Faustini-first effort

[Luis Martinez]

Greetings,

Last night I made my very first attempt at imaging Faustini. As a new
lunar observer, I am not sure I have identified the crater correctly.
I would like to ask your assistance in confirming or correcting my
identification.

File Name MARTINEZ2009013104UTFaustini
Name of observer: Luis Martinez
Email address of observer: kd7...@gmail.com
Aperture of telescope: 0.20m
Focal length of telescope: 2032mm
Type of camera used: Orion StarShoot DSCI II
Camera detector dimensions: 752x582 pixels (uncropped)
Exposure information: 0.10 seconds
Time and date of exposure: 2009-01-31 UT 04:09
Location from which exposure was taken: Casa Grande, Arizona

[Jim Mosher]

Luis,

The attachment identifies some of the craters visible in your image.
The labeling was done using the freeware application "LTVT":

http://ltvt.wikispaces.com/

which can generate and superimpose the pattern of crater positions
expected for the date and time you specified.

The crater you labeled as "Faustini?" turns out to be Demonax.
Faustini itself is in the dark part of the limb well beyond the last
bright dot you show in the upper right (its center would be just on
the margin of the attachment). The terminator has to move more to the
right (in your image) for Faustini to receive sunlight, so it won't be
recognizable for another day or to into the lunar cycle.

--

Tonight (2009 Feb 01 at 03:30 UT) I can see what I think are the
craters Simpelius A and Schomberger (and a smaller unnamed crater
between then), along the terminator, pointing towards Amundsen (which
is hard to recognize as a crater). Faustini must be towards the cusp
from Amundsen, but its hard to see anything more than a streak at the
limb in my 4-inch Maksutov. The lighting is somewhere between that in
Christopher Kitting's image from 2009 Jan 02 at 01:28 UT and Clif
Ashcraft's at 22:50 UT. See the Files section, or the Index to Images
page:

http://groups.google.com/group/lcross_observation/web/index-to-images

or

http://groups.google.com/group/lcross_observation/web/january-2009-training-exercise

-- Jim

[Luis Martinez]

Thanks for the assistance, Jim. It was very helpful. I was counting on
Faustini being just ahead of the terminator (per my LunarMapPro software)
but obviously it was not. I really liked the LTVT and went to the website
but it was rather daunting to figure out how and what to download first. Can
u give me a hint?

I have the scope on moon patrol so I'm going back outside now.
Thanks




Luis Martinez

"We have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. "
- Tombstone epitaph of two amateur astronomers

[Jim Mosher]

On Jan 31, 8:52 pm, "Luis Martinez" <kd7...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I really liked the LTVT and went to the website but it was rather
> daunting to figure out how and what to download first. Can
> u give me a hint?

Luis,

If you have not discovered this yet, go to the program download page
at:

http://ltvt.wikispaces.com/LTVT+Download

and scroll down to the line just above "Source Code", which says
"LTVT_v0_19_7_full_version.zip". This is a "zipped" version of a
Windows folder. If you download this one file, unzip it, and place
the uncompressed folder in a directory on your Windows machine you
will have a complete, functional version of LTVT. The great bulk of
the ~6 MB download is a JPL ephemeris file which LTVT uses to compute
the geometry of the Sun and Moon as seen from your location at a given
date and time. LTVT can actually work without this file (if you
manually input the geometry), but it works much more smoothly with
it. Many other files, including ephemerides for other dates, and
various kinds of feature position lists, can be added depending on
your interests.

LTVT really becomes interesting when you add additional textures and
photos to it. For this you want to check out the image resources page
at:

http://ltvt.wikispaces.com/Image+Resources

For a beginner, a good set of calibrated full disk images showing the
appearance of the Moon with the terminator at a variety of well
documented positions may be the best start. LTVT can automatically
locate the ones with a given lighting, and then overlay and identify
the feature names. For example, when you posted your south polar
image from Jan 31 (UT), I could instantly call up a full disk image
with similar lighting and confirm that Demonax would have the
appearance seen in your photo. Unfortunately the main set of pre-
calibrated full disk images linked to from the Image Resources page is
that by LTVT co-author Henrik Bondo, and they have become unavailable
in the last week or two (due to the disappearance of the website on
which they were posted). I need to get to work on finding an
alternate set.

-- Jim

[Luis Martinez]

Thanks Jim.

Luis Martinez

"We have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. "
- Tombstone epitaph of two amateur astronomers



-----Original Message-----
From: lcross_ob...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:lcross_ob...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Jim Mosher

[luis martinez]

hi Jim,

I've downloaded and started to use LTVT but can't open the user's guide. I get the following message: NAVIGATION TO WEBSITE CANCELED or INVALID ADDRESS. I tried downloading the user guide direct form the website but same problem. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Luis

[Jim Mosher]

Luis,

This sounds like a common problem having to do with anti-virus software.

The User Guide is the file called "LTVT_UserGuide.chm". It is like a
mini-website archive ("chm" stands for the Microsoft Compiled Help
format). You need to double-click or right-click on the filename and
then look carfully for a checkbox that lets you can tell your
anti-virus software it is "safe" to open. It should then display on
any Windows PC, either separately or from within the program.

Good luck!

-- Jim

[luis martinez]

that did it, thanks Jim.

[luis martinez]

Sorry to bother you again. I have access to the user guide now.

I'd like to create the lunar photos I see in the LCROSS website, where the features are labeled by the software, but can't find the instructions on how to do that.