Soviet Lunar Images |
Soviet Lunar Images |
Jun 28 2005, 04:49 PM
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Solar System Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 10154 Joined: 5-April 05 From: Canada Member No.: 227 |
Here's another very interesting and little known topic, so this is a chance to ask or to post about it.
I am looking for information on the Soviet Union's lunar missions. Actually I have lots already, but you can always use a bit more. Specifically, consider this question: what areas were photographed by the Soviet lunar orbiters, Lunas 12, 19 and 22? First I must say that these were NOT systematic mapping missions, they were tests of experimental imaging systems, and the SU never undertook any systematic mapping of the Moon. So coverage is limited. I have searched high and low for images from these missions, helped especially by the extremely talented and knowledgeable Don Mitchell. For this post I'm going to stick to Luna 19, coming back to the others later. Between us, Don and I have located five Luna 19 images, often of very poor quality (photocopies of prints from magazines, microfilm of russian newspapers, etc.) I reprojected them into approximate mapping geometry and then searched for their locations on the Moon. Result, the first ever (AFAIK) index map of Luna 19 coverage. When I was in Moscow I asked for this but got nowhere, and I'm not sure they ever did it, or certainly didn't publish it. The area often reported as the focus of Luna 19 images refers in fact only to one orbit. So, here's the index map; and if anybody can track down any OTHER Luna 19 images I would be VERY grateful for the information. Phil -------------------- ... because the Solar System ain't gonna map itself.
Also to be found posting similar content on https://mastodon.social/@PhilStooke Maps for download (free PD: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...Cartography.pdf NOTE: everything created by me which I post on UMSF is considered to be in the public domain (NOT CC, public domain) |
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_* |
Dec 30 2005, 02:25 AM
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Guests |
Two more footnotes:
(1) The Soviet naming system for its first few years of launches bore no resemblance whatsoever to the names attached to the missions by the US press for convenience. Not only were the first three Lunas not called that at the time, but Venera 1 was also really called one of the "Cosmic Rockets". And "Sputniks 4 through 10", the unmanned Vostok tests and the two orbital stages for the 1961 Veneras (one of which failed to restart), were none of them called Sputnik -- they were given some other awkward names that I've forgotten. Then, after sensibly calling their next two deep-space probes Mars 1 and Luna 4, the Soviets -- on Khrushchev's insistence -- gave their 1964 Venus probe the noncommittal name of Zond ("Probe") 1, and didn't admit for months that it was even aimed at Venus, so that they had some alibi (very transparent) if it failed, as it did. They even called their 1964 Mars probe Zond 2, despite the fact that they admitted instantly that it was aimed at Mars (and also that it had serious power problems) -- but Khruschchev had been kicked out just the month before, and after that the Brezhnev government at least stopped that nonsensical game of nomenclatural peekaboo. (2) In Arthur C. Clarke's 1962 story "Maelstrom II", the Soviet Mountains -- in which everyone still believed at that time -- play an important plot role. |
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