Questions for Brian Day

[Jim Mosher]

Brian -

Question 1 :

This forum has apparently been established in connection with the
recent announcement requesting amateur images in support of Earth-
based observations of the Moon to be made by Diane Wooden and
colleagues at the IRTF in Hawaii on 2008 Dec 6-8 and 2009 Jan 2 (UT):

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/lunar-observing/message/23691

Similar announcements were made for observing campaigns on October
9-11 (UT):

http://mail.aanc-astronomy.org/pipermail/contacts/2008-October/000877.html

and 2008 Nov 7-8 :

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/news/calling_amateur_astronomers.html

as well as in connection with the SMART-1 impact in 2006:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006LPICo1327....9F

http://www.astro.unibonn.de/~dfischer/mepco/smart_0829.pdf

http://oro.open.ac.uk/8185/

Yet a Google search suggests that no images of the Moon taken by
Wooden and her colleagues with the IRTF have ever been released. Were
these previous campaigns unsuccessful, or have the results been shared
in some way that I am not aware of?

--

Question 2 :

The only image of the Moon taken with the IRTF that I have been able
to find appears in a 2007 paper by Donaldson Hanna et al.:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007LPI....38.2291D

Although the IRTF obviously provides important spectral information
unavailable to most amateurs, the resolution in this example appears
to be rather poor. I have added to the Files section of this group a
side-by-side comparison of that IRTF image with a section from an
amateur full disk composite taken under similar lighting conditions
and remapped to the geometry that would have been observed from the
IRTF at the time of the Donaldson Hanna observations:

http://lcross_observation.googlegroups.com/web/JimMosher_Grimaldi_IRTF_Amateur_Comparison.JPG

The remapping shows the Moon as it would be expected to appear in a
north-up equatorially mounted telescope, and was done using the
freeware Lunar Terminator Visualization Tool:

http://ltvt.wikispaces.com

assuming an observation time of 12:00 UT (?, Moon close to meridian).
My apologies if this was supposed to be sent as an e-mail Attachment.
I'm new to Google Groups and don't understand the protocols.

The LCROSS announcement implies that Wooden will be imaging the Moon's
poles with a resolution much greater than amateurs can achieve. Does
Wooden's instrument achieve better results?

--

Question 3 :

The Moon's poles, particularly the southern one, are popular targets
for lunar observers and many fine amateur photos already exist. Since
the Moon never changes, if the purpose of the present request is
simply to develop more reliable Earth-based finder charts or a
"roadmap" similar to that prepared for the SMART-1 crash:

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=39863

then why is such emphasis being placed on obtaining new observations
precisely simultaneous with Wooden's campaigns? Because of the
roughly 1 degree difference in topographic parallax, an image taken
from, say Columbus, OH, at 04:00 UT on Dec 6 is not going to exactly
match one taken from the IRTF at the same moment; and conversely, an
observer in a totally different location (say Europe), who cannot see
the Dec 6 event at all, might possibly have a photo in their archives
that matches the IRTF conditions better than a simultaneous one from
Ohio. There may also be matching photos in the vast(?) archives of
professional Moon pictures taken in past years, if any of those are
still accessible. Is NASA for some reason uninterested in Earth-based
photos from other dates and times that show the features with very
similar lighting and librations?

-- Jim