Well - impactor TCM 1 went well - <0.3% error and it's on course for a nominal impact time. PI has suggested that the comet is Banana shaped and we're going to hit the end of it which looks a little triangular

A rather rough and ready HRI picture on NASA TV - looks a bit like a distant startdust image.

Doug

TCM 2 is in progress - estimated to be 40ish seconds long, be around 2.2m/sec and use around 0.3kg of fuel.

Doug

Sounds like someone was concerned about microradians being too high, I assume it's a turn rate...

Somebody just got up and ran off..."I told you to go to the bathroom before we started!"

I assume this is the calculated pointing error for the MRI on the Impactor.

Pictures on NASA TV look amazing from the HRI! Couldnt help myself laughing, there's a great big impact crater like feature just about where the impactor will be targeting



Doug

Figures...Nasa TV is showing images of the HRI. I see a crater!!!

Their lame Deep Impact IMage Viewer doesn't show CRAP.

More like an eggplant than a pickle..

Did I get that right? They're doing (near) real-time deconvolve?

..... >6Kg fuel remains, plenty for final targeting.

Yep. On their laptops, no less. I guess Mike's comment that it would take 2 days is a bit of a schedule stretch. Then again their quick & dirty deconvolve might not be as good as a take your time Dc.

Yup "Two days"...lmfao - 60 seconds

Doug

holy...I thought the tv camera defocused, but those were actual HRI raw images deconvolved real-time!?! Those raw images looked like crap...

For those with access - Sky News is carrying NTV as one of their multi-screen feeds

Doug

Last TCM calculations suggest again, 2ish m/sec

Doug

Final ITM (ITM 3) occurs in <3 min. As I understand it, on board autonav targeting data indicates agreement with ground track (radio) data is within <1Km....

I have to say this is considerably more exciting than I had expected.

"Near real time" my butt. The Image Viewer is a waste of bandwidth.

FInal burn manouver complete - accurate to within 0.23%

Doug

Final TCM burn error less than 1/4 of a %!! wow

time to impact is <5min.......

10 seconds to go

Loss of Signal

WOoooooooooooooooooooooooooo - the pictures

Doug

Wow - this is like ranger - amazing images coming in one after the other

Doug

WOW! lovely!! they look far closer than what was returned from stardust!! looks like the same weird flat bottom cratering!

Is that a crack?? My bet is for rubble pile!!

Is it wrong that I was celebrating WAYYY before the scientists
Oh WOW - image showing the impact

Doug

It's perfect! Perfectly centered in the image frame is a conical ejecta image!! beautiful!!!

"doing very well for a spaceraft about to be vaporized"

Doh - party's over here now....

Just taking photographs of my TV here - with Sky News carrying NASA TV

Doug

more here

http://www.scotsons-shack.com/dimages.htm

Good images of the nucleus - looks like a bent Enceladus!

kitt peak working now

Kitt Peak Live Feed

Deep Impact II to hit an Asteroid?

Sub-meter res images just before impact seem to show bright (ice?) patches on surface.....

Consdering they're compensating for a really low albedo, "bright" is a pretty relative term.

A screengrab of the nucleus:

MRI of the impact.

I just have to go 'BOOOOooooooom' every time I see a new picture

Doug

Any reports of observations from the ground?

Medium resolution image of the impact:

Doug:

Gonna send the Deep Impact Team a 'Golden Nail Gun' now?

Bob Shaw

mirror of the pre impact animation from kitt peak
1.7 meg gif

The final flyby picture before the 'hiding from the lumps' phase is amazing - a waning nucleus with ejecta plumes... ...roll on deconvolution!

The best 4th of July fireworks I ever witnessed. Congratulations to the Deep Impact Team

The realtime image pages are healthily updated, but dog-slow and unreliable

Doug

Try:

http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~perry/images/impact15.jpg

replace 15 with any number from 2 through 28.

screengrabs from NASA TV

some initial interpretations: the circular features appear to be positive relief features, maybe low mesas. Combined with the scarps nearby, perhaps (and I know this was suggested for Wild 2) that cometary material is ejected from the scarps, eroding them back.

Compared to the simulation animation shown often in the last few days, the impact ejecta is mostly traveling laterally away from the impact site. the animation showed ejecta going straight back. Alex Dessler, who watched the event with me, thought he noticed the formation of several rays during the impact

impact images now available on near real time image viewer

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/deepimpact/050704faulkes.html

The Faulkes Telescope in Hawaii captured these before (left) and after images that show the comet increases in brightness following the impact. Credit: Faulkes Telescope Project.

Faulkes Telescope images can be found here.

Pre and post (~20 minutes) images from the Faulkes telescope in HI. The brightening continues in the latest images.....


Ah! you beat me to it!!

What time GMT is the press conference on?

I don't trust my time conversion after I got up an hour earlier that I needed this morning.
It's gonna be a looooong day. Totally worth it though.

Edit: Ahh, never mind, it's "momentarily" apparently....

Now it's off of "Momentarily" and back to telling us it's supposed to start ten minutes ago... *sigh*...

-the other Doug