Originally posted by ArMaP on August 5, 2009 at ATS Post ID 6853156
 

Here you go, more rolling rocks (and I don't think these look like a "buggy stuck in gear" ). 

Four rocks in a row? 

It looks like those white rocks are below the surface...

I will post later an image showing where I found those images in the larger image, I forgot to do that yesterday. 

Posted by ArMaP, on August 5, 2009
[Regarding the 1 to 2 gigabyte images size from NASA]

reply to post by easynow

I have been using Photoshop (it's better in the handling of very large files, but it's not free), but GIMP (freeware) can also open those files. 

Microsoft Office Document Imaging can also open the files. 

An old copy of PaintShopPro that I have cannot, but that is only natural, TIFF has so many possibilities that many programs use only the most basic and ignore the others. In this case they probably "think" that 52,224 pixels it's too big (they are probably limited to 32,768 pixels in either dimension)
 

Posted by ArMaP, on August 5, 2009  ATS Post ID 6856013

More rolling rocks, from the other photo published yesterday, the one for the left camera. 

The top of this image is the same as the bottom of the previous one, it looks like that area is lower and the rocks roll down from both sides to that area.

There are two things that I find strange in these two photos from yesterday.  First, the white rocks that appear from below the ground; it almost looks like that area is loosing its soil and the rocks below become exposed and break. As I am not a geologist I do not know what may be happening there (and I don't know if any geologist knows), but those white (or just brighter) rocks look fragile.  The second things is that the tracks look "old", and by that I mean with little defined edges.  I almost forgot to show where did I found the above images, they are marked in colour rectangles in the image below, from top to bottom by the same order they were put on this post. .

Originally posted by ArMaP posted on August 7, 2009 at ATS Post ID 6868326

It took me a little longer than I was expecting (it took me some time to download and work with a 1.2GB image, only to reach the conclusion that it did not looked good and I had to download a 2GB image, convert it and work with it), but here is an image showing the location of photo M101291859 (L and R). 

The brighter are is the area covered by Apollo 15 photo AS15-M-1710, that also shows this area, and it's a little distorted to align with the base image, I don't know if there is any mapping problem with the Apollo photo (the base photo is from the Clementine Browser 2.0). 

The red rectangle shows LROC photos M101291859L and M101291859R. 

Photos LROC photos M101291859L and M101291859R, joined and resized to 25% to fit on ATS.

As a comparison, here is the same area from the Apollo photo AS15-M-1710, resized to 50%. 

PS: The last two images are posted as links because they are big and could make the page too slow for slower connections. [for ATS]

PPS: The area that interests you the most is not this one, while this is on the bottom right of the first image, what you want is the top right area. 

Posted by ArMaP, on August 7, 2009 ATS Post ID 6869444

Originally posted by Cygnific

That Apollo photo came from the Apollo Image Archive site, they are digitizing the photos in high resolution taken by the Apollo missions (they started with the "Metric" photos). 
 

What is so special about the top right of Tsiolkovsky 

Posted by ArMaP, on August 7, 2009 ATS Post ID 6869634
 

This photo is only 83 centimetres per pixel, the resolution at the intended altitude (50km) for the mission will be 50 centimetres per pixel. 
 

"Let's hope we'll get another pass over the apollo 11 to 17 (and 20?  )sites and/or known suspect locations like Aristarchus."

After writing that I thought that this is a good excuse to post the primary objectives of the LRO camera (the LRO has more instruments on board).

1) Assess meter- and smaller-scale features to facilitate safety analysis for potential lunar landing sites near polar resources, and elsewhere on the Moon. 
2) Acquire multi-temporal synoptic imaging of the poles every orbit to characterize the polar illumination environment (100 m/pixel scale), identifying regions of permanent shadow and permanent or near-permanent illumination over a full year.

3) meter-scale mapping of regions of permanent or near-permanent illumination of polar massifs; 
4) multiple co-registered observations of portions of potential landing sites and elsewhere for derivation of high-resolution topography through stereogrammetric and photometric stereo analyses; 
5) global multispectral coverage in seven wavelengths (300-680 nm) to characterize lunar resources, in particular ilmenite; 
6) a global 100.0 m/pixel basemap with incidence angles (60-80°) favorable for morphologic interpretations; 
7) sub-meter imaging of a variety of geologic units to characterize physical properties, variability of the regolith, and key science questions;
8) meter-scale coverage overlapping with Apollo era panoramic images (1-2 m/pixel) to document the number of small impacts since 1971-1972, to ascertain hazards for future surface operations and interplanetary travel.