FreeLists / az-observing / [AZ-Observing] Re: SMART-1 Impact Photometry

[Jeff Hopkins <phxjeff@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Amateur images Smart-1 with Webcam.

See the gif here: 
<http://cosmonut.org/Smart-1.gif>http://cosmonut.org/Smart-1.gif 
Peter Lipscomb used
a 8" LX-90 and a ToUcam Pro operating at f/10 5fps.

Be sure and let it load. It's a playable .gif image.

Jeff


>Regarding the brightness of the SMART-1 impact, note that the CFHT images
>were taken in the infrared ("H2 narrow-band filter at  2122 nanometers"),
>so it's difficult to tell what the "~5 mag" estimate of the brightness
>mentioned by Peter Lipscomb would mean visually.
>The magnitude 5 ("4.889") that Peter mentions for his image make it sound
>encouraging that this should have been observable visually.  However, here
>it's not clear from the message that Tom Polakis quotes whether this is in
>any way a calibrated magnitude.  Further, Tony Cook has pointed out (
>http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~acc/Dems/smart1.htm) that since the flash is
>only on a single frame, it could be a cosmic ray hit and it still needs to
>be confirmed that it was taken at the same time as the CFHT flash (and
>predicted impact time).  Perhaps this has been done by now but not yet
>reported.
>
>In any case, it's disappointing that there seem to be no other amateur
>observations, either positive or negative of the flash.  Of several who
>seemed to have tried in Arizona, all were clouded out.
>
>At least the location of the impact, as pointed out by Christen Viellet on
>a representation of the USGS airbrush shaded relief mosaic
>(http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/News/Smart1/, bottom image), appears to agree
>at about the 1 km level with the predicted impact point based on Tony
>Cook's and our (USGS) topographic models and control network.  It will be
>interesting to see if any surface change can be detected, e.g. with a
>large telescope and good seeing.  At the very least, it should be possible
>for one of the upcoming lunar missions to image this area at high (few m
>or less) resolution and check for evidence of an impact.
>
>- Brent

-- 
Jeff Hopkins
HPO SOFT
Counting Photons
http://www.hposoft.com/Astro/astro.html
Hopkins Phoenix Observatory
7812 West Clayton Drive
Phoenix, Arizona 85033-2439 U.S.A.
www.hposoft.com
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