China to the Moon - Chang'e 1 and 2, Chinese unmanned lunar orbiters Options

[Hungry4info]

I remember a while back that someone found that one of the Chang'e 1 images of the lunar surface was doctored up a little. I wonder how accurate this "700 hours" of data would be. But then again, I desperately want a nice lunar map for Celestia...

The information is being sent

...to domestic authorized users and the European Space Agency

I don't know which would be harder, getting the information from the Chinese, or the ESA.

[ugordan]

one of the Chang'e 1 images of the lunar surface was doctored up a little

The seams between imaging strips were blended in to make the result more aesthetically pleasing. The pointing/position knowledge wasn't good enough to do this automatically at that point in time.

You'd be surprised how much many of the other space images are "doctored" before release.

[scalbers]

I desperately want a nice lunar map for Celestia...

This one might work for the time being, based on Clementine data...

http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html#MOON

Steve

[Hungry4info]

full inline quote removed

That's the one I use currently. I'm hoping once LRO is finished, we can get a better map. I mean not to devalue your work, you do a lot of good work with your maps and I do appreciate it. I'm one of those, though, that wants to be able to see gum on the sidewalk in my virtual textures for Celestia.

My Earth texture is 32,000 x 16,000 px (if anyone knows where to find one that is larger, please say something). I deeply desire a lunar map of similar proportions with excellent resolution. I figure that a 32,000 x 16,000 px map for the moon should give a resolution of somewhere around 300 m per pixel.

I guess the thing to do is head over to the USGS Map-a-planet and download a bunch of pictures and stitch them together later, lol. I'll go do that now.

[Hungry4info]

I found new toys at the USGS site. If anyone wants a 16,384 x 8,192 px map of the moon, you can get it here until Aug 20.
http://pdsmaps.wr.usgs.gov/order/I_Am_Aliv...moon00n000.html

[scalbers]

Thanks for your comments Hungry...

I usually stick to 8K maps as that is the biggest I can easily produce and/or display (e.g. with Celestia). Good to know about the larger moon one at the USGS, and the potential with the Chinese probe data.

I think the Blue Marble Next Generation from NASA would be a good one to check for Earth. It supposedly goes up to 500m resolution, so if that's true it would be quite a lot of pixels.

Steve

[jekbradbury]

I happen to have a 20K x 10k map (same Clementine/USGS Map A Planet source) lying around from an attempt to create a moon overlay for Google Earth; I have uploaded it in case it will be of use to anyone (it's centered 180 degrees off from the USGS ones, and is too big (104 Mb) for me to edit).

http://www.transferbigfiles.com/Get.aspx?i...a0-5913890be569

It should be available until the 28th.

[Phil Stooke]

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-11/...nt_10347379.htm

Chang-e's big global photomosaic on dispay. Let's hope we get to see it online at some point.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Here's a bigger version

http://images.spaceref.com/news/2008/chinamoonmap.l.jpg

Phil

[djellison]

Forgive my ignorance - but if it ever gets 'out' of China - will this represent a better base map than, for example, the Clementine stuff on map-a-planet?

Doug

[Phil Stooke]

My impression is that it will be similar in lighting and resolution to Clementine. 100 m/pixel, fairly high sun at low latitudes. But that's not to say it will be identical. It is multispectral, and may sample different spectral bands than Clementine. Clementine has some poor areas where missed strips were filled in from higher altitude images, this might not. Also near the poles the lighting will be a bit different depending on the lunar seasons - Clementine only mapped for a couple of months so it saw limited seasonal variation. (for instance, the south rim of Shoemaker is visible here but not in Clementine). If we do get the full data set released, as China says we will - it will be complementary to Clementine.

Phil

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

Lunar South Pole as imaged by Chang'e and Clementine.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Phil Stooke]

Reports now that Chang-e 1 has lowered its orbit to 100 km for a period of higher resolution imaging, to be followed by another drop in altitude to test systems for future landers - presumably navigation towards a final impact. So next year we'll probably see five lunar impacts - Kaguya's relay satellite, Kaguya itself, LCROSS's rocket stage and observation satellite, and Chang-e 1. Not necessarily in that order.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

... and you might like to see what this update says about future missions, and data access:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/features/chang_e/mapComplete/

Phil

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

http://yolearnchinese.com/archives/chinese...ed#comment-8074

Do you notice something weird?

EDIT: Everything is OK now. A credit line is given and a hyperlink to unmannedspaceflight.com was added.