From: Dr Anthony Charles Cook [atc@aber.ac.uk]
Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 7:16 AM
To: Dunham, David
Cc: david.dunham@kinetx.com
Subject: RE: Lunar South Pole

David,

NASA's Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter (LRO) will revolutionize the 
topographic mapping of the lunar polar areas, as and when it gets 
launched and has been orbiting for a year or two. 

Japan's Kaguya (SELENE) spacecraft is doing something similar but it 
is uncertain when their data will be released. The Chinese Chang'e
mission is a big question and little data makes it into public from 
what I have seen so far [but they have publicized a 3-D map of a 
part of the Moon, so it is a mapping mission - note added, D. 
Dunham]. 

The USGS have taken my stereo matched Clementine images of the Moon 
and used this as an input to their refined ULCN2005 control net: 
www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2007/pdf/2297.pdf 

I am planning to fit my Clementine derived height tiles (~100 
thousand of them to the ULCN2005 control net. 

I have certainly experimented with producing limb views of the Moon. 
These have been at an image scale of 1 km/pixel - I could go for 
finer resolution, as the heights are measured to about 100m 
resolution. However the spatial scales in my DEMs (E-W, N-S) are of 
the order of this - so I have used this in limb views. 

I don't know if anybody has tried to tie ULCN2005 to the Watt's 
charts. It is certainly an interesting idea. 

As for uses of limb profiles and lunar occultations of stars, here 
are some ideas: 

1) Spot checks on cartographic products to be returned from missions 
   in the next few years. 

2) Limb profiles to enable gradients to be determined for high speed 
   occultation photometry 

3) Verification of duplicity in occultations at the limb, especially 
   in grazes 

>> Are the charts strictly of historical interest, especially given the 
>> accuracy of the Clementine data, or are they still valuable for 
>> research purposes?

The ULCN2005 control net is still far from perfect - occultation 
profiles are a good way to check out problems with it in the short 
term untilnew spacecraft arrive at the Moon and new datasets are 
released. 

>> Have the charts been tied to the Unified Lunar Control Network of 
>> 2005? If not, can you estimate the biases between the charts and the 
>> ULCN? See http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2006/1367/ .

Unknown until I burn my DEM tiles on top of the ULCN2005 points

> Hi David:  I sent this to Derek in responce to his notice about 
> this Wednesday's Radar based view of the Lunar South Pole.  I was not 
> sure if you had ever seen these drawings.  I find them to be quite 
> accurate in terms of preparing for and reviewing Cassini Grazes.
> Thank You!  Richard

I presume this refers to:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080227-moon-pole-map.html

Well this DEM depends upon what they have registered this too.
In the past they have referenced it to a few LIDAR points. At high 
southerly latitudes these are few and far between. I'd like to know 
more about how they did this - absolute heights may be off. This has 
been a problem at the poles as everybody has been using LIDAR data 
from Clementine until new data becomes available. 

Tony
--
Dr Anthony Charles Cook

Institute of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 
University of Aberystwyth, Penglais, 
Aberystwyth, Ceredigion. SY23 3BZ 
UNITED KINGDOM

Tel: +44 1970 622754
Fax: +44 1970 622826