LCROSS en route |
LCROSS en route |
Jul 15 2009, 03:08 PM
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#1
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 87 Joined: 9-November 07 Member No.: 3958 |
While we're waiting for Those Pictures, here are a couple of shots of LCROSS from our campus observatory last night (0221, 027 UT on 15 July). 4 minute exposures tracking expected motion from the Horizons ephemeris, within 20 degrees of the southern horizon and fighting summertime haze as well as city lights. I wanted to catch it before its inclined orbit takes it too far south, after which it spends a week or so as a predawn object. The range was about 563,000 km, and the Centaur is no bigger than a CSM/LM combination, so this is a more difficult target than spotting an Apollo enroute was. (On the other hand, nobody had CCD imagers in 1969).
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Oct 4 2009, 04:59 PM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2173 Joined: 28-December 04 From: Florida, USA Member No.: 132 |
Here's the map comparison that interests me: The target and water concentration maps:
The purple pixels in the old target area indicate (possibly) 1.7% water, the orange pixels of the the new target indicate 1%. As I understand it, the lower concentration of water in the new target area is offset by better viewing of the results. I wonder if there was also a little discomfort in relying on a signal of two purple pixels as opposed to a genuine patch of orange. It seems to me that the new target is at the very edge of the orange patch. Perhaps that's the result of different viewing angles in the two images? |
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