Envelope-to: franridge@nicap.org
Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 09:28:22 -0400
From: John Keller <john.keller@nasa.gov>
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To: francis ridge <franridge@nicap.org>
Subject: Re: LRO web inquiry
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Fran,

The two images I referenced are representative of the highest resolution available from LRO at 0.5 m/pixel.  They were taken during the 50 km mapping orbit.  We briefly did an equatorial dipping orbit that brought us down to as low as 20 km for the purpose of imaging the Apollo landing sites and other areas of interest but I don't think we imaged your target.  Due to limited propellent we have since moved into a low-cost eliptical orbit where over that latitude the spacecraft is roughly 100 km above the surface, so any future imaging there will be lower resolution.  Note that while there are limited areas for which Lunar Orbiter resolution is higher than LRO one should also consider other factors for image quality, such as dynamic range, linearity, etc.

I recommend downloading the PTIF of the images such as can be found on http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc/view_lroc/LRO-L-LROC-2-EDR-V1.0/M159847595LE

Regards,
John

On 5/3/2015 8:01 PM, francis ridge wrote:
At 10:43 AM 5/1/2015, you wrote:
I agree based on the lunaserv site (ahttp://webmap.lroc.asu.edu) that the images at that location have sun angles no lower than about 47 degrees (image pair M159847595LC    M159847595RC)

John,
Looks like the shadows are really OK on these images but nowhere near the res of the Lunar Orbiter in 1966. I assume that the ones on the web are made that way on purpose for dloading. Is there any way we can get a much higher res image of that area?
5.1N 15.5E

Fran

 I do not select targets but the LROC team has a mechanism for requesting images which you can do here http://target.lroc.asu.edu/output/lroc/lroc_page.html.
LROC NAC imaging is somewhat opportunistic so when the conditions are right the image is taken, providing that some other target does not take precedence.