This is a re-release of Life Magazine’s “Image of the Century” from 1966. The performance of our hardware and software image processing methods has been significantly enhanced to remove some of the banding artifacts that are derived from imperfections in the spacecraft image scanning hardware. This image of Copernicus crater was taken from a spacecraft altitude of 45 km (27.1 miles) and is approximately 207.7 km (~125 miles) to the center of the image.
An interesting aspect to this image is that with this oblique view, recent impacts of small craters have much more brightness than older craters of the same size. This suggests the value of oblique photography in doing crater aging studies as well as multispectral remote sensing of excavated materials from the craters. You can view a larger version [900 K JPG] of this image on your screen here. You can download the full resolution image [505 MB TIFF] here at the NLSI.
You can see a great deal of detail in this enlarged portion of this image. Larger view [2.2 MB JPG]
This image is the second subframe of a three subframe set that makes up the high resolution frame LOII-162. This is a nearer field image and the top of this image is the continuation of the bottom of LOII-162-H3. The unnamed interesting crater in the upper left does not show up well in vertical views of this region of the Moon. Direction wise, this scene is southward of the H3 subframe. The light regolith blankets around newer craters are very easy to denote in this image. You can download the full resolution image [758 MB TIFF] here at the NLSI.
You can see a great deal of detail in this enlarged portion of this image. Larger view [1.2 MB JPG]
The image LOII-162-H1 completes the three subframe set of the famous image of Copernicus. This oblique view of this region of the Moon shows the northern plains of Tranquility, about 50 kilometers north of the Apollo 11 and 12 landing sites. You can download the full resolution image [2.37 GB TIFF] here at the NLSI.
This is the medium resolution image of the set of LOII-162. This completes the set of Lunar Orbiter II Frame 162 Images. This image looks north toward Copernicus and was taken with the 8″ camera on the LOII spacecraft. You can download the full resolution image [571 MB tiff] here at the NLSI.
This image shows the context for the wide angle and narrow angle, high resolution images taken of Copernicus. Larger image.
The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) is located at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, CA. Funding and support for this project has been provided by NASA Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, NASA Innovative Partnerships Program, NASA Lunar Science Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, Odyssey Moon LLC, SkyCorp Inc., and SpaceRef Interactive Inc.
For more information on the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) visit https://moonviews.wpenginepowered.com
For information on NASA’s Lunar Science Institute visit http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov/
For information on NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate visit http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/
Wow !
This image is the new “Image of the Century” for this new century just as the original was for the last century !
I was writing for BIS Spaceflight back in the 60’s when the news release photo (no images back then) arrived on my desk via snailmail (no internet then). For several minutes I just sat and stared at what was then – and still is – the BEST photo of a lunar crater yet taken.
This new enhancement is just – well – W.O.W !
Phill
(now retired)
Landing inside Copernicus would be ideal but
just where is another question. There are many site opportunities just at this one crater.
Re the third image: “This image is the second subframe of a three subframe set that makes up the high resolution frame LOII-162.” The “unnamed interesting crater in the upper left” is not unnamed, but is the key-hole shaped double-crater Fauth. I also saw this in the 1960s and am re-amazed by this version!
When I see pictures like these I keep thinking of what Gene Cernan said from Apollo 10’s LM when they reached the first perilune of their descent orbit: “We is GO and we is down among em!”
We are all very happy that you guys are enjoying this imagery. I hope that the high resolution versions that we are putting up give you all a lot of enjoyment. We purposefully have limited the amount of massaging of the images so that you can have fun too!.