P08: Mountains on the Moon
Observing Goals:
In this project you will measure the height of mountains and other features on the Moon. To do this you will make use of a technique called “lucky imaging”. Useful Background and References:
For image stacking: https://www.autostakkert.com/
For identifying features on the Moon: Photographic Atlas of the Moon by Chong, Lim, and Ang Ebook via RUG Library
Moon Atlas: http://www.fullmoonatlas.com/
For locations of features: Chang’E-1 Topographic Atlas of the Moon by Li et al. Ebook via RUG Library
Observation Planning:
Observation time
*You will be observing for a half night shift for this project
Observation Time
You will be observing HALF a night.
Target Selection
You will make observations of the terminator line (between the day and night side of the Moon)
Observations
You will make observations using the internal guider camera (small rectangle)
For lucky imaging you will take many hundreds of images, to capture images where the atmospheric turbulence has less consequence
Data Analysis:
Data Reduction Basic Steps
Visit the page Data Reduction Cheat Sheet
Further for this project
For each region that you consider, you can register and combine the images to measure precise coordinates
You can use AutoStakkert 2 to create “best” images for each region
Further Analysis for this project
You need to determine the Selenographic (= on the Moon) longnitude and latitude of the features you want to measure to within a degree (use the Chang’E Atlas)
Follow the KnowledgeBase Guide: R01: Measuring Lunar Mountains
Results:
Can you answer these questions with your work?
Q1: What are the heights of at least 10 features on the surface of the Moon?
Q2: How do your results compare to those in the Chang’E Atlas, or from Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter data?
Q3: Bonus – Look at data from previous years, and determine (and quantify) if this procedure is easier for some phases of the Moon than others.