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

[machi]

Best global view of Charon from New Horizons at resolution 650 m/pix in color (both grayscale and color images from MVIC):

[HSchirmer]

Best global view of Charon from New Horizons at resolution 650 m/pix in color (both grayscale and color images from MVIC):
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Amazing how it's like Ben Franklin's bifocals - top looks very Martian, bottom looks very Lunar.

[Explorer1]

That 'moat mountain' is just wild from this angle. Amazing work machi! New desktops aplenty...

[nprev]

Incredible. A few years ago Charon was just a small bump of pixels, and now this. Outstanding work, Daniel.

[bkellysky]

[quote name='machi' date='Dec 13 2016, 05:29 PM' post='233720']
Best global view of Charon from New Horizons at resolution 650 m/pix in color (both grayscale and color images from MVIC):
When I saw this, it seemed like the number of pixels in a photo I had of our Moon.

Click to get the full size version to compare with Machi's Charon.
This is our moon, taken with a Canon XS through an 200mm dobsonian reflector telescope at about 800 m/pix.
It's in color, but not processed at all. So the resolution at the level of a few pixels is fuzzier than the New Horizons photo.
The human eye, through this telescope could see some smaller objects; in part by adjusting better for the large range of brightness.
But perhaps this is how our moon can be seen at the resolution of photos from Charon.

I made a rough measurement of the width of the part of the moon in the photo on google moon and divided it into the number of pixels in the photo.
bob

[Sean]

Here is a video using elevation data, b+w texture blended with a conformed version of an RGB map by Steve Albers & John Van Vliet



I discovered the authors of the RGB pass after the video was completed, I will be amending the video with updated credits soon.

[Xcalibrator]

Stunning, Sean. The topographic relief really hits you in pseudo-3D.

[scalbers]

Nice to see Charon come alive like this. One thing to note is that at least in my mapping so far, there is some higher resolution imagery that can still be incorporated from the mosaic linked below (and perhaps from Machi's views a few posts up).

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-s-big-mo...violent-history

EDIT: Here is a grayscale 8K map with the higher resolution mosaic added from the above link. I'll try adding the colors later.

http://stevealbers.net/albers/sos/pluto/ch...gb_cyl_8kbw.png

[JRehling]

That's a beauty of an animation. Amazing work – and it's amazing that we have the data to create it for such a small, distant world.

[scalbers]

Here is the 8K Charon map in color: http://stevealbers.net/albers/sos/pluto/ch...ron_rgb_cyl.jpg

[Sean]

Thanks for posting these Steve.

[nprev]

Beautiful.

Any chance of a polar projection, Steve? I'm fascinated by those two large impact basins up north.

Still surprised by just how active Charon once was.

[scalbers]

Thanks nprev - here's a preliminary version of the northern hemisphere using an azimuthal equidistant projection.



One of the basins appears to sport just half of a raised rim. The dark mottled areas also look interesting just outside the dark brown polar hood.

[Phil Stooke]

Polar version of Steve's map, just the northern hemisphere. This an azimuthal equidistant projection. The outer edge is the equator.

Phil

[nprev]

Awesome. Thanks, Phil & Steve.

Hmm. In this view, it looks like the very large squarish basin is trapping the red stuff (thiolins?) along the edges of its rim. Aeolian deposition, despite the exceedingly thin almost-hate-to-call-it-an-atmosphere?