A new SMART-1 image was released recently:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/SMART-1/SEMP7QOFHTE_0.html

It shows Shackleton crater at the South Pole. Here I have added it in to an earlier mosaic of Clementine HIRES camera images. It fills a gap not well seen by Clementine. The big black circle is
Shackleton, and Earth is towards the top.
Phil

Click to view attachment

Here'a a new SMART-1 image release...

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/SMART-1/SEMFRKV681F_1.html

Phil

Reuters is carrying a story about a new German orbiter

Germany plans unmanned lunar orbit
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews...=22&sp=true

"The project would be called LEO -- Lunar Exploration Orbiter -- and could be fired into space in 2012 if decisions are made and sufficient financing found, Hintze said.

He said initial costs for the project would be around 350 million euros ($513.6 million), which would cover the planning, building and launch of the spacecraft. "

Another version of the South Pole mosaic above. Another Smart-1 image has been added to my Clementine High Resolution base.

Phil

Click to view attachment

ESA has released a mosaic of the north pole.
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/SMART-1/SEMMH029R9F_0.html

Here's a map of SMART-1 coverage by resolution. Yellow is coverage better than 250 m/pixel, essentialy global. Red is better than 100 m/pixel, most of the southern hemisphere. Black is better than 50 m/pixel. The central longitude of the map is zero degrees, the ends are 180 degrees, north at top.

And goodish news - the images themselves are still being worked on for ingestion into the PSA, ESA's version of PDS. So we will get them eventually. I understand that calibration has been difficult because camera properties changed during the mission.

Phil

Click to view attachment

And here it is with a Clementine mosaic overlay.

Phil

Click to view attachment

Emily noted that the SMART-1 data has been released:

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=47714


I have just started to look around in the archive, but it looks like a huge FTP archve

with files like:

File:AMI_EE7_031003_00004_01000.IMG 292 KB 07/08/2010 12:37:00 PM
File:AMI_EE5_031003_00002_00010.IMG 164 KB 07/08/2010 12:42:00 PM
File:AMI_EE3_031003_00005_10000.IMG 548 KB 07/08/2010 12:51:00 PM
File:AMI_EE7_031003_00001_00010.IMG 292 KB 07/08/2010 12:53:00 PM

I do not yet have any personal experience with processing raw data, but it would be fun to be able to browse these images.



So I guess that it's just a matter of dig into the documentation or wait for someone here to point
out what tools are available.

There are both raw and calibrated products available. However, the way the metadata is organized makes it a pain to see which image was taken when and of what target. The browse thumbnails seem to be actually imbedded inside the IMGs so that's not really helpful. Also, the calibrated products seem to be missing all the lunar phase images that also show Earth in the FOV, in fact entire such orbits of interest are missing from the calibrated products.

Yes, I don't get that browse image thing at all. Let's have a folder of browse images, and a clickable map interface!

Phil

Here's a Moon approach sequence of 13 images. Supposedly shows the north pole.
Click to view attachment

I managed to pull this one out, just to prove I could.

Phil

Click to view attachment

To be honest, that image doesn't look so great. Does it even improve on Clementine? Do these images have any use beyond their novelty value ("hey, Europe had a lunar orbiter once too")?

Here's one of those North Pole images from when it was released back in 2004. Neat to see it's part of an longer sequence, and definitely an unusual viewpoint on the Moon.

AMIE is not exactly the best imager in the world. It appears to be affected by scattered light, is fairly low resolution and uses lossy wavelet compression with varying degrees of compression. Though in all honesty, that image of Phil's looks like it's taken in high sun so only albedo variations are seen (contrast-enhanced?).

See my map, higher up the page - the black areas, including the south pole itself, are 50 m/pixel, better than Clementine's UV-VIS images. So some small areas are better. Plus, the polar coverage was much better in time sampling - all seasons at both poles (Clementine operated for only about 3 months).

One unfortunate thing is that there was only a short period during which the SMART-1 images were the best. Now we have them, but most people are more likely to want to use LROC WAC images, or others (Kaguya, and ISRO is said to be releasing its Chandrayaan images by the end of this year) if they can get them.

I just chose my image at random, not even noting where it was from.

Phil

Here's another random image:

Click to view attachment

A near-terminator shot. Again I didn't check its location. These are 32-bit images, but all the action is in the lower 16 bits, so as a tip for people who want a quick way to browse them: import as a Photoshop raw, using 16 bit IBM format and either 1024 by 548 or 512 by 548 as the size (depending on the file size). That splits each 32 bit pixel into two, making vertical lines down the image, alternating between image and blank. Now use 'image size' and nearest neighbor sampling (will not work otherwise!) to reduce to 512 by 548 or 256 by 548 (depending on file size). Now you have just the image lines left, and a contrast stretch will optimize it for viewing. After a good stretch it can be saved in 8 bit if you prefer, as this has been.

Phil

Phil, that sounds like a rather un-quick way to browse images! Wouldn't a faster method be to just dump an image properly into a PNG?

True! Obviously IMG2PNG would be better than the approach I described. I just wanted to offer a method to people who don't have, or don't want to get into, that software.

I doubt if I will ever do very much with these images. Sadly, their time may have passed already.

Phil

Now I've got a hang on the data set and I manage do create my first cross eye 3d image from the data set.
Click to view attachment
Dated or not, SMART-1 was built in Sweden and assembled in my home town, Linköping, that's why I'm interested. =)