I was wondering if anyone has assembled a good image of Mare Orientale from recent spacecraft data. Or possibly cleaned up the image from LO 4.
I could use it for Chuck Wood's Exploring the Moon column in Sky & Telescope.

Thanks,

Sean Walker

Not exactly what you were looking for, but here is a mosaic from Apollo 17.

Click to view attachment

It is in this view from Messenger

Click to view attachment

and this one from Deep Impact

Click to view attachment

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunarorb...ew/4187_med.jpg

That's fairly well cleaned up as it is. You might also look at Charles Byrne's Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas (he has two, one for the near side, one for the far side, accompanied by CDROMs containing his cleaned-up image files).

Phil

I would have liked to have been there when the first images came down of that feature (Luna 3? Zond?). Although its nature as an impact feature had already been inferred, witnessing its shear magnitude and symmetry must have been breathtaking at the time. Surely a "holy cow!" moment.

I've often heard it said that had Mare Orientale been facing the Earth, it would have affected mythology around the world.

view from Zond 3
http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_Zond03_03.jpg
http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_Zond03_14.jpg
http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_Zond03_26.jpg
and magnificent view from Zond 8
http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_Zond07_3.jpg
http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_Zond08_X38.jpg

"I've often heard it said that had Mare Orientale been facing the Earth, it would have affected mythology around the world."

God's watching you! - well, maybe that wouldn't have been so different after all.

The Egyptians saw an eye in Mare Imbrium - their Eye of Horus symbol is a stylized falcon eye - but why relate the eye of a falcon to the Moon? Because the pattern of maria was seen as a picture of that eye - his left eye. Imbrium and its surrounding bright rim (Montes Jura, Alpes, Appenines, Caucasus, plus Aristarchus) were the eye, Mare Nubium/Humorum was the distinctive vertical stroke near the falcon's beak, and the ragged eastern maria were the long outward extension of the eye. Their depictions of an eye in the lunar disk could be called an ancient map of the Moon. There is, of course, an explanation of the association with the eye of Horus in myth, but that would follow the observation, not precede it.

I ought to add that every combination of eye, moon and falcon is found in Egyptian art - the markings I'm talking about are found in pictures of the moon itself, on pictures of the bird, and the god, and on their own where they become more stylized.

Phil

That is a magnificent view!

Here's a similar-ish view from Galileo:
Click to view attachment

Thanks everyone!
I edit Chuck's column every month, so I was looking for a particular lighting to illustrate the text (specifically, showing the Rook and Cordillera Mountains). For what it's worth, I spent a long time last night cleaning up this otherwise excellent view from Lunar Orbiter 4. Too bad about the light leaks, but I think now this image is publishable.

Credit: NASA, additional processing by Sean Walker

I suppose another approach would be to use one of the great Clementine albedo plus Kaguya topography composite images we've been seeing in the Kaguya thread.

Phil

Yes, but that wouldn't be as high-resolution as this image.

Rook Mountains

NACL M102794910L
(-97.44760869,-7.976397856) (-97.28075370,-7.975176101)
(-97.27222466,-9.788449306) (-97.43581289,-9.789573007)
NACR M102794910R
(-97.11927135,-7.967822769) (-97.28551833,-7.969106984)
(-97.27689659,-9.782463799) (-97.11390483,-9.781266296)

Four pairs of numbers define the coordinates of the corners of the image.
Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Nice!

Thanks for those.

Another interesting pair of images from Rook Mountain.
M102802107L
(-98.5336925,-9.919276773) (-98.36996227,-9.918083931)
(-98.36147955,-11.69027623) (-98.52218792,-11.69137771)
M102802107R
(-98.2115049,-9.910892849) (-98.37463795,-9.912160379)
(-98.36606965,-11.6844333) (-98.20594791,-11.68324717)
Click to view attachment Click to view attachment
The area shown in these photographs is situated on the border of these two images from LO4.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunarorb...iew/4195_h2.jpg
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunarorb...iew/4195_h3.jpg

Boulders that rolled down the slope Rook Mountains.
Click to view attachment
Shadow of the greatest rock looks like a shadow of the Egyptian obelisk.