A Lunar Mineral Map

[SkyViking]

Hi all, as it has been cloudy for a while around here I haven't done much imaging lately. And of course the latest clear night just happened on a full moon, but I thought I would give it a go and do a full moon image since I've never really done that.
After gathering the data I went a bit overboard, and have now been processing this image for a couple of days. I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised and very happy with the results. This is a colour enhanced image showing the real colours of the Moon, predominantly the lunar maria. The maria were formed by ancient basaltic flood volcanic eruptions that once covered low lying regions in a thick, nearly flat layer of solidified magma.

The image is a mosaic of 24 panels taken in prime focus with the 10" Newton f/5 and the ToUCam's 640x480 resolution. Each panel is a stack of 500 1/1000s frames, which provided for very low noise levels. The stacked and stiched image was then heavily colour saturated and a copy of the original image was added as luminosity layer.

The result is a sort of lunar mineral map which clearly shows the distribution of titanium minerals on the lunar surface.
Mare basalts are generally grouped into three series based on their major element chemistry: high-Ti basalts, low-Ti basalts, and very Low-Ti basalts. While these groups were once thought to be distinct based on the Apollo samples, global remote sensing data from the Clementine mission now shows that there is a continuum of titanium concentrations between these end members, and that the high-titanium concentrations are the least abundant. TiO2 abundances can reach up to 15 wt% for mare basalts, whereas most terrestrial basalts have abundances much less than 4 wt%.

Image is available here: http://www.titirangiobservatory.com/moon/mooncolours.html
Please note there is also a massive 3354x2286 version (3.17MB) if you click on the image.

This image was great fun to make and I hope you enjoy it too!

Regards,
Rolf

[JD2439975]

Ah Rolf, give yourself a gold star & an elephant stamp for that one. :thumbsup:

A grand image with excellent presentation & information...given me the urge to try one of my own. :lol:

Thankyou for sharing that with us.
Justin

[troypiggo]

That's a fantastic result and fascinating read. Thanks for posting!

[Inmykombi]

Absolotely beautiful presentation and information you have shared there.
Well done indeed.

It brings a new dimension to our lovely Moon.

thx for sharing this.

Geoffro

[Matt Wastell]

Excellent work Rolf - you are (and this is a great thing) my nerd of the week :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Troy]

Very interesting picture :thumbsup:

[iceman]

Fantastic work as usual, Rolf. I love your images.

[iceman]

This image is this weeks IOTW (http://www.iceinspace.com.au).

[Insane Climber]

Well done mate you deserved the IOTW for that.

[mswhin63]

I dont know how I missed this one, excellent image.

[SkyViking]

Thank you Justin, and please do try one. I think I have previously underestimated our good old full moon, there's actually a lot of detail to see.



Thanks Troy, glad you enjoyed it.



Thank you Geoff, yes it's always fun to try something new. I have seen other 'coloured' moons around, but was surprised about how much detail I got with this one.
Stiching 24 panels was a pain though, but worth it :)



Thanks Matt, that's indeed a title to aspire to :D



Thanks Troy :)




Oh thank you very much Mike, that is an honour indeed! :D I'm happy that you liked it.
I believe you did a similar image a while ago? It's interesting how the Moon is quite a bit more than what it appears to be.



Thanks Jason :)

[SkyViking]

Thank you very much Malcolm :)

[RB]

Congratulations Rolf , excellent work !!

[Phoenix]

Wonderful work Rolf. The image is analogous of mineral mapping here on good old planet Earth using multispectral or hyperspectral image data - information is the goal while cartographic appeal is typically secondary. In this case you have captured both - congrats.

Cheers, nix

[TrevorW]

Worth framing, well done

[SkyViking]

Thanks a lot Andrew :)


Thank you Steve, yes I'm quite surprised by the amount of data I could squeeze out. It would be interesting to try narrowband moon imaging! :)


Thank you very much Trevor :)

[renormalised]

That's an excellent piece of science....very well done :)

There's a lot you could do with that map, and some research of the journals. Just from that piccie, you can see obvious age relationships between the TiO basalt types. It would be interesting to have a look at the bulk chemistry and petrology of the lunar samples and then try to infer a melt composition progression for the basalts. That would help to tie down the sequence of eruptions within the mare.

[bluescope]

We are looking at the future Chinese or US titanium mine site I suspect ... if they didn't already know they will now mate :lol:

Well done !

:thumbsup:

[Zac Pujic]

A similar mosaic of the entire Moon, as well as of selected areas, in saturated light is here,

http://astroimg.org/colourlunar.html

Zac Pujic
Brisbane, Australia
astroimg.org

[Martin Pugh]

Excellent work and effort.

well done

Martin

[SkyViking]

Thanks very much Carl. That would be interesting to do. I wonder if one could then make an image which is colour-coded by age of the surface. Of course it would require quite a bit of study, but definitely something to try on a rainy day :)


Thanks Steve, with Constellation axed it looks most likely to be Chinese now... ;)


Some very nice images there Zac, it certainly puts our old moon in a new light. Beautiful work!


Thank you very much Martin :)

[renormalised]

Yes, that would be possible to produce :)