Showing posts with label Transient Lunar Phenomenon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Transient Lunar Phenomenon. Show all posts

Friday, October 12, 2007

Lunar Extravaganza



I'd thought I'd do something completely different with my Moon shots this time round and completely saturate them, it seems to be the latest fad. I have millions of Moons shots, some saturate a little, some a lot, some not at all.

The above image was taken 10 days ago, the Lunar Terminator was framing 4 high profile lunar craters, thought it was a perfect photo op took advantage, took the pic. Plato Crater named after the famous Greek philosopher Plato is the dark crater situated top middle of the image. half in the shadow of the terminator. Copernicus is the light crater right of centre of the moon in this shot, named after the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus advanced the Heliocentric theory of the solar system where the Earth revolves around the Sun, not the other way around. Kepler is the crater just down and to the left of Copernicus, I like to call it paint ball crater because it looks like someone shot the Moon with a paintball gun. Kepler crater was named after Johannes Kepler, German astronomer and mathematician first to discover that planet orbit's are ellipses not circles. Finally Aristarchus is the small bright white crater up and to the left of paintball. Aristarchus was another Greek philosopher which among other amazing discoveries was the first to come up with the Heliocentric theory of the solar system over a thousand years before Copernicus. Well that's it, you now know the locations and names of 4 major lunar craters which will help you if they where to casually come up in conversation someday.

All these craters have something special in common, they all have had a number of Lunar Transient Phenomenas or LTP's for short. LTP's are any kind of short-lived activities or events seen on the Moon, over the years they have included red glows, flashes, obscuration and abnormal shadow effects. I belong to the LTP Research Program as an observer one of my duties is to observe the high repeat offending craters such as the ones above and report any unusual events using special report forms. There is a hot line number on their website I linked to above , write it down, you just never know when your going to spot an occurrence.




The Japanese Space Agency's Lunar Orbiter Kaguya is now confirmed orbiting the Moon and has sent back a picture of the Lunar surface from 800 kms high. The picture was not taken with its Hi Def cameras so future images will increase in quality substantially when the cameras are set up and running later this month. When the pictures come through I will post them, they should be pretty awesome. Kaguya's main mission is to understand the Moon's origin and evolution. It is the most comprehensive lunar mission since the Apollo program.


My 3rd. attempt ever of Saturn, getting bigger and a little more detail, still need it to get a little higher up in the sky and once it gets warmer I'll be able to use my electronic microfocuser, nearly impossible to manually adjust focus at 650x which is what the above Saturn is. I'll leave you with one last color saturated Moon pic, enjoy.


Friday, September 7, 2007

Lunar Craters


I love Lunar craters, went out last weekend got my high power scope setup and took a couple of images of my 2 favorite craters.

So you're in your brand new Ares I crew module, you look out the window, you see the above Lunar landscape, you are about 120 miles above the Lunar surface and are slowing down to enter Lunar orbit at around 60 miles high. When ever I'm looking at the Moon through my telescope I daydream the above scenario, makes it a lot more interesting and fun.

The 3 billion year old crater Plato is the darkest and one of the most mysterious craters on the Moon. In the picture above it is the dark crater lower right of center. Plato is situated between 2 mountain ranges, the Montes Alpes, the mountain range on top of Plato in the pic above, and Montes Teneriffe, the mountain range just below Plato in the pic above. The mysterious part of Plato is that it has one of the highest occurrence rates for all kinds of Transient Lunar Phenomenon ranging from gaseous anomalies to bright flashing lights.

The relatively young crater Tycho at only 108 million years old is pictured below, just off center with a central rock formation peak. Tycho is noted for its impressive ray system, some as long as 2,000 kilometers. Actually one such ray intersected Apollo 17's landing site, 2,000 kilometers from Tycho, the Astronauts gathered some of the ejecta and that's how they determined Tycho's age, cool.


Saturday, August 4, 2007

Moon Passes Gas, Apollo 16 Witnesses


Boy slow day at the office, scientist must have decided to dig up some cold case astro files. I would have gone right by this puppy but Apollo 15's name was mentioned and me being the Apollo nut I am did a little digging, made a few calls, called in a few favors and found out some interesting stuff.

Lunar Transient Phenomenas or "LTP"for short, are short lived phenomena, usually of bright white or red lights coming from the moons surface, apparently they are rarely photographed, the picture above is from 1953. I belong to the "LTP Research Program" and have spent many hours looking at Aristarchus and Plato,(50% and 15% of the LTPS happen in these craters) just hoping for some kind of flash to happen, to date notta, nothing, but there is always hope.

Scientists have discovered a strong relationship between "LTP'S" or "TLP'S" and escaping gases from beneath the moon's surface. "Radon" is a non colored gas but when it is cooled below-96 degrees Fahrenheit it becomes a yellow gas, if the temperature dips below -180 C it actually turns a red color. the Moon's temperature varies between 111C nearside temps to -193C at the darkside.

Apollo 15, detected traces of Radon in the Aristarchus, Kepler and Grimaldi. craters. Below is a conversation between capcom (capsule communication on earth)
and Orion, Apollo 16 lunar module.

Capcom: You talked about something mysterious?

Orion: Ok, Gordy when we pitched around I'd like to tell you about something we saw around the LM (Lunar module). When we were coming about 30 or 40 feet out, there were a lot of objects-white things flying by. It looked as if they were being propelled or ejected, but I'm not convinced of that.

Capcom: We copy that Charlie.

Could the Orion have been witnessing a LTP? I am going to leave you with a cool YouTube video of the descent, ascent and the famous hammer, feather experiment of. "Apollo 15" , a mission summary of Apollo 16, notice the "UFO?" behind Charles Duke and a "."Apollo 16" strange flashes video.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Mysterious Bodies


It may surprise you to know I watch a lot of shows about astronomy and space, especially if they are on a high definition channel. One show I watch a lot of is, Naked Science . The other night there was a show "Moon Mysteries" which brought up the fact that the Earth has 10 mysterious bodies orbiting the Earth (not including spy satellites and various weapons of mass destruction), 5 asteriods caught in the Earths gravitational field, 4 pieces of the Apollo 12 rocket, and the Moon. The Apollo 12 item caught my attention, I could see a piece of Apollo 13's service module up there but Apollo 12? Apparently a bolt of lightning struck the rocket in the upper atmosphere and while they were trying to figure out what happened and correct the problem they expended more fuel then they had planned on, therefore they didnt have enough fuel to send the 3rd. stage into solar orbit and it got stuck in earths orbit. More information on the Apollo 12 mission can be found at, JFK Space Center . How was the Moon created? Is the Moon moving away from us? Did the moon have something to do with the way life evolved on Earth? all interesting topics that are brought up in this program. If your looking for more Moon oddities visit, Moon Mysteries. A couple of my favs are about alien bases on the far side, or the idea that the Germans landed on the moon in 1942. We are soooo lucky to have the moon as our partner in the solar system. It is such a beauty to behold. I have spent many hours at the eyepiece looking at mountain ranges and craters and belong to the "Lunar Transient Phenomena Research Program" A program where fellow observers report any unusual events that may transpire on the Moon. The Image above was taken from my backyard September 24th. 2004, The orange spot is not an alien base, (hello, far side) it is the Apollo 12 landing site.