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Japanese Probe Returns First HD Video of the Moon

Posted by Zonk on from the finally-we-can-see-the-cheese dept.

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."

6 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Real Time? by __aawbkb6799 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is there anyway to find out if this video is sped up, or is that thing just flying over the surface really fast?

  2. Speed? by sqrt(2) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How fast is this video played at? How long does it take the probe to complete a full orbit? It might say that at the beginning of the film, but I can't read moon-runes, maybe someone here could translate. Pretty cool video anyway.

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  3. Re:I don't see any stars is this a fake video of t by Speare · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't see any stars is this a fake video of the moon.

    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.

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  4. Re:Roads on the moon? by Liquidrage · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I saw that same spot and actually paused it and rewinded it a few times to get a better look.

    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

  5. Second half is better by SiliconEntity · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I thought the second half of the footage was better, where the probe flies over the terminator into the dark side of the moon. The funny thing was at first in that segment I had the illusion of inverted relief, as though the craters were bumps. I kept telling myself that the sun was shining from over my right shoulder but I couldn't see it. Then suddenly as we get very close to the terminator and things were quite dark below, the terrain "popped" into correct relief and craters looked like craters again. An amusing optical illusion which often shows up when viewing alien landscapes, rather rare to see it disappear spontaneously like that.

  6. Re:USA HD back in 1969 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Things don't change too often on the moon, there's not much motion to capture.