New Uses for Old Moon Data
Comparing Moon Boulders: Lunar Orbiter (1967) Vs LRO (2012)
“[Left] image taken on 11 August 1967 by Lunar Orbiter 5 [Right] Image taken of the same location by LRO in 2012. Lighting angles for both images are almost identical. When looking at higher resolution imagery it is obvious that the dynamic range of the LOIRP-retrieved Lunar Orbiter image is comparable to that presented in the LRO image – especially in bright regions. When comparing LOIRP-retrieved imagery with USGS previously scanned versions of the same image the increase in resolution and dynamic range is even more pronounced.”
It would be nice to have some whiz-bang image analyst pop in here and help me understand what the difference is between the 1967 and 2012 moon images. I mean I can see the resolution different, 2.0M vs. 1.8M. Not much, 10%, but still discernable. And I understand the dynamic range differences too. So sure, 2012 is maybe a tad nicer than 1967, but not much. The 1967 imagery looks amazingly good.
For fun I shifted the contrast of the 1967 image and the 2012 image slightly and presto, you can examine the results yourself. No resolution changes made to the bottom 2 images. It’s weird. Pick a little rock in the scene and sure, the rock is made up of 5 pixels on an edge in the 1967 image and 7 pixels in the 2012 image. Move 45+ years later to 2012 and that’s the image quality delta?
With LRO, at 0.5M GSD and with 3-D capabilities, that’s all great, but it would be nice to see use of 380nm to at least 2500nm spectral data sets at 1M GSD, then we’d have surface composition spectral data and be working in a new science realm. But that would take money I suppose, so nevermind.
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This is the amazing thing about 1967, it was so damn good back then, but since it was a photorecon satellite (SAMOS heritage), you can expect that. This is what we are very proud of in our recovery of the original images from tape from 1966-67 as the originals preserve the 70mm (spacecraft) film quality. We did do a bit of clean up but we were amazed at the comparison.
I agree on the spectroscopy aspect with you. DIVINER has some pretty good coverage, but nothing close to what would be desirable. Carlie Pieters Mcubed was a very good instrument and to get that kind of spectra at 0.5m resolution would be beyond awesome.
Oh, you might want to go to the http://www.moonviews.com web page and download the Lunar Orbiter V-151-H1, H2, and H3, image from the links there at the NASA Lunar Science Institute web page.
They will blow you away. We are working to get a Copernicus mosaic similar to the LROC one soon. It will be a while before we get to those tapes.
I’m – a bit speechless. Thanks for the explanation. Yeah – amazing. 70mm film is a real hunk of film, so it figures.
The original film on LO was SO-243 with a 0.2 micron grain size. It was capable of 500 lines/mm.
Check out NASA SP-200 or NASA SP-242 for more information.
If there were a god, she’d say “well done”.
I would also add that there is probably little use in improving resolution beyond 0.5 meters on the Moon for broadband visible light. I just hope that LRO gets the money necessary to do a global map with the NAC camera at that resolution. That would be valuable.
When we sent our two little rovers to mars I recall reading an article where they said that they were less concerned about pixel power of the camera as they were about the quality or size of the lens. Has lense grinding tech changed much in 40 years.
Curious George
Any notice changes due to say meteor strikes in the 45 years?