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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ Cometary and Asteroid Missions _ Deep Impact sees Moon transiting Earth

Posted by: Stu Jul 17 2008, 07:54 PM

Guys, you've just got to take a look at this...

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/epoxi_transit.html

Posted by: tedstryk Jul 17 2008, 08:21 PM

Oh, to get my hands on the raw data and try to focus it....

Posted by: ugordan Jul 17 2008, 08:59 PM

That's sweet stuff! All it needs is a little focus

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jul 18 2008, 02:35 AM

Holy smokes! That was cool!

Posted by: vjkane Jul 18 2008, 03:07 AM

Any way to get the individual images?

Posted by: nprev Jul 18 2008, 03:31 AM

Suh-WEET!!! Gotta say that despite the blurring that's pretty good resolution from 31 million miles of the Earth's surface though atmosphere (was it miles or km? Think the former.)

EDIT: Yep- miles. 49.6 million kilometers.

Posted by: angel1801 Jul 18 2008, 11:18 AM

I saw the two movies and they're great. In the last few years spacecraft have seen lots of planetery transits from some really strange places and angles. This is a product of actually launching real missions to these places. My favourite spacecraft observed planetary transit is the TRACE mission doing the 2004 transit of Venus.

Posted by: ugordan Jul 18 2008, 01:24 PM

I can realize why everyone always chooses the non-gamma correct versions of Earth images by spacecraft as they provide for greater contrast, but I've always been a sucker for making them look closer to what the eye would see. Something like this:

Original snapshot nicked from Emily's blog. In addition to bringing the sky color to the brighter, hazier one we see from down here as well (it's still the same sky, whether we're looking down on it or up!), it automatically takes care of that intense brown hue the Moon always gets from spacecraft. Also, the Moon (as well as the Earth) gets the well-defined terminator we see from the ground, not a slow fade into darkness. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I find the above version more aesthetically pleasing.

Posted by: CAP-Team Jul 18 2008, 02:55 PM

Also see this thread:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=5177

Posted by: RJG Jul 18 2008, 09:40 PM

I think the thing that most interests me about these movies is the relative size of the Moon. Yes, I know the numbers and know that as far as moons go 'ours' is a big one. But seeing the Moon transit makes it appear quite small after all.

Rob

Posted by: Stu Jul 23 2008, 09:05 PM

Very happy and honoured to have had one of my poems used on the website...

http://epoxi.umd.edu/6outreach/SAtkinson_FromADistance.shtml

Posted by: Astro0 Jul 23 2008, 10:27 PM

Genius!

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jul 23 2008, 10:28 PM

That's our Stu! High fives and another round on the IOU tab.

Posted by: nprev Jul 24 2008, 01:30 AM

Congrats to our Poet Laureate again, who may well be remembered & studied in distant times as the only prose writer to document the early days of our ultimate spread beyond Earth...