break out the telescopes!

[r1dermon]

https://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/10/08/probe.moon.crash/index.html

anyone else plan on checking it out? it says its going to be at 7:31am ET, so wont be able to check it out for like 12 hours here...wondering if there's still going to be a visual debris stack at night...

very cool either way.

 

[Mikus]

NASA TV should have the live feed. Which is good since the forecast in Houston tomorrow calls for a 70% chance of rain.


NASA TV Daily Schedule: All Times are Eastern Time Zone

October

October 9, Friday
6:15 a.m. - LCROSS Live Impact Coverage - AMES (Public and Media Channels)

 

[Pantherjon]

I would go with the NASA feed..From what I have read the chance of anyone in the northern hemisphere being able to actually see the 'crash' would be slim to none..Unless of course you have access to a 20" plus telescope..Will be interesting to see what the outcome is, and if there actually IS water on the moon.

 

[Peartree]

Watched on NASA TV. It didn't look like much to the naked eye. Hopefully the other data tells them what they hoped to learn.

 

[paparoof]

The live NASA TV coverage didn't show any impact at all. My son was very disappointed. I was hoping by now I'd be finding images on the web posted by amateurs with fancy telescopes, but I'm finding nothing so far.

Anyone else having better luck? I wanna see the plume!

 

[paparoof]

well apparently, I'm not the only one disappointed:

https://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/63766222.html

 

[Pantherjon]

There is supposed to be a new conference with prelim findings on right now..My sat receiver is down. But here are some cool images here just prior to impact

 

[WillMarchant]

https://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sfn-091008-lcross-updates.html seems to be doing reasonable "thumbnail" summaries as the analysis continues.

The fact that things didn't react as we expected is fascinating. Sadly, this sort of "nagative" science doesn't have the wow factor of seeing a big plume. But this could easily end up teaching us more about our Moon.

 

[mjennings]

watched the impact and press conference.

I think the general public/press was expecting an earth shattering Kaboom style ejecta cloud. Thus the general disappointment, but I agree even a little cloud would have been nice to see in the visible spectrum.

The press conference had lots of interesting photos and commentary, they were very clear that they were not going to take any leaps based on what little analysis has been done, however they have many "interesting things" to look into including a very strong sodium line from the spectrometers. I think in a few weeks/months these guys will have some very interesting conclusions.

 

[georgegassaway]

My 2-word reaction to what was hyped versus what was visible:

“Comet Kohoutek”

- George Gassaway

 

[Mikus]

My 2-word reaction to what was hyped versus what was visible:

“Comet Kohoutek”

- George Gassaway

LOL! Spot on analysis actually.

Nothing to see here, move along....

 

[SpaceAXEplorer]

Personally, I thought the communications tension between the science team, constantly calling out for last second changes in camera resolutions(?), coupled the flight controllers delays in action by reconfirming the requests, as the 'Follower' craft was heading quickly towards impact, made for some good psych drama. Adding to it, one of the scientists/commentators, somebody wondered aloud whether the team got the trajectory calculations, and or the camera angles aligned correctly. :y::shock:
All in all, I thought it was worth seeing, and it's saved on the DVR.

I'm looking forward to the data conclusions, whenever they're available.

 

[bobkrech]

From past experimental experience I don't believe that the impact velocity was high enough to get a visible flash and I'm rather surprised that the NASA folks thought they would see a visible flash.

If I understand it correctly, the impact velocity was about 1.6 km/s. It is know that impact flash intensity is proportional to impact velocity to the 4th power! And the peak color shift towards the visible as the velocity increases. A 30-06 round travels at 0.8 km/s and wouldn't give a visible flash impacting steel, and I don't believe if you double the speed you'll see a visible flash either. From experience you'll probably have to get to 4+ km/s before the flash gets visible.

While an infrared flash is probably, without fast infrared detectors, they might not catch it either.

We'll eventually see if they saw anything, and if the did see a flash, I'll really be surprised if they can figure out was they saw because it is unlikely they had the proper on-board instruments to make that determination.

Been there, done that right, succeeded doing it 3 decades ago on a DoD project.

Bob

 

[r1dermon]

totally agree with you willmarchant. can't wait to see the final results.

 

[WillMarchant]

The NASA ARC site at https://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/observation/amateur.htm makes it pretty clear that the debris plume would have to get a couple of kilometers high before we'd see anything from Earth. I assume that some of the media were expecting a Star Wars like flash from the impact itself.