From the Moon to Earth in HD

Lucas123 writes "The Japan Space Agency's Kaguya spacecraft is currently orbiting the moon and its equipment is being tested in preparation for its real mission to map the moon with high-definition images later this month. Almost as an afterthought, the space craft has recreated one of the most memorable photos in the history of spaceflight — an Earth-rise from lunar orbit."

a bit misleading

[192939495969798999 (58312)]

i thought it might have HD time-lapse of the earth rising... instead it just has some composite images of same at smaller resolution. I was all ready with my 2001-2010 quotes and music and everything!

Re:

[moonbender (547943)]

Yep, but those aren't HD. They are barely D. ;) Still nice.

Apollo

[kalpol (714519)]

I'm curious if they'll be able to see the Apollo landing sites. Have we had a look at them since we left? That would be the first place I'd visit if I landed on the moon - there ought to be some interesting data available from the materials left out in baking space for 30-odd years.

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[CodeBuster (516420)]

I'm curious if they'll be able to see the Apollo landing sites.

The optics package is probably not large enough to resolve to the required level of detail (unless that was a specific mission goal for them). Perhaps someone with more time and inclination could break out the old college physics textbook, flip to the optics section, and calculate the size of the lens necessary to spot a 3m^2 object from an orbital altitude of sixty miles?

Re:Apollo

[Chosen Reject (842143)]

Not exactly what you were looking for, but relevant all the same. [cornell.edu] My compliments to hardburn [slashdot.org] for the link.

Re:Apollo

[Zordak (123132)]

I'm curious if they'll be able to see the Apollo landing sites.

That thing has some pretty impressive cameras, but I don't think it's good enough to take hi-res pictures of Arizona.

Re:

[scapermoya (769847)]

that thing might not be able to see it, but there is a lab that regularly bounces laser light off of reflectors that were left there by americans and russians

http://physics.ucsd.edu/~tmurphy/apollo/apollo.html [ucsd.edu]

Re:

[trawg (308495)]

The industry standard rebuttal [badastronomy.com]

These are fake!

[Mad-cat (134809)]

These are obvious fakes! Everyone knows the moon doesn't exist and was just made as a fake destination so America could fake a landing on its surface to beat the Soviets!

Top that crazy conspiracy theory!

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[Technician (215283)]

I had to laugh when the conspiracy folks made a great stab at the lack of stars. The intensity of the stars and the intensity of the earth is no where near each other. To expose the stars, would severly overexpose the earth and moon in the photos. In properly exposing the earth and moon, the stars simply don't show up. If they did, I would know the photos were fake. Not mentioned, is the angle of sunlight matches properly in the photos to the illumination of the earth. I hope they take more photos wit

The Moon: A Ridiculous Liberal Myth

[sconeu (64226)]

As taken from this comment [slashdot.org]:

It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the l

Earth doesn't move

[Dan East (318230)]

There's an interesting phenomenon that most people don't consider. Since the moon rotates about its axis at the same period as its orbit, the earth always appears at the same place in the sky when viewed from a given location on the surface of the moon (unless of course you were on the "dark" side of the moon).

That would be incredibly useful for navigation!

The article seemed to misstate this fact:
Since the moon's rotation matches the Earth's rotation of the sun, the Earth will always appear to be in the same spot if seen by an astronaut standing on the moon.

Doesn't that infer the moon's rotation is 365.25 days?

Dan East

Re:

[Technician (215283)]

Doesn't that infer the moon's rotation is 365.25 days?

No. If you thing of the earth and moon as orbiting each other, the earth could be considered in geostationary orbit. The earth and moon as they circle each other has the same side of the moon facing the earth at all times.

http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/essential/earthspace/session7/closer1.html [learner.org]
Orbital period (days) 27.32166
Rotational period (days) 27.32166
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/moon.htm [solarviews.com]

The moon has about 13 days a year.

Re:Earth doesn't move

[MojoStan (776183)]

http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/essential/earthspace/session7/closer1.html [learner.org]
Orbital period (days) 27.32166
Rotational period (days) 27.32166
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/moon.htm [solarviews.com]

The moon has about 13 days a year.

I think you'd increase your slash-cred if you explained it using a Futurama quote:

• Leela: Our car broke down and we're low on oxygen. Can we borrow some?
  Moon farmer: Borry? Listen here, city girl. You can't just borry oxygen. Oxygen doesn't grow on trees. You'll have to work it off doing chores on my hydroponic farm. You can return to your precious park at sun-up.
  Fry: I guess we can do chores for a few hours.
  Leela: Night lasts two weeks on the moon.
  Moon farmer: Yep, goes down to minus-173 degrees.
  Fry: Celsius or Fahrenheit?
  Moon farmer: First one, then the other.

Re:

[uselessengineer (1172275)]

This is quoted from http://www.digipro.com/Trials/moon.html [digipro.com] because I don't want to /. their servers.

The moon is tidal locked with Earth.

When a given moon is small enough compared to the planet it orbits (Earth-Moon) the bigger object has the ability to drastically change the orbit of the smaller one. When two rotating bodies orbit each other, they raise tides in each other. These tides cause mechanical friction. So tidal activity absorbs a lot of energy out of the rotational energy of the bodies. In ot

Am I the only one who was reminded of Star Strike?

[shotgunefx (239460)]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPB3H_a234s [youtube.com]

Need better images

[JungleBoy (7578)]

I'm still looking for the huge versions of these pictures. The best I've found are two 1920x1080 images [selene.jaxa.jp] on the agency website. While these are HD, I need something I can fit nicely on to my desktop (3840x1200). Some of the stills coming from the ISS are great for this.

Here's some real HD...

[Anonymous Coward]

... from 1968 (Apollo 8)!
http://history.nasa.gov/ap08fj/photos/b/as08-14-2383.jpg [nasa.gov]

... from 1976 (Viking)!
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/mars_surface_vik2_big.jpg [nasa.gov]

... from 1979 (Voyager)!
http://oursun.open.ac.uk/images/jupiterp_cassini_full.jpg [open.ac.uk]

What makes this new "first HD camera in space" so special (yes, I know the Apollo images are shot on film, but Viking and Voyager had video cameras)?

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[pecosdave (536896)]

I think the 30+ year old ones looked better than what we just got. Just think, 1970's images, I'm not 100% sure if that's some sort of old digital photo NASA used then (which is very impressive) or more like an analog TV transmission. If it was analog TV scan, I'm incredibly impressed with the old ones.

So what?

[fastest fascist (1086001)]

Excuse me for not exactly jumping for joy over the news of shiny new HD footage from the Moon. Is this actually an improvement over previous probes? What were they using before, consumer-grade camcorders? I would have thought film, which usually still has HD beat.

Re:

[MarcoAtWork (28889)]

120 film if properly scanned would qualify as way, way, way more than HD, especially if it was shot with decent glass (you can easily scan 120 film at 4800dpi, and it's 6 inches wide, you do the math...)

Re:

[fbjon (692006)]

Still pictures don't qualify as HDTV. Those Hasselblads took impressive stills, but no HD video.

Some movies

[wooferhound (546132)]

Look on this page for High Res Pics
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/11/20071113_kaguya_e.html#pict01 [www.jaxa.jp]
and these movies of EarthRise and EarthSet
http://space.jaxa.jp/movie/20071113_kaguya_movie01_e.html [space.jaxa.jp]
http://space.jaxa.jp/movie/20071113_kaguya_movie02_e.html [space.jaxa.jp]

on TV in HD today

[MarcoAtWork (28889)]

it should be on in about half an hour (5pm PST) on Discovery HD for 30 minutes, not sure how much of the footage they're going to show (or if it's only on the Canadian Discovery HD) but it's on my cable box's IPG so do check it out, I seem to recall also that it will be repeated at least twice in the next few days.

Mini-series?

[antdude (79039)]

Rats, I thought this was about the miniseries [imdb.com] to HD. :P

The Earth never rises from the Moon

[jamesh (87723)]

I assume that the concept of "the Earth rising from the Moon" is an artifact of the Satellite orbiting the Moon...

Re:

[bigmouth_strikes (224629)]

I assume that the concept of "the Earth rising from the Moon" is an artifact of the Satellite orbiting the Moon...

From the JAXA Selene site that is linked to from TFA:

we use the expression "Earth-rise" in this press release, but the Earth-rise is a phenomenon seen only from satellites that travel around the Moon, such as the KAGUYA and the Apollo space ship. The Earth-rise cannot be observed by a person who is on the Moon as they can always see the Earth at the same position.

HD?

[popo (107611)]

This isn't meant as a troll... The shots are indeed beautiful.
But I was a little disappointed by the categorization of "HD"

Those seemed like pretty 'standard def' to me...

Are there higher res shots somewhere else?

That's no moon!

[sootman (158191)]

No, wait, sorry 'bout that. Yeah, that's a moon. Carry on.

Re:Not in HD

[hansamurai (907719)]

I was able to find two HD pictures:

http://www.selene.jaxa.jp/image/communication/img_071114_01.jpg [selene.jaxa.jp]
http://www.selene.jaxa.jp/image/communication/img_071114_02.jpg [selene.jaxa.jp]

1920x1080

Couldn't find anything else though. Disappointing.

Re:Not in HD

[LiquidCoooled (634315)]

For comparison, the original [nasa.gov].

http://dayton.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/LARGE/GPN-2001-000009.jpg [nasa.gov]

The older image appears to be higher resolution.

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[fbartho (840012)]

That older one looks like it was scanned in from a negative or a blown up film print. I don't know how you might accurately examine the real resolution comparitively.

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[Dieppe (668614)]

The original photo was more than likely FILM, not digital. They had to wait for the astronauts to come home before developing it. From the probe they're doing "HD" resolution and the image is NOW baby! :)

I kind of like NOW over "film at 11"... but that's just me.

Re:Not in HD

[Solandri (704621)]

More shots from the sequence [nasa.gov] scanned at approx 2400x2400 resolution.

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[fbjon (692006)]

Yes, but those are still pics, nothing new there. This particular camera on Kaguya is 3CCD HD video, which is rather unusual to have in space.

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[markbt73 (1032962)]

Cool, thanks! I've been looking for a new desktop background.

Re:Not in HD

[PhantomHarlock (189617)]

I looked at the two screenshots. The spatial resolution at 1:1 isn't so hot on that camera, but hey it's orbiting the moon, so can't ask for much more right now. It will also look better in motion. Hopefully I can get the Discovery HD program somehow.

Comparing to the medium format still footage by Apollo's Bill Anders (Whom I've had the pleasure of briefly meeting when he was flying a P51 around here recently), Bill's photos are exposed more for the lunar surface than the earth. It appears that the white clouds of earth are overexposed when the moon is in correct exposure, at least in the one shot linked above. The HD camera probably has a comparable or a little less exposure leniency depending on whether the Apollo cameras used slide or negative film. (I think they were slide?)

The JAXA footage has the earth exposed nicely and the moon is out of peak range, with most features deep in a medium grey. This has an advantage of bringing out the contour features on the lunar surface better. Also, seeing the progression of sunrise really looks interesting with no atmosphere. Landing on the moon at the perpetual twilight line would give one unlimited time to walk around and frame the earth against numerous lunar features. With the enlarged size of the earth, it will take less telephoto length to capture it at a reasonable size in the frame.

--Mike

Max resolution

[Ruben3d (859906)]

1920x1080 is the camera max resolution, you won't find anything better from this spacecraft. Info extracted from the bottom of this page: http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/11/20071113_kaguya_e.html [www.jaxa.jp]

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[afidel (530433)]

Huh? the second image is definitely HD but it's a still from a motion set so not extremely clear but you can make out continents and stuff which ain't bad from lunar orbit =)

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[fbjon (692006)]

It's a still from a video.

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[Frosty Piss (770223)]

makes me wonder if these vids/images are going to be made avail to the public in HD

Yeah, when I saw these yesterday at Space.com, I looked around for something suitable for a desktop image was available, but couldn't find anything...

Re:

[pecosdave (536896)]

1. On the first image, click on the "Click Here" link
2. follow it to JAXA's site
3. ?????
4. see high res!

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[pecosdave (536896)]

I would say 984x554 [selene.jaxa.jp] was reasonably high res. Fine, it's not ultra high res, but it's not bad.

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[Kadin2048 (468275)]

Yeah, I was annoyed to see that the new "Moonrise" images have a big copyright stamp burned onto them.

You can say a lot of crap about NASA but at least they don't deface their images, and they're pretty good about sending sending press kits and other information out to anyone who wants it.

What's next, DRM on the videos?

IMAX

[corsec67 (627446)]

IMAX [wikipedia.org], could be scanned at 10000 x 7000 pixels, which definitely qualifies as HD.
And we already have quite a bit of IMAX footage.

Public Relations

[iamlucky13 (795185)]

The HD camera on SELENE is a PR instrument [selene.jaxa.jp]. Video is useful for things that change. The moon, for the most part, does not change, and the HD camera does not produce scientifically useful images of the moon. SELENE can only take about a minute worth of video.

High Definition as a proper noun generally refers to 1920x1080 resolution, but the various space agencies have produced much higher resolution images for years. The 35mm film shot during the Apollo missions is being scanned into 3070x2044 pixel images, for example, and the medium format film is being scanned at a huge 12800x12800 pixels. The Mars rovers carry 1 MP (1024 x 1024) cameras, and the images are often stitched together into far larger mosaics. I've seen some that even as JPG's take up over 100 MB (and crash IE). The Hubble Space Telescope's highest resolution camera is also only 1024x1024 pixels, and I believe this was chosen to approximate the maximum resolution of the optics, but again, large mosaics are common.

The High Resolution Imaging Scientific Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard the Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter takes a different approach and is what's called a "push broom camera." Instead of taking rectangular pictures every so often, it scans a single line of up to 20,000 pixels continuously at the rate the spacecraft moves over the ground. In this way it builds up images up to 40,000 pixels long (800 megapixels...now that's high def!), at which point the file has to be transmitted to earth or the camera runs out of memory.

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[fbjon (692006)]

No, it was called slow-scan TV and the quality was terrible.

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[Tribbin (565963)]

Futurama is really funny where the future earthlings find the moon really boring and Fry wants to see the moons attraction park.

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[Derek Loev (1050412)]

They already have one of those, it's called "Ur Anus 7". And damn, it sure is more entertaining than those other HD photos.

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[JrOldPhart (1063610)]

Why would you consider North to be up?

You fail the Kahn test. You are thinking two dimensionally.

Up would be away from the nearest gravity source.