HST Observations of the Moon
Abstract
Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observed the Moon in August 2005, using the High Resolution Camera (HRC) of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) (proposal ID 10719, PI Garvin). Three sites were observed: the Apollo 15 and 17 landing sites, and Aristarchus crater. Four filters were used: the F658N in the red, the F502N in the visible, the F344N in the UV, and the F250W in the vacuum UV. HST affords spatial resolution of about 100m on the Moon, as well as access to the vacuum UV, which are impossible from ground based observations. Tracking was necessarily done under gyro control and so some image drift occurred between and during exposures.
We present HST data that has been processed to remove instrumental distortion and drift during the exposures. We use the MISTRAL image restoration algorithm (Mugnier et al. 2004) and a trailed point spread function to minimize the effects of image motion. We will make mosaics of data in individual filters and where there is spatial overlap between the mosaics, present maps showing both the relative age of the surface material, as well as its overall composition. Mugnier et al. (2004): "MISTRAL: a myopic edge-preserving image restoration method, with application to astronomical adaptive-optics-corrected long-exposure images", JOSA A, vol 21 no. 10, pp. 1841-1854- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2005
- Bibcode:
- 2005AAS...207.0401S