[meteorite-list] "Moon debris dust cloud" [SMART 1]

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Sep 6 16:23:30 2006
Message-ID: <004a01c6d1f2$4c1fef90$0525e146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi,


    Thanks, Thomas, for posting this site!

    The CFHT site has much new material posted:
http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/News/Smart1/

    A lightly processed version of the raw data
shows the impact debris cloud moving down along
the direction of the impact. It was processed by
subtracting the pre-impact data from all frames that
follow the impact, revealing more subtle detail. You
can view it on the webpage and download it from
there, or directly from here:
http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/News/Smart1/animdust_small.gif

    Of course, the raw data is so over-saturated that it's
mostly a mess of speckles. But also available from the
CFHT website is a version heavily processed to present
the event as we would expect it to appear in visual light,
as a dark surface with a bright impact flash and the
dust and debris cloud.
    A threshold value is set as the boundary between
light and dark, then all values above the threshold are
brightened and all values below the threshold are
darkened, in proportion to their distance from the
threshold. (They don't say that's what they've done,
but that's how you do this.) It doesn't appear on the
website except as downloadable from a one-word link:
http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/News/Smart1/animhard.gif

    It's definitely worth a watch! Very impressive, much
more so than the raw data, and gives you a better "feel"
for the event.

    The CFHT site also has a link to download the fifteen
frames of this animation as a mosaic of the individual frames:
http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/News/Smart1/tile.gif

    There is also a purported amateur acquisition of
 the event using an 8" Meade telescope and a 640x480
Phillips ToUcam Pro:
http://cosmonut.org/Smart-1.gif

    If this film is verified, it would be a remarkable
piece of luck and/or skill considering that much
more capable (larger) instruments failed to detect
the event. In its favor is that in this film, as in the
CFHT raw data, there is a transient "afterglow"
at the impact spot in the frame following the impact
frame, but a much fainter "afterglow" than in the
CFHT data.
    The Phillips ToUcam Pro uses a non-CMOS chip
that is simply more sensitive to infrared than most of
the supposedly "better" detectors sold as for astro-
nomical use, and many amateur astronomer websites
urge the use of an IR blocking filter with this camera
to prevent IR from fogging the visual light image.
    Many digital device CCD's are have very good IR
response. Nikon even had to modify one of its high-
end cameras because of its disconcerting ability to
"see through" some loose cool clothing to the warmer
(brighter in IR) body of the person inside that clothing.
Whoops!


Sterling K. Webb
--------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Kurtz" <thomas.kurtz_at_stud.fh-hannover.de>
To: "Meteoriten-Mailingliste" <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 5:00 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] "Moon debris dust cloud" [SMART 1]


> Hi meteorite friends,
>
>
> here is the first short movie af the debris-cloud which developed from
> the SMART 1 impact :
>
>
> http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mepco/
>
>
>
> Enjoy, Thomas Kurtz, Hannover, Germany
>
>
Received on Wed 06 Sep 2006 04:23:20 PM PDT