LROC news and images Options

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

I know it may be too early for such a thread, but an announcement has to be made.

The official website of the LROC camera is:

http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/

A brief description plus status is available here:

http://www.msss.com/lro/lroc/index.html

[scalbers]

I had thought heiligenschein was mainly associated with dewy grass on Earth - interesting that this also applies to glass beads on the moon.

I think a more general opposition surge phenemenon can happen with a greater variety of compositions, including dry grass on Earth or dry dust as well.

Yes the Hapke terms (related to the notion of bi-directional reflectance distribution function - BRDF, or anisotropic reflectance factor - ARF) would be a more complete treatment. A quick approach might be a simple ARF using phase angle only that could be a correction to be multiplied by the original image.

[JRehling]

Funny little mnemonic in the terminology: Heiligenschein is German for "holy shine" and it is noticeable when you see the shadow of your own head in dewy grass and your head's shadow appears to be surrounded with a glowing halo, hence the angelic association. Of course, in that circumstance, your head itself always blocks out what would be the most intense location of the effect.

I'm hoping for good skies this year when Uranus is in opposition to see if I can use this to get a picture of Uranus' rings – fingers crossed. I'm pretty sure in that case I don't have to worry about the shadow of my head, or the Earth.