Japanese Probe Returns First HD Video of the Moon 206
Riding with Robots writes "The Kaguya probe, now in lunar orbit, has sent down the first footage of the moon's surface from its onboard high-definition TV camera. The Kaguya mission, which consists of a main orbiter and two smaller satellites in a 100-km-high, polar orbit, is slated to officially begin its science phase in December."
Real Time? (Score:4, Interesting)
Speed? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I don't see any stars is this a fake video of t (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know why this is modded at least +2 Insightful. It's either very poorly informed, or a reference to a common misconception. You generally don't see stars in space images, unless there's NO other sun-illuminated object in the near foreground (a moon, a satellite, etc.), because of the sensor's dynamic range. Any moonshot on the sunny side is like a very bright sunny day on off-white snow, and the stars just can't compete for exposure.
The stars are a millionth the brightness of any nearby object that is sunlit. If you tune up the sensitivity to catch the faint stars, the sunlit objects overpower the sensors and you get solid white or big streaky blotches.
The human eye's biggest advantage to manmade cameras is that of dynamic range. We have many components to our eye anatomy and physiology that let us cope with extreme differences in brightness; we can see some of the brightest stars even while fairly bright objects are nearby. We do this in part with better dynamic range, but we also cope by moving our head, shielding our eyes, squinting, and not paying attention to the brightest parts of the scene when interested in the dimmer elements. Cameras can't do all that and catch a single image.
Re:Roads on the moon? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's very possible a collapsed lava tube, they call them sinuous rilles.
http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/planet_volcano/lunar/sin_rilles/Overview.html [und.edu]
Second half is better (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:USA HD back in 1969 (Score:1, Interesting)