amateur equipment can achieve.

Andrea T.

Hi Ben-

Hi Chris,

Let me take this opportunity to extend congrats and
kudos on your Pluto study which wound up on Spaceweather.
Really exciting data. Well done!

Do you have any examples? I think pulling off an amateur image as good
as the Apollo image is something of a long shot.

I'll have to look for the examples, however Chuck Woods
posted an image by Pavel Presnyakov of Kiev yesterday
which took on the Theophilus, Cyrillus, Catherina trio.
It may still be up on his "lunar image of the day"

http://www.lpod.org/

It was a new camera (he said). Don't know what.
The image is dark so there's probably not many frames.
Anyway when I first saw it I would have sworn it was a
BMP. No, it was a JPEG

image looks to be around 175 meters per pixel, with the finest resolved
structures between 2 and 3 pixels. That requires a telescopic resolution
of better than 1/4 arcsecond. That's theoretically possible with a scope
in the 16-20" aperture range, but at that size, you'll rarely have
correlated seeing across the 1.25 arcminute scale of this image, so even
lucky imaging techniques will be difficult.

With point sources you can beat the Raleigh limit
frequently. And yes, you have to be lucky. Observation
and imaging alike are a little like fishing - right place, right
time and all.

I'm not saying that it's impossible to match the resolution of the
Apollo image, only that I think it's at the very edge of what's
possible, and I'm not sure it's been done. You'd certainly need a fairly
large aperture and superb seeing conditions.

Doesn't Pete use a large aperture? It sure looks like it.

The scanned Apollo image is quite small; I wonder what the resolution is
on the original film?

Don't get me wrong - I don't do any imaging. I have
worked in optics though and I think the Apollo image
suffers from prism inducement from having to shoot
through a piece of plexiglass. Pete's image is nearly as
sharp.

Keep up the good work,

Ben
_________________________________________________

On 28 Mar 2007 13:47:07 -0700, "Ben" wrote:

Let me take this opportunity to extend congrats and
kudos on your Pluto study which wound up on Spaceweather.
Really exciting data. Well done!

Thanks- it was a fun project (except for happening at 5am!)

With point sources you can beat the Raleigh limit
frequently.

Yes, although I wasn't looking at separated point sources on the image,
but fully resolved, multi-pixel structures. I also see slightly oblong
structures between one and two pixels in size (not what I'd call fully
resolved). That translates to something like 0.15 arcseconds, for which
even the most optimistic resolution definition is going to require more
than 16" aperture. Of course, it's possible as you suggest that at this
scale we're actually seeing artifacts of imaging through the window.
Hard to tell without seeing a higher resolution scan of the original
film.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Ben wrote:
Let me take this opportunity to extend congrats and
kudos on your Pluto study which wound up on Spaceweather.
Really exciting data. Well done!

Link?

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html

On Mar 28, 3:15 pm, (Brian Tung) wrote:
Ben wrote:
Let me take this opportunity to extend congrats and
kudos on your Pluto study which wound up on Spaceweather.
Really exciting data. Well done!

and Brian requested-
Link?

Brian,

Forgive my egregious omission. (I got kicked off
line twice while cobbling together the last message.)
I'm sure you know

http://www.spaceweather.com/

And they have it archived under Mar 23, 2007.

Ben


--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner athttp://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page athttp://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page athttp://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) athttp://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html