Archimedes, Aristillus, Cassini Mosaic, Apollo 15 landing

[iceman]

Hi guys.

This is a mosaic made from avi's captured a month ago, on the 30th September 2006 in fairly average seeing. Due to the seeing, I could only use a 2x barlow so I captured a wider area and made this mosaic.

It shows the Apollo 15 landing area, too.

The mosaic is the result of 5 avi's, probably using approx 8 alignment points each. Processed in registax, mild wavelets, combined in photoshop and high-pass filter/USM/levels adjustment.

The attached version is saved at 60% quality to get it under 150k, please click the link below for the full version:
Non-compressed version (300k jpeg) (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/images/images/moon/20060930-archimedes-text-full.jpg)

Thanks for looking.

[Lester]

Excellent Mike.

[Dennis]

Hi Mike

An excellent mosaic with heaps of interesting objects and terrain to browse. I especially enjoy these images when they also cover and describe lunar missions that have landed and explored there.

Apollo 15 was the 1st Apollo mission that used a motorised vehicle as opposed to the hand cart of Apollo 14!

Cheers

Dennis

[[1ponders]]

Cracker Mike :thumbsup: Great detail.

[iceman]

Thanks guys

At the time I didn't realise it was the Apollo 15 landing area :) It wasn't until I was id'ing the features in VMA that I saw it :)

[davidpretorius]

Awesome.
Your lunar compositions are fantastic!

[RB]

Fantastic Mike, as always.
And I love how you've included the landing area.

[ving]

great pic. i wonder if they intended to land so close to that mountain range?

[Astroman]

Amazing how the landing sites come up in red and pink, must be the angle of the sun at the time or something..

Nice image Mike.

[andrew]

Lovely image mate :)

[seeker372011]

as always Mike your lunar images never fail to inspire awe

[Lee]

Awesome stuff Mike..... won't be long and you'll be showing us Neil's footprints! :D

[rmcpb]

Great photo Mike.

Cheers

[iceman]

Thanks guys, appreciate the kind words.

[noelo]

great image, I wonder how big a scope it would require to actually resolve the
actual hardware on the moon....

Any idea what the scale is on the image ?

Noel

[Lee]

I don't know, your average spotting scope on a hill in New Mexico would do it wouldn't it..... conspiracy theorists of the world unite!

Really - you'd need some sort of spy satellite orbiting the moon I think - I doubt any size scope on earth would do it..... and I think if Hubble could do it we'd have seen those images by now.....

[iceman]

Thanks for the comments.

Noel, this image isn't particularly hi-res, especially when you compare it with a hi-res version I took the next night :)

See here (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showpost.php?p=157750&postcount=7)

I haven't worked out the effective resolution of my hi-res imaging train, but a few people have asked so I guess I should sit down and do it.

No earth-bound telescope, or even hubble, can resolve the hardware on the moon. We'd need a resolution of 10 metres to see it, maybe a little less at a low sun angle if the shadow is cast a long way.

Apparently the new 50metre binocular telescope being built will be able to resolve it!

[netwolf]

Great photo Mike. Is that red dot the American Flag? ;)

BTW could the site not be resolved into more detail using the satellite (Dont recall the name) around the Moon which they are using to map the Moon.

Regards