FreeLists / az-observing / [AZ-Observing] Smart-1 Impact

[Andrew Cooper <acooper@xxxxxxxxx>]

With nothing else planned on a Saturday night I decided to make a go at 
imaging the Smart-1 impact in Lacus Excellente.  I have access to very 
good equipment; I had borrowed one of the world's most sensitive high 
speed CCD cameras from my own office, where two of them have been 
sitting on a shelf for months. The camera has a 512x512 back thinned E2V 
CCD97 in a Photometrics Cascade 512B, a camera which I designed a good 
deal of the circuitry in.  This camera is capable of near video frame 
rates with practically no pause for readout time (overlapped exposures 
and readout).  I mounted the camera at cass focus of a Nexstar 11" scope.

Got the camera an telescope setup in the back yard after figuring out 
where the moon would be at impact.  Calibration and test image runs were 
complete. Landmarks ID'd from the lunar atlas and the camera trained on 
the correct spot.  Even had my new GPS synchronized clock counting down 
to impact. All equipment was working great!

10 min. before impact a bank of clouds covered the moon.

Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you Hurricane John.

It looks like at least one amateur was successful with an 8" scope an a 
ToUCam Pro  http://cosmonut.org/Smart-1.gif
So it looks like my setup could have worked!

Anyone else planning on impacting the moon anytime soon?

Andrew
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