Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project Progress Report: More Lunar Boulders

Some relevant data points.

The framelet shown is 210 meters across. The smallest boulders in the image are about 1 meter across.

This is lunar orbiter image LO-II-128-H3. (Framelet 160).

It is taken at the equator of the Moon at just about 0 degrees latitude and 0 degrees longitude.

"One metre across" Hey we can use these images to castigate the Moon Landing Hoaxaholics! No wait a minute hang on...
Seriously KUDOS and after a quick wikicheck to make sure that there wasn't an Orbiter 6! ...the addendum to the Lunar Orbiter wiki does this team credit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Orbiter
But how about the Surveyor 3 *before* the site got trashed by Conrad and Bean. Especially if on a subsequent lunar 'spysat'(probably not LRO resolution max 0.5 m) ...we get sufficient resolution to pick up the bootprints. Serious historical context. Just a thought.

"But how about the Surveyor 3 *before* the site got trashed"...

Surveyor 3 landed AFTER the Lunar Orbiter images of it's landing site were taken. Only Luna 9, Surveyor 1, and Luna 13 landed before the end of the Lunar Orbiter series. Surveyor 1 was indeed photographed (not just "imaged", this was on film!) by Lunar Orbiter 3.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgcat/html/object_page/lo3_h194_1.html

The Luna 9 and 13 sites were not imaged at high enough resolution to identify spacecraft.

If I recall it properly, there's an even better image of Surveyor 1 taken earlier in the Lunar day and with the solar panel brightly lit as a point of light and a long shadow on the ground. I first saw it when it was published in Zdenek Kopal's 'Exploration of the Moon by Unmanned Spacecraft' in about 1968.

What might be an interesting exercise would be to compare 'before and after' images to look for the effects of the various S-IVB stage impacts from Apollo 13 on, and the LM upper stage impacts. As these are all objects of known mass going at known speeds then they may serve as good marker points for the formation and evolution of Lunar craters. Junk science, indeed!

Bob Shaw

Dennis, the breakthrough in reconstruction of the LO images is just breathtaking.

(Yes, LO image of Surveyor 3 was taken within weeks of the landing, but the site, down to the impression which would be just behind the A12 descent stage two years later. In examining LO5. there seemed an opportunity to spot the impact of Ranger 8, but the area of that impact seemed over populated with fresh impacts to separate that from the other, but... it's there. The vhr triplet of that scan does seem to include the eventual site of Surveyor 5, 22 kilometers north of Tranquility Base, but quite a while before that landing, as well. But, it's a high interest site regardless, there near Collins crater, for those interested in examining the artifacts of A11, and who advocate the land at a distance and approach from the ground method of minimal disturbance to these ultimate Long Duration Exposure Facilities. I'm salivating for the LRO HiRES camera.)

Thanks to the entire team who are literally providing us with a new mission, and a benchmark for tracking changes to the surface over decade time scales. This is phenomenal.

Vaccum.Head, I hate to say it, but the Moon Landing hoax junkies would probably write off any before/after Surveyor 3 images by claiming they were doctored in PhotoShop or something.