Kaguya's Reverse Solar Eclipse

The lunar orbiter Kaguya (aka Selene), launched by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), has released a recent video of a unique solar eclipse; however, this time, instead of the moon coming between the sun and the observer (Kaguya, in this case), the earth moves in front of the moon. What's spectacular about this video, though, is the diamond-ring effect. In all other videos of solar eclipses, I've never seen a diamond-ring effect so brilliant as this one is. I'm not quite sure why this is the case; perhaps due to a wide lens aperture or the fact that there was no atmosphere to help diffuse all that light. Either way, Milady would like a diamond ring now that's as brilliant as the one in this video. ;) The video was taken on February 10th.



For more about the eclipse, read the article at Science@NASA

Science@NASA also notes that this is the third time humanity's been able to see a reverse solar eclipse. The first picture was taken by Surveyor 3 back in April 1967 (you can see it by clicking on the link above). The second was taken by Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean in November 1969, and is the image below:

Fly Me to the Moon...

I've been putting up various photos from the Japanese satellite Kaguya (Selene) that's orbiting the moon (see here and here). I've just discovered, courtesy of LPOD, a nine-minute video taken by the satellite's high-definition television camera.

The following video is a series of short video clips taken from orbit as Kaguya passes overhead. The entire video is rather disjointed to watch, and it has no soundtrack; however, the video does has some very amazing footage of lunar landscapes from both the near side and the far side of the moon (for example, the crater Tsiolkovskiy and Mare Moscoviense (Moscow Sea). (There are also a number of unintentionally amusing uses of "Japlish" for the captions; for example, "Mid-latitudes of South" instead of "southern mid-latitudes.") And, best of all, there's a dramatic Earthrise at the very end of the video.

Earth, by Kaguya

The other day I posted several high-definition TV pictures of the Earth and Moon by the Japanese satellite Kaguya ("Selene"). That post has been fairly popular so far, and so I've decided to add a second post.

Credit: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

This photo, also taken by the HDTV camera, shows the Earth from 110,000 kilometers on September 29th. (The photo was released to the public on October 1st.) Both Greenland and the western half of South America are easily seen in this image. North America is not as easy to make out, although I believe I can see landmarks such as Florida and the Chesapeake Bay region in the photo.

Earth Over the Moon and Earthset, by Kaguya

Credit (both photos): Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

Some beautiful photos (actually video outtakes from a high definition TV camera) from the new Japanese spacecraft Kaguya (aka "Selene"). In the above image (click on the photo to enlarge), taken on November 7th, the Moon's surface is near the South Pole, and the Australian Continent (center left) and Asian Continent (lower right) can be seen. In this image, the upper side of the Earth is the Southern Hemisphere, thus the Australian Continent looks upside-down. According to Chuck Wood over at LPOD, the crater in the lower center right (where you only the rim is exposed to the sunlight) is Shackleton; the far hill underneath the Earth is Malapert Peak, and the hill in front of that (with the crater to the left) is the "Peak of Sunlight."

In the image below, the Earth is setting toward the horizon near the Moon's South Pole. It took about 70 seconds from the left image to the right image (complete setting).

One thing I find interesting about these images is that, even though they are video outtakes, they have a different "texture" than one might expect. The images of the Earth almost look like paintings (perhaps in an Impressionist style; whaddyathink, Izzy Mo? :) )