[X] My Assistant

[charborob]

An interesting flyover of Mare Moscoviense on the Japanese version of Kaguya's image gallery:
http://wms.selene.jaxa.jp/selene_viewer/jp.../tc/tc_030.html

[Phil Stooke]

We are only 2 weeks away from the expected impact of the little relay satellite R-Star on the far side. February 12th was the predicted date some months ago.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

I was just watching the orbit display of Kaguya here:

http://odweb.tksc.jaxa.jp/oddse/main.jsp

(click on Lunar Surface Map near the bottom)

It shows the location of Kaguya and the subsatellites, continually updated, with altitude. On this orbit, just a few minutes ago, Okina dropped to 3 km above the surface just north of Korolev crater (about 30 N, 164 W) before starting to climb again. Here's a screenshot near the time of periapse. On one of the next orbits it is supposed to hit the surface - according to predictions published months ago, which might have been updated more recently.

Phil

[Paolo]

Four articles on Kaguya on the next issue of Science:
Lunar Global Shape and Polar Topography Derived from Kaguya-LALT Laser Altimetry
Farside Gravity Field of the Moon from Four-Way Doppler Measurements of SELENE (Kaguya)
Long-Lived Volcanism on the Lunar Farside Revealed by SELENE Terrain Camera
Lunar Radar Sounder Observations of Subsurface Layers Under the Nearside Maria of the Moon

[Phil Stooke]

http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/02/20090213_kaguya_e.html

"* The relay satellite "OKINA (RSTAR)" made an impact on the lunar surface on February 12, 2009 (JST), and the four-way Doppler measurement mission was successfully completed. "

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Folks who like playing with DEMs for visualization may enjoy this new release from JAXA:

http://wms.selene.jaxa.jp/selene_viewer/en...t/lalt_005.html

There is a low resolution global lunar topographic file, and more detaild data for the poles and Mare Serenitatis. Full resolution data for the whole moon will presumably follow.

Phil

[FordPrefect]

Folks who like playing with DEMs for visualization may enjoy this new release from JAXA...

Thanks Phil for mentioning! Oh my... this is fantastic. For years I was hoping for a DEM map of the moon similar we have of Mars. I can't wait for the full resolution global map *starts hyperventilating*

Please excuse this possibly terrible ignorant question, but how exactly would one convert the text file to a DEM? Is there any way to import it into 3DEM? I have used this application in the past, though I never had imported this sort of data. I tried to have a go with the Mare Serenitatis data, though I'm not sure which numbers need to be entered as columns and rows in the Matrix data format window.

Anyway, great news!

Rafael

[Phil Stooke]

Sorry, I can't help there. Maybe some of our colleagues who do DEM work can help.

Phil

[elakdawalla]

Whoever does it, I'll be glad to post and host it Those maps look lovely! Thanks for the heads up, Phil.

--Emily

[Reed]

Please excuse this possibly terrible ignorant question, but how exactly would one convert the text file to a DEM? Is there any way to import it into 3DEM? I have used this application in the past, though I never had imported this sort of data.

Each of the .txt files is accompanied by a readme describing the format. It's simple text with each line giving longitude, latitude and height. The readme describes the extents and units.

Writing a program to transform it to other formats should be pretty straightforward. For 3DEM, the "Terrain Matrix" matrix option looks like the easiest to convert for.

Attached is a zip of the Mare Serenitatis data transformed (manually using vi) to load in 3dem. To load it
extract LALT_M-mod.bin the zip
select "Terrain matrix"
select the .bin file
enter the following in the dialog:
data format: ASCI
matrix dimensions 320 320 W-E N-S
SW coordinates 16 10
NE coordinates 36 30
coordinate system Lat/long
vertical units meters, height
click OK
It should load, but may be mostly blue because most of the data is negative. Go to color scale/modify scale and set the sea level to below the minimum value in the data (-5000 is OK), set terain type to lowlands.

The .bin file is actually text, I just removed the lat/lon pairs, and turned the elevation data into meters by removing the decimal point and dropping the last digit.

edit:
I should note that scale will not be correct, since the horizontal distance presumably corresponds to earth lat/long.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

Attached File(s)

 LALT_M_mod.zip ( 163.08K ) Number of downloads: 225

 

[FordPrefect]

Thank you Reed, that worked!

Mare Serenitatis minus moon's curvature:

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Subaru]

"KAGUYA" successfully captured Earth's diamond ring

It's not a sci-fic movie!!
And now she's flying at an altitude of 50 km * 50 km orbit.

[Phil Stooke]

Very nice! Thank you, Subaru.

Have you seen any information about the impact location of Okina (Rstar) on the far side? The orbit tracker suggested somewhere near 30 north, 165 west.

Phil

[Subaru]

Okay, look at this PDF's page 3.
The map is an estimate of Okina's landing point.
Seems that it was 28 north, 201 west.

The other informations in this file:
[page 2]
- GRS finished its main mission in the end of Dec. 2008. And GRS is now working in bonus survey.
- The mission team changed the bonus mission because the performance of Kaguya's reaction wheels become deteriorated.
- Kaguya will land the surface in June. Ouna (VRAD sat) will work as long as Kaguya lives.

[page 4]
- The list of papers on "SCIENCE"

[page 5]
- Where Kaguya was when she took the "diamond ring" movie

[page 6]
- 40th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (Texas, USA) and Japan Geoscience Union Meeting 2009 will have special sessions of Kaguya.
- On 30th Jan., The team released HD movies that were taken by 30th Nov. 2008.
- Digital planetarium program, DVD(s) and photo book(s) will be released for IYA.
- The "Earth rise" movie become YouTube's recommended movie.

[page 8 -]
I cannot translate them with my English, sorry...
But I should tell you that the teams canceled "20 km * 100 km" (south pole - north pole) orbit because she doesn't have enough propellant.
Team members thinks they can get data on "50 km * 20 km" (south pole - north pole) orbit.

[Phil Stooke]

Excellent! Thank you very much for this.

The location is actually 200 east, or 160 west:

"200.967E,28.213N" from the file itself.

I really appreciate your help. Now I can add a new point to my map.

Phil