Lunokhod-1 - visualization, some rendered images about Lunokhod-1 mission Options

[Station]

Hi everyone,

In a spark of free time I decided to prepare few scenes including soviet union's Lunokhod-1 lunar rover. The rover was modelled and rendered using Cinema 4D, the lunar terrain created thanks to Terragen, then everything put together in Photoshop.

Here go some previews and links to FULLHD versions. Hopefully you enjoy it

Ofc feel free to download it and use as your new desktop wallpaper

Maciej, Poland




FULL HD ver: http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img923/5052/EGonVS.jpg



FULL HD ver: http://imageshack.com/a/img923/839/o3Lxwq.jpg



FULL HD ver: http://imageshack.com/a/img924/6623/3xBmAd.jpg



FULL HD ver: http://imageshack.com/a/img922/355/9L2wE9.jpg

[Phil Stooke]

It was not really an overflight, but they did see the Luna 17 site obliquely. In fact, before LRO, the Apollo 15 image of the site was the best in existence (Hasselblad frame AS15-93-12714). The report sounds like they saw a glint off it (the only way it could possibly have been seen), but I suspect the story in the book is false, possibly a misunderstanding based on the seeing the location of the rover.

Phil

[JRehling]

I was thinking about the psychophysics of this: A loose analogy is seeing (from the Earth, looking up at the sky) a satellite flare during the daytime. A piece of Soviet hardware on the surface of the Moon (there were two items: the rover and the landing stage) could play the role of the satellite, and the surface of the Moon could play the role of the sky. Though most people don't notice them, satellites can be seen easily in such situations, having a magnitude of -7 in some cases. In one way, the lunar overflight case is more difficult: The Moon's surface is by and large brighter than a terrestrial daytime sky.

The other key factor is the reflectivity of Lunakhod: It had a big (presumably reflective) solar panel. Here, the fact that Lunakhod was north of the Apollo landing site is helpful: The panel must have faced the Sun, so getting into the path of the glint would involve being sunward of Lunakhod, and Apollo should have been roughly on that path.

What I question perhaps most of all is that the Apollo astronauts would have been looking in the right place at the right time. This would have lasted just a few seconds and been in only one particular place. I suppose it's possible, but it seems a priori to be an unlikely thing to happen unless they were determined to make such an observation.