Charon Surface Observations: NH Post-Encounter Phase, 1 Aug 2015- TBD Options

[JohnVV]

mosaic and crop of:
lor_0299180421_0x630_sci_3.jpg
lor_0299180424_0x630_sci_3.jpg
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the partially sunken mountain

[HSchirmer]

Here's an interesting bit of info, from our own (sorta) double planet,

Earth's tidal effects on the moon seem to determine the large scale orientation of lunar faults and scarps that result from cooling.



http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/43/10/851.full

So, it is reasonable to surmise that cracks visible on Charon's crust now were influenced by Charons' rotation relative to Pluto in the past....

[Guest_MichaelPoole_*]

A probably young, ammonia rich crater has been found on Charon:

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-A...?page=20151029b

[Phil Stooke]

We really need the PDS versions of the night-side images to do anything useful, but you have to wonder if anything will show up.

So here is a truly horrible image. It is a stack of ten of the early Pluto-shine images of Charon. They were averaged, then the average was subtracted from each frame separately, the bland result was stretched to a ridiculous degree, and the ten resulting frames were averaged again and merged into one layer.

Does it show anything? Probably not. But I still hold out hope for the raw data!

Phil

[JohnVV]

Phil it is better than i expected

[machi]

It's a pity that most Charon's images are binned so resolution is very low.
But is there something in the Plutoshine?
It is! Dark side of the Charon!

EDIT: I added 4× enlarged 90° rotated version after slightly better processing.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[ZLD]

Best I could do in pulling anything out in a short time.



Lower right half, looks like there could be a few craters popping through. Could just be noise.



@Machi: Looks really great!

[Phil Stooke]

"Phil it is better than i expected"


Actually, I just realized my strategy is removing the signal as well as the noise! What I did works properly with images like Clementine Long Wavelength Infrared, where the noise and hot pixels etc. are the same and can be subtracted, but the signal is different in each image. Here I am throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. Hmmm... need another strategy.

Phil

PS Machi - fantastic!

[Bill Harris]

OTOH, I decided ot work with images that weren't already DOA. Here is a montage of the LORRI image set released a couple of weeks ago. Shows the "northern highland" and "southern plain" from a very different perspective than the near-encounter image sets we first saw.

The recently found "ammonia crater" ("Organa crater") is in the upper-left, partially obscured in a depression and the related "non-ammonia crater ("Skywalker crater") is just below center on the left, both near the limb. "Alice crater" is the large hummocky-floored crater in the "northern highland" and "Kirk crater" and "Clarke mons" are the features on the floor of the "southern plain"

https://univ.smugmug.com/New-Horizons-Missi...pano--annot.jpg

--Bill

[fredk]

Machi: that is very nice - did you use all available frames for the 4x view?

ZLD - don't those frames show Pluto, not Charon?

[ZLD]

fredk - no, they are a combination of frames from this series of Charon at 0.4Mkm: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...mp;description=

This link doesn't translate correctly for this forum. They're currently (10-31-2015) on page 6 of SOC.

[surbiton]

It's a pity that most Charon's images are binned so resolution is very low.
But is there something in the Plutoshine?
It is! Dark side of the Charon!

EDIT: I added 4× enlarged 90° rotated version after slightly better processing.

At least, even I, with my little knowledge, can spot Cassiopeia ! Beautiful.

[fredk]

The field of view of the LORRI camera is only about 0.3 degrees, so you wouldn't be seeing Cassiopea. It's not too hard to find W's in the sky, though...

[machi]

Machi: that is very nice - did you use all available frames for the 4x view?

It's from the all binned frames. There are four other unbinned frames, darkside of Charon is visible in them but it's very noisy.
I'm pretty sure that full quality PDS versions will show more.

At least, even I, with my little knowledge, can spot Cassiopeia ! Beautiful.

It's not Cassiopeia as it's much wider constellation than LORRI's FOV.
As image is made from two sequences with time difference 2 hours, Charon and stars changed their mutual positions.
That's why image of every star is doubled in the final summed image and because of that it can looks like Cassiopeia.

[fredk]

A quick attempt to isolate Charon's crescent (clearly Charon in hindsight, with no atmosphere visible) from the lens flare etc. I took the two highest S/N frames, scaled them to the same average intensity, then averaged their two aligned differences before smoothing a bit and stretching:

No sign of craters or anything on the dark side.