Apollo Sites from LRO Options

[Phil Stooke]

Follow-up on the Apollo 12 - possible - Lunar Module Ascent Stage impact. Looking at more images of the area I have found what may be the impact site, showing up as a gouge or linear depression, possibly with a crater at the end. I attach two images, each a composite of several, to tell the story.

A is a regional map showing the Apollo 12 landing site, LM impact target and predicted impact area.
B is a close-up showing the predicted impact area and two features, the area of dark streaks described earlier, and the new feature which may be the impact site.
C is a comparison of twi LROC NAC images showing the impact feature, and a composite of the two which reduces the effects of shadowing and emphasizes albedo markings. The impact site is dark.
D is the area of dark streaks.
E-H zoom in on the impact feature to locate it unambiguously.

(These are set up as illustrations for a future book.)

Phil

[john_s]

Nice work! It looks quite convincing to me. I'm intrigued by your use of the images with different lighting to separate albedo and topography- is the merged image simply a linear combination of the two, or something fancier?

John

[Phil Stooke]

Thanks, John. The shadow-cancelling method is surprisingly easy and effective. It is just a linear addition of two images with approximately opposite lighting. Shadows and highlights cancel each other out, greatly reducing the visibility of topography and clarifying the albedo markings. I have used it with what is sometimes referred to as 'jaw-dropping' effectiveness on Lunokhod and Apollo astronaut tracks, where individual images did not reveal them clearly.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Another example of the shadow-cancelling method. This is Apollo 14, EVA 1 near the ALSEP. Two individual NAC images plus a merged version. The topography does not cancel completely because they are stretched differently, but look at how the tracks pop out!

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Allow me to introduce to you.... the Apollo 14 LM Ascent Stage impact site!





This is almost exactly at the tracking location. Its latitude and longitude in Quickmap coordinates are 3.4202 S, 19.6368 W (340.3632 E). My hero, Ewen Whitaker, who sadly just died aged 94 a couple of weeks ago, tried to locate the impact site and suggested it was at the location of an unusual dark spot in an Apollo 16 Metric Camera image (frame 2508). He had just observed that Ranger and other artificial impacts tended to look dark from orbit, so it was a reasonable suggestion. But it was not quite in the right place. In this case he was mistaken. This spot shows features very similar to the Apollo 12 LM Ascent Stage impact, illustrated above on this page. I will be presenting this at LPSC.

[Ian R]

Nice discovery Phil, and sad news about Ewen Whitaker.

How is the second edition of your Lunar Atlas coming along?

[Phil Stooke]

Thanks. The book is coming along pretty well. It went fast during my half-year sabbatical, January to June. Now I'm back teaching it's slowed down a lot. But I hope to finish the revision of the first volume (ending at Luna 24) by December next year, and then get into a Volume 2 which is everything after Luna 24 up to the present. It is greatly improved by the use of LRO data and corrections to some errors in Vol. 1.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Another Apollo LM ascent stage? I think so. I believe this is the Apollo 15 ascent stage impact site. Later I will post something showing exactly where this is. The images are enlarged from the original scale.

As for Apollos 12 and 14, the impact appears to be a linear gouge rather than a crater, with faint ejecta extending in a downrange fan.

LROC image numbers are in the file names, if you save the images.

Phil

Best image, south lighting, 0.5 m/pixel (original scale):



Composite of two images with opposite lighting to emphasize albedo markings, about 1 m/pixel original scales:




Image with morning lighting showing faint dark rays extending to the west.

[James Fincannon]

[quote name='Phil Stooke' date='Feb 21 2017, 07:23 PM' post='234703']
Another Apollo LM ascent stage? I think so. I believe this is the Apollo 15 ascent stage impact site. Later I will post something showing exactly where this is. The images are enlarged from the original scale.



I don't know how you do this! I can't discern the difference between this and any other old impactor. I guess it just takes a trained eye.

By the way, any opinion of this blocky thing in Paracelsus C others have found? Simplified link to QuickMap.

http://bit.ly/2ljHDYT

Maybe it is just a blocky thing, but I would like it if there were a lot more blocky things in the area which there are not.

[Phil Stooke]

That has to be one of the most puzzling things I have ever seen on the Moon. I looked at it with morning and afternoon illumination, and with the Sun nearly overhead. The shadows on the southern object hardly seem to make sense at all, and the northern one is not much better. No idea what it is. Some 3D modelling from stereo images would be useful... I see some of that has been done already, but I am not sure the shadows work with the suggested shape. I will keep thinking about it.

Phil

EDIT: here are the only 4 LRO images. There are Apollo 15 images as well.

[Phil Stooke]

OK... got it all figured out now. I will post something tomorrow.

Phil

[GoneToPlaid]

I discovered the Apollo 12 LM impact site on 11/20/2013. The impact site is most unusual in the sense that it is an entirely unexpected result of a LM impacting the lunar surface. In short, the A12 LM impact site is the result of a remarkably improbable set of circumstances for its creation. Phil Stooke correctly is an independent discoverer of the A12 LM impact site. Phil also and correctly is an independent discoverer of the A14 LM impact site. Yes, I can 100% confirm that Phil's A14 LM impact site candidate absolutely has to be the actual A14 LM impact site. My discovery of the A12 LM impact site is detailed at the following URL which was first published on 04/15/2015:

http://apollo.mem-tek.com/A12_LM_impact_si...mpact_site.html

Follow-up on the Apollo 12 - possible - Lunar Module Ascent Stage impact. Looking at more images of the area I have found what may be the impact site, showing up as a gouge or linear depression, possibly with a crater at the end. I attach two images, each a composite of several, to tell the story.

A is a regional map showing the Apollo 12 landing site, LM impact target and predicted impact area.
B is a close-up showing the predicted impact area and two features, the area of dark streaks described earlier, and the new feature which may be the impact site.
C is a comparison of twi LROC NAC images showing the impact feature, and a composite of the two which reduces the effects of shadowing and emphasizes albedo markings. The impact site is dark.
D is the area of dark streaks.
E-H zoom in on the impact feature to locate it unambiguously.

(These are set up as illustrations for a future book.)

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

I am very pleased to see that this is now being publicised. It's great to see that two completely independent lines of inquiry come to the same result. For the record, Gonetoplaid discovered the Apollo 12 site before I did, and as far as I am aware I found Apollo 14 first:

2010 post on Apollo 14 LM:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...=6513&st=60

2013 post on Apollo 14 LM:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...6192&st=120

(but I am happy to be corrected on that if necessary).

I am looking at something at the Apollo 17 site now but it is a more difficult case because of limitations in the available images. (EDIT: no, that object was visible in Apollo images, so that's not it...)

Phil

[GoneToPlaid]

Yes, I can confirm that this is indeed the Apollo 14 LM impact site. Phil, I will get the LRO team to photograph both the A12 and A14 LM impact sites in stereo so that accurate DEMs can be created for both impact sites.

Allow me to introduce to you.... the Apollo 14 LM Ascent Stage impact site!





This is almost exactly at the tracking location. Its latitude and longitude in Quickmap coordinates are 3.4202 S, 19.6368 W (340.3632 E). My hero, Ewen Whitaker, who sadly just died aged 94 a couple of weeks ago, tried to locate the impact site and suggested it was at the location of an unusual dark spot in an Apollo 16 Metric Camera image (frame 2508). He had just observed that Ranger and other artificial impacts tended to look dark from orbit, so it was a reasonable suggestion. But it was not quite in the right place. In this case he was mistaken. This spot shows features very similar to the Apollo 12 LM Ascent Stage impact, illustrated above on this page. I will be presenting this at LPSC.

[GoneToPlaid]

Hi Phil,

Thank you for your links regarding your discovery of the A14 LM impact site which you made way back in 2010. Your A14 discovery dates back a bit over four years before I independently discovered the A14 LM impact site. I am extraordinarily impressed that you discovered the A14 LM impact site way back in 2010. Your 2010 discovery is quite remarkable!

Why do I say that your 2010 discovery is remarkable? Because Mark Robinson and the LRO Team themselves were searching the LM impact sites, yet they obviously failed to identify the A14 LM impact site. Instead, you found it way back in 2010. How did the LRO team fail? Because they assumed, based on simple impact energy physics calculations, that a crater of a given size should have been created as a result of a given mass with a given velocity impacting the lunar surface at a given angle. The LRO team's only visual references for what should be seen were based on what is seen in LRO images as the result of lunar orbiter and Saturn S4-V stages which impacted the moon. These objects impacted the moon at far closer to surface normal incidence angles, and all were basically non-pressurized man-made objects. Yet all of the LMs were essentially thin pressurized aluminum cans which impacted the lunar surface at very shallow grazing angles relative to the lunar surface. Thus the physics for modeling the LM impacts of course would be, and in fact is, entirely different.

I just finished updating my web page about the A12 LM impact site in order to both properly acknowledge and to independently confirm your 2010 discovery of the A14 LM impact site. I 100% confirm your 2010 discovery of the A14 LM impact site, and of course I 100% confirm your independent discovery of the A12 LM impact site and the A12 LM's initial point of contact with the lunar surface which resulted in the creation of the impact site's debris field.

My web site is at: http://apollo.mem-tek.com/

My web page about the A12 LM impact site is at: http://apollo.mem-tek.com/A12_LM_impact_si...mpact_site.html

Phil has a possible A15 LM impact site candidate. I too found this candidate a good while back, yet perhaps I all too quickly dismissed it. I need to perform image deconvolution and enhancement of Apollo Panorama camera images in order to either confirm or disprove Phil's A15 LM impact site candidate. If I can confirm Phil's A15 LM impact site candidate, then the credit for finding the A15 LM impact site will entirely belong to Phil since I had initially dismissed this same A15 LM impact site candidate. There is no way that I could conscientiously claim co-discovery for something which I had looked at, yet had dismissed. In other words, it would be a "Phil was right, and I was wrong" thing.

Phil had a possible A17 LM impact site candidate which he has just ruled out and which I had already ruled out, based on Apollo Panorama Camera images. I have two other possible candidates, one of which I strongly favor. I will work with Phil to confirm. I am not a scientist. On the other hand, Phil is a scientist who also knows how to write research papers. I hope that my strong A17 LM impact site candidate pans out. If so, then I would like Phil to both confirm my candidate and to write a research paper about it in which we announce its discovery once proper and full investigative work has been performed. That would be really slick.

With kindest regards to everyone,

--GoneToPlaid

I am very pleased to see that this is now being publicised. It's great to see that two completely independent lines of inquiry come to the same result. For the record, Gonetoplaid discovered the Apollo 12 site before I did, and as far as I am aware I found Apollo 14 first:

2010 post on Apollo 14 LM:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...=6513&st=60

2013 post on Apollo 14 LM:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...6192&st=120

(but I am happy to be corrected on that if necessary).

I am looking at something at the Apollo 17 site now but it is a more difficult case because of limitations in the available images. (EDIT: no, that object was visible in Apollo images, so that's not it...)

Phil