"A little curiosity from someone who doesn't have the tools to be able to plot LRO's orbit, etc... All of the images I've seen seem to be taken under mid- to late-afternoon sun angles..."

The orbit plane is fixed. Over the course of a month all lunar longitudes pass under it. But over the course of a year the sub-solar longitude also makes a full circuit of the moon relative to the spacecraft orbit. The very first images were taken practically on the terminator. Right now the spacecraft is seeing the sun much higher over the landscape (about 50 degrees above the horizon at the equator). In a month it will be looking down at noon. Two months after that it will be seeing morning longitudes. And so on. If you look at the LROC targeting spreadsheets, you'll see they said about Apollo sites that they wanted both low and high sun images. So changing sun angles are inevitable. The two Apollo 14 images show the changing sun angles a month apart.

The same applies to Chandrayaan and Kaguya... there were specific seasons for imaging, with other times making more use of other instruments. The multispectral stuff is better done at high sun, the Chandrayaan radar imaging was, I think, done when the imaging was not, and so on.

As for Apollo 12 - be patient! (Those crazies don't even know LRO exists.)

Phil

Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy has it right-- nothing will convince a hoaxer. They're already imagining quite a lot. They can imagine a little more. Someone here linked to the Cosmic Log over at MSNBC and I was surprised to follow a link out to a breathless article about a "New Cydonia." Because of great moderation here, we don't hear from the nutcases. But they're out there. Let's not think that anything will stop them from being nutcases. What's great is that every post so far was making light of them, but trying to appease them is the last reason there need to be photos take of the A12 landing site.

Nutcases are allowed to post on BAUT, but they will be asked to backup their claims. If they are unable, but continue talking bullcrap they will be booted out from the board.

I'm happy that UMSF is a good place for discussing image processing techniques, mission imagery, science data and not conspiracy theories, how NASA alters the colors of Mars, etc... etc.. But I also have the feeling that this place is starting to get empty. Is this because people like us are already the minority?

I remember that when I was 12 (now I'm 22) I watched the FOX TV production and I almost got convinced that they never walked on the Moon. This didn't last for long. Curiosity killed the cat. After I started learning more and more about space exploration, I understood how silly these theories are. But this is not the big problem. The big problem is that these productions are smartly disguised as "documentaries" so people have the feeling everything said there is true.

As for LROC images - I wondered why the press cared little about them. I do hope they will be included in some kind of documentaries so people interested in the subject will see that there's independent evidence.

I've said it before, here and elsewhere, it really is getting tiring repeating it and it's entirely off topic for this thread and this forum as a whole. However - I'll say it again.

If someone doesn't think we went to the moon, then LROC images are not going to change their mind. Indeed, they're the opposite of 'independent' evidence.

As for this place getting quiet? Visits to UMSF are steady.

Jan, 72k Feb 75k. Mars 79k. Apr 77k. May 88k. Jun 72k. Jul 80k. Aug looks like it'll be about 70-72k.

308 registrations in 2009 so far. 2008 saw 394 in total.

It is natural that when there's not much going up 'up there' - there isn't much going on 'down here'. Spirit's not moved in months, Opportunity has sat infront of a rock for a fortnight. Cassini is quiet after the equinox. September, LRO in final orbit and a Messenger flyby. October, LCROSS. November, two Enceladus flybys and a Rosetta Earth Flyby. etc etc. And hopefully - Opportunity foot to the floor and Spirit kicking up the dirt in the not too distant future.

Doug's French is slowly getting better.

May wee.

If I remember my high school French from 37 years ago, I believe it runs:

Janvier
Fevrier
Mars
Avril
Juin
Julliet
Aout (sorry, don't have an easy way to add diacriticals here)
Septembre
Octobre
Novembre
Decembre

And the days of the week are:

Lundi
Mardi
Mercredi
Judi
Vendredi
Samedi
Demansche

Spelling could be atrociously wrong, of course...

-the other Doug

If you subtract the anomalous bump in registrations in 08 on either side of the Phoenix landing you'll probably find that the "background" rate of new registrations is actually up for 09.

If "everyone" is going over to the other forum to discuss conspiracies let me be the first to wave goodbye. Those of us who have invested several years of recreation time at UMSF are here for what it is, not to be part of the popular crowd.

And May is to be found about 1800 miles off the coast of Brittany

Too right. The civility & extremely high SNR of UMSF are both unequaled, and that's been the direct result of ongoing hard work by Doug & the admins. Anybody who wants pseudoscience & sensationalism has a wide variety of other options, and happy trails to them.

Re lack of LRO press attention: Sad to say, but lunar exploration does suffer from a "been there, done that" vibe amongst the general public, and it's been that way for decades, Z. LCROSS may produce a spike of interest, but as we all know even space exploration in general has a hard time winning mass media attention for very long. It's really a systemic problem that's hardly unique to LRO.

Well, I frequent BAUT to *debunk* conspiracies, not to be a part of the popular crowd. And I do start threads about exotic conspiracies, but these questions don't come from me, but from friends of mine who trust me and who finally get convinced that all space conspiracy theories are silly and not worth discussing.

There are people who are asking questions with strong mind. This is my job - to answer these questions. But sometimes I'm not good enough (don't have enough skills) to do this - asking questions on the right board is well

As for UMSF - I'm doing my best to contribute when it comes to foreign/Russian missions. This autumn will be very busy coming up with the launch of Phobos-Grunt and browsing the so called .ru-net is not an easy task.

Too much offtopic. Back to lROC imagery.

Interesting article (Page 1 & 2) on Russia's future manned spaceflight plans here.

Check out the author's (Anatoly Zak) website -- Russian SpaceWeb too -- excellent resource.

John
-----------
A Moon Site

New? M104061987RE.tif image on http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/data/pr/tiff/?C=M;O=A

Does someone know how the code is build off ?
M = month
1= day
0=?
4=Orbit height
..
..
re=right
etc etc

Can't find an explonation on the Nasa site.

Just move the cursor over "Name", "Last modified", "Size" and "Description". C is the field to sort on, O is the order, A for ascending and D for descending. No orbital mechanics involved