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 5 2009, 08:10 AM
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#2
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 16 Joined: 30-March 08 Member No.: 4078 |
As I understand it, the lower concentration of water in the new target area is offset by better viewing of the results. No, that's not true unfortunately. This document (http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/386497main_target-selection_web2.pdf) shows that the new target crater Caebus has *far* worse viewing conditions than Caebus A. Caebus A Sun Mask Height: 630m, Caebus A Earth Mask Height: 330m Caebus Sun Mask Height 1420m, Caebus Earth Mask Height 3070m This is quite bad news -- they're sacrificing a lot of water sensitivity due to the sunlight/Earth masking. There must have been something seriously wrong with Caebus A to warrant this, as the mask heights at Caebus A are absolutely perfect for an experiment like this. I'm guessing that new LRO data must have either indicated a very uneven distribution or lack of water in the old target. |
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