Where's Waldo's retro-rocket?

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neufer
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Where's Waldo's retro-rocket?

Post by neufer » Fri Sep 04, 2009 12:51 am

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002083/ wrote:
<<In Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's first look at the Apollo 12 landing site, the Lunar Module descent stage, Experiment package (ALSEP) and Surveyor 3 spacecraft are all visible along with astronaut tracks (unmarked arrows). The image is 824 meters wide, north up. Apollo 12 astronauts Charles "Pete" Conrad and Alan Bean landed here on November 19, 1969. Surveyor 3 landed on April 20, 1967. Credit: NASA / GSFC / ASU
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UPDATE: Here's some interesting insight into this image from Phil Stooke: "The tracks will let us revise the [Apollo 12] EVA map - it's wrong in several places." Cool. Furthermore, he said, "Surveyor rode down on a retro-rocket, then discarded it and set down gently on small vernier rockets. That retro-rocket (especially its big spherical fuel tank) is somewhere near here, waiting to be discovered. I might predict that it will be the first piece of exploration hardware to be discovered in an LROC image, if a Lunokhod doesn't come along first." If you want to hunt for that lost (though, admittedly, unlooked-for) piece of Surveyor hardware, you can go here to download the full-size TIFF file of the LROC image. Keep in mind that there's no guarantee the tank is actually on this high-resolution image.>>
Art Neuendorffer

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geckzilla
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Re: Where's Waldo's retro-rocket?

Post by geckzilla » Fri Sep 04, 2009 3:03 am

I can't even get myself to see those craters as craters and not bumps even though I know they're not bumps so I don't think I'll be able to find any fuel tanks. How many pixels could they be at 100% zoom? There is an unlabeled white object just to the northwest of the site. You can see it on the upper left corner of your image in this post, even. Anyway, I feel lucky I was even able to find the landing site on that enormous image.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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rstevenson
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Re: Where's Waldo's retro-rocket?

Post by rstevenson » Fri Sep 04, 2009 12:56 pm

geckzilla wrote:I can't even get myself to see those craters as craters and not bumps even though I know they're not bumps so I don't think I'll be able to find any fuel tanks.
After I downloaded the full image, I had to flip it 180° to get them to become innies instead of outies. But I still haven't found anything. And I'm supposed to be working! :roll:

Rob

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neufer
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Re: Where's Waldo's retro-rocket?

Post by neufer » Fri Sep 04, 2009 3:57 pm

rstevenson wrote:
geckzilla wrote:I can't even get myself to see those craters as craters and not bumps even though I know they're not bumps so I don't think I'll be able to find any fuel tanks.
After I downloaded the full image, I had to flip it 180° to get them to become innies instead of outies.
But I still haven't found anything. And I'm supposed to be working! :roll:
Go back to work Rob, I've already located it:

ImageImage
Art Neuendorffer

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