Chandrayan-1 moon mission

SSSalvi · Post by **SSSalvi** » 16 Nov 2008 16:54

Some updates about Chandrayaan-1:

1. The Terrain Mapping Camera ( TMC ) , one of 11 payloads on board Chandrayaan,has been capturing images of the Moon since November 13 from a height of 100 km from the lunar surface. They will be processed by Monday,17th.

2.On Sunday , The Hyper Spectral Imager (HySI) would be switched on. It would create a mineralogical map of the lunar surface

3. The MIP, ( 2 images of which have been published ) is not really a video camera. It is a still picture camera clicking at high speed. It has actually returned about 15,000 images over the course of the 25-minute descent. This may be converted to a slow framed video later.

http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/16/stories ... 370800.htm

ss_roy · Post by **ss_roy** » 16 Nov 2008 17:07

OT post moved.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 16 Nov 2008 18:01

indeed, good for deep space probes and RORSATs imo.

AdityaM · Post by **AdityaM** » 16 Nov 2008 18:41

RaviBg wrote:First 3-D image of Moon on Monday

Seeing the amount of quotes from the Hindu, i believe they are much more scientifically inclined than HT, TOI, IndianExpress, Statesman.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 16 Nov 2008 18:52

The Hindu WAS (and probably is) a gem of a newspaper, until N.Ram took over. Its magazine sections were some treat to read. They used to have "Science & Technology" on Wednesdays, "Open Page" on Tuesdays, "Young World" (I forget the day)....Unfortunately its left sympathizing behavior has tainted some of its news reporting and opinions.

AdityaM · Post by **AdityaM** » 16 Nov 2008 18:54

juvva wrote:
SriKumar wrote:

Sorry to ask, but was this the CY1 launch video or some older launch? During the CY1 launch, there was a massive cloud cover which i don't see in this video

enaiel · Post by **enaiel** » 16 Nov 2008 18:56

Chandrayaan-1 updates:

LASER Instrument on Chandrayaan-1 Successfully Turned ON
Images From Chandrayaan-1

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 16 Nov 2008 19:19

even in mid 80s the Hindu had superb technology supplements that
would put NYT to shame today. and very neat diagrams and charts
to back it up. me being class5-10 couldnt grasp all of it, but sure
was good s*** and backed up my interest in engineering.

and SportsStar mag iirc from same group had the best paper quality
(with Frontline) and the best sports pix.

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 16 Nov 2008 20:08

Dreamers catch the moon

SriKumar · Post by **SriKumar** » 16 Nov 2008 20:33

AdityaM wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaMLYBoyQNk&eurl

Sorry to ask, but was this the CY1 launch video or some older launch? During the CY1 launch, there was a massive cloud cover which i don't see in this video

Fair question. There is some doubt. The low cloud cover is quite massive, as seen in this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na_EzQoc ... re=related But once it broke that cloud cover, it is quite clear. By contrast, in the first video above, the low cloud cover is not as solid. So, the possibility is that the angle from which they took that video did not have as thick a cloud density (only low clouds were thick). But I am not sure. If you compare the 2 videos time-wise, you see an event (separation?) at 2:00; and in the second video (the one with thick cloud cover) at 1:54 ; both times are +/- 1 second. In the first video, the launch can be visually detected at about 12 seconds into the tape. So, timing of the event = 2:00 - 12 s = 1min 48 s. In the second video, the event is at 1:54, and the visual indication for liftoff is about 8 seconds into the video. Event timing= 1min 54 s - 8s = 1:46. So the timing of the event in both cases is close. I dont know if the stage separations occur at the same instant for a specific type of rocket- if they do, then a case could be made that the first video is genuine- though I still see a discrepancy of about 1-2 seconds but 1 second is the least count (! haha, remember the classes on vernier calipers and screw gauge?!) on video time.

On a different note, (for a different post) regarding the point about ESA not being a country, yes, but a) Europe does cooperate on space activity and will continue to do so in future, and b) they did get there in a controlled impact, and so they rightfully deserve to mentioned 3rd in the list after USA and USSR.

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 16 Nov 2008 20:56

For those who want to check on the superb quality and resolution with which the TMC is capturing the Moon, check this comparison..

The Moretus Crater

CY 1:

http://www.isro.org/pslv-c11/photos/ima ... region.jpg

(Only part rim of Moretus visible because of resolution, Moretus is 117 kms dia)

Previous NASA:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunar ... .shtml?277

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunar ... .shtml?317

(You can see the crater marked in the middle)

The Toricelli Crater: (22 kms wide)

CY 1:

http://www.isro.org/pslv-c11/photos/ima ... region.jpg

(Part visible again)

NASA:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunar ... .shtml?181

If you compare the pics one will realize the quality with with CY 1 is mapping the Moon !!

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 16 Nov 2008 21:43

http://www.isro.org/pslv-c11/photos/ima ... region.jpg

wow!~... we should name this bright crater after some Indian name. They do it, before us.. we should start naming objects we see in moon.
come on folks help here..

How about calling it "Anuraj!" Crater ?

Q1. that shining surface on the crater is fantastic, like a mirror. what would be surface like? any metals?

also, looks like 4/5 toe tips of a giant feet to the right of the shining crater. Lets call it "Chandra-pada" ?

cheers!

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 16 Nov 2008 22:17

wow!~... we should name this bright crater after some Indian name. They do it, before us.. we should start naming objects we see in moon.
come on folks help here..How about calling it "Anuraj!" Crater ?

No doubt features would be named as such. Traditionally moon craters are/were named after astronomers (aka scientists) and there are already craters/features named: Raman, Mitra, Saha, Sarabhai, Bhaba (this is a smaller crater at the rim of the crater called 'Bose'

) , as well as names from epics like Sita, Krishna etc.. and also astronauts like Chawla ((All of these are on the moon)

In past, one of the "recognization " given to young scientist (like Intel finalists) is to name astronomical bodies (minor p.lanets) after their names.

Kakarat · Post by **Kakarat** » 16 Nov 2008 22:32

I would suggest that the point at which MIP struck the moon should be named after Dr.Kalam like "Kalam Point"

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 16 Nov 2008 22:52

Kakarat wrote:I would suggest that the point at which MIP struck the moon should be named after Dr.Kalam like "Kalam Point"

AFAIK - there are some guide lines for naming, but generally "Discoverer" proposes a name, and it becomes recognized (official) if approved by IAU.
(Normally any political or Military leaders name is not accepted (unless the person is dead for 100 years) but Kalam as a scientist should be fine.

(BTW - small minor trivia item - there is a minor planet named "Amber" after some one .. who I know pretty well)

sumishi · Post by **sumishi** » 16 Nov 2008 23:00

Amber G. wrote:...
(BTW - small minor trivia item - there is a minor planet named "Amber" after some one .. who I know pretty well)

Git outta here! Surely that's not you!

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 16 Nov 2008 23:13

-Self Del-

Also was comparing the resolution with the best available resolution of Toricelli. CY1 is ace! Here's the best resolution photograph so far..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hrp229b.jpg

A video here, some factual content is not accurate, orbits, 1000 km etc..but it's a nice video to see. Very well made.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipBOotJDJ1k

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 16 Nov 2008 23:16

O/T but Sumishi - NO, its not me. As I said, it is someone who I know..very well ... (Sorry for obvious privacy reasons no speculations etc, (Harbans your info is about a different minor planet (It is not ref # 21431) .. (If you are looking at the alphabetical list of minor planets, see the name just below what you looked at - MP was named to recognize the person's own achievements.... but let us leave it at that ..)

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 17 Nov 2008 02:59

naming for example can go by expression as well, those scientists did a "holy cow" over phoenix lander on mars, named it "holy cow".
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081112.html

btw, look at this: http://www.isro.org/pslv-c11/photos/ima ... region.jpg
the larger (faced) crater and the one on the "shoulder" both seemed to have something (liquid?) flown out towards the center (merge), and left a flowing cleft mark.

I would call this picture "Bamyan Buddha crater".

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 17 Nov 2008 03:36

If someone have suggestions for name, I suggest (and I am sure it is being done) that they contact ISRO. etc..

The policy for naming for any of the moon’s feature is:

Large craters: Famous deceased scientists, scholars and artists;
Small craters: Common first names.
Catenae, Dorsa, Rimae: : Feature names derived from nearby craters.
Lacus, Maria, Paludes, Sinus: Latin terms describing weather and other abstract concepts.
Montes: Terrestrial mountain ranges or nearby craters.
Rupes: Name of nearby mountain ranges (terrestrial names).
Vallis: Names derived from nearby features.

(So one sees names like “Ravi” for small craters and “Bose” etc for larger craters) .
BTW, if you are curious and want to see names already taken – here is one list of names of Lunar craters. (And hence you can check out, say where “Raman” crater is)
http://www.lunarrepublic.com/gazetteer/crater_a.shtml
(You can see the names of other – existing – features too - and in atlas part - you can see where CY1 has landed etc.. )

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 17 Nov 2008 08:40

I am more for organic names..rather.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 17 Nov 2008 08:42

wonderphool onlee to have my family name assigned to crater!

Satyen Bose was my grandfather's teacher and my mother still remembers meeting him as a kid, as being a man with a very deep gravelly voice and serious demeanor.

I think ISRO should name a feature (which allows non-deceased names) after Kalam .....not only for his selfless contributions to India as a scientist but also as a visionary, a man with principles and a human being.

AdityaM · Post by **AdityaM** » 17 Nov 2008 08:58

Raja Bose wrote:wonderphool onlee to have my family name assigned to crater!
I think ISRO should name a feature (which allows non-deceased names) after Kalam .....not only for his selfless contributions to India as a scientist but also as a visionary, a man with principles and a human being.

I am being cynical here...but i wont be surprised to find craters named after the Nehru-gandhi family. They don't leave an opportunity to remind us of them.

[Admins: Lemme know if this posts needs to be deleted]

K Mehta · Post by **K Mehta** » 17 Nov 2008 09:35

rohan_thak wrote:alas celebration in pakistan on the sucess of chandrayaan 1

calls on humanitarian grounds for the ISRO to be modest in future aims of its missions, can you imagine the scale of the celebrations when Indians land on the moon?

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ax5ZIdFoW1U/S ... ople01.jpg

Can we please keep out pakis and chinkis from this thread?

juvva · Post by **juvva** » 17 Nov 2008 10:30

SriKumar wrote:
AdityaM wrote:
Sorry to ask, but was this the CY1 launch video or some older launch? During the CY1 launch, there was a massive cloud cover which i don't see in this video

Fair question. There is some doubt. The low cloud cover is quite massive, as seen in this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na_EzQoc ... re=related But once it broke that cloud cover, it is quite clear. By contrast, in the first video above, the low cloud cover is not as solid. So, the possibility is that the angle from which they took that video did not have as thick a cloud density (only low clouds were thick). But I am not sure. If you compare the 2 videos time-wise, you see an event (separation?) at 2:00; and in the second video (the one with thick cloud cover) at 1:54 ; both times are +/- 1 second. In the first video, the launch can be visually detected at about 12 seconds into the tape. So, timing of the event = 2:00 - 12 s = 1min 48 s. In the second video, the event is at 1:54, and the visual indication for liftoff is about 8 seconds into the video. Event timing= 1min 54 s - 8s = 1:46. So the timing of the event in both cases is close. I dont know if the stage separations occur at the same instant for a specific type of rocket- if they do, then a case could be made that the first video is genuine- though I still see a discrepancy of about 1-2 seconds but 1 second is the least count (! haha, remember the classes on vernier calipers and screw gauge?!) on video time.

On a different note, (for a different post) regarding the point about ESA not being a country, yes, but a) Europe does cooperate on space activity and will continue to do so in future, and b) they did get there in a controlled impact, and so they rightfully deserve to mentioned 3rd in the list after USA and USSR.

Well...the tittle at the begining of the video says C11 and it does look like a dawn/dusk launch. Do not remember any other pslv dawn/dusk launches in cloudy weather.
It may be possible to tell for sure from the length of the strap on's ( relative to the core) as Pslv-xl strap on's are longer.

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 17 Nov 2008 16:20

India's first Moon Mission and the Rediscovery of ancient ET artifacts..

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/81702

Meanwhile any idea when they will release more pics and the MIP video. They said they would release it today.

I got the Toricelli C (Northwest of the Toricelli crater) pic coinciding with the Equator Picture that ISRO released. However due to the much higher resolution that CY is mapping could not coincide the Moretus crater pic of NASA with what ISRO has put up. IF anyone has any info on that please do put it up.

Meanwhile i wish ISRO would give a little more details Long/ Lat etc of the pics they post. Wish they don't do what JAXA and the Chinese have done. I already appreciate the fact that ISRO appears much more open and transparent and wih they continue to be so.

James B · Post by **James B** » 17 Nov 2008 17:58

Movie of images taken by TMC of Chandrayan-1 on ISRO website

http://isro.org/pslv-c11/videos/tmc.htm

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 17 Nov 2008 18:32

Raghunathji thanks a lot! That is indeed the best and highest resolution video imagery available of the Moon i know off! However what happened to the MIP crashdown imagery ISRO was mentioning. Anyways ISRO has already produced so much for us, so much more already than recent missions..i do hope they keep feeding us more. But this imagery i see is again flyover the "Moretus" crater rim on the left. Why does it not match with part of the NASA pic of Moretus crater here?

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunar ... 106_h2.jpg

Avid · Post by **Avid** » 17 Nov 2008 18:47

Folks:

Here's a direct link of the Video released by ISRO - constructed from the images acquired:

http://msrv2.wstream.net/isro_archive/TMC01.wmv

This allows you to open it directly in Windows Media Player and watch it full-screen

Despite the huge zoom of going to full screen, it will give you an excellent idea of the quality of the images, as well as the rate of imaging (look to the right for the frame counts)

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 17 Nov 2008 18:56

raghunath wrote:Movie of images taken by TMC of Chandrayan-1 on ISRO website

http://isro.org/pslv-c11/videos/tmc.htm

i am unable to view. whats the trick?

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 17 Nov 2008 19:01

SaiK wrote:
raghunath wrote:Movie of images taken by TMC of Chandrayan-1 on ISRO website

http://isro.org/pslv-c11/videos/tmc.htm
i am unable to view. whats the trick?

SaiK, If you are using mozilla, try IE.

anupmisra · Post by **anupmisra** » 17 Nov 2008 19:09

harbans wrote:India's first Moon Mission and the Rediscovery of ancient ET artifacts..

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/81702

An interesting piece from the above interview with Hoagland (I didnt now that he was a nut case but he quotes the Vedas):

M.S.: Do you consider India as a possible contender for informing the world about artifacts on the moon through satellite imagery?

R.H.: Definitely, yes. The Indian Vedas preserve remarkable hints of the ancient, sweeping, high-tech history of all humanity -- from the distant era when both the Moon and Mars (and many other bodies in the solar system) were once inhabited ... by our own great, great, great ancestors. If there is to be "disclosure" of these long hidden truths, there would be no more fitting "messenger" than India ... if they are "allowed" to make them public by other geopolitical forces acting on them at this time. Obama's curious, public "singling out" of India's new Moon mission ... weeks before he was in any position to do anything about it ... is a very intriguing sign of what could happen in the coming months ....

Avid · Post by **Avid** » 17 Nov 2008 19:15

SSridhar wrote:
SaiK wrote: i am unable to view. whats the trick?
SaiK, If you are using mozilla, try IE.

I would recommend that you start windows media player, and use the direct link to the wmv file I posted above. Easiest.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 17 Nov 2008 19:22

has anybody been able to save that vid ? I'm not able to even with download SW.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 17 Nov 2008 19:41

SSridhar wrote:
SaiK wrote: i am unable to view. whats the trick?
SaiK, If you are using mozilla, try IE.

I would recommend that you start windows media player, and use the direct link to the wmv file I posted above. Easiest.

Thanks IE worked.. btw, the wmv file worked with WM player.

Question on the TMC, any info at the resolution here. Is it at 5 meter or max? In the sense how do I view those craters scaled?

sumishi · Post by **sumishi** » 17 Nov 2008 20:13

Rahul M wrote:has anybody been able to save that vid ? I'm not able to even with download SW.

I finally got it downloaded (about 20 MB).

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 17 Nov 2008 20:46

How are these videos compared to videos and images from China and Japan

prashanth · Post by **prashanth** » 17 Nov 2008 21:05

Tried saving the vid using download helper. Funny, it started downloading individual frames as jpg images.

prashanth · Post by **prashanth** » 17 Nov 2008 21:06

sumishi wrote:
Rahul M wrote:has anybody been able to save that vid ? I'm not able to even with download SW.
I finally got it downloaded (about 20 MB).

Tell us how please.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 17 Nov 2008 21:12

sumishi wrote:
Rahul M wrote:has anybody been able to save that vid ? I'm not able to even with download SW.
I finally got it downloaded (about 20 MB).

and ?
upload it here if you want some balance in the punya piggybank.