SPOT
THE DIFFERENCE: PICARD (PART 1)
NNE Rim of Picard
The images used are here are of a slope of approximately 45°, on the North- north-east rim of Picard crater. Picard (diameter 23km) is located in the Mare Crisium impact basin, a crustally thin section of the Moon. The rational for selecting this area is that because the slope is so steep, this may be a good location to look for boulder tracks or dust slides that have been induced by impact shocks or moon quakes, over the approximately two years between the dates when the images were taken. The region covered is from 54.76-54.91E, 14.67-14.95N, and is approximately 4.5x8 km in size. You can look for changes by loading the images into an image processing program, overlaying one on top of the other and blinking between layers or channels. Unlike the Apollo 14 images below, which were of a relatively flat surface, because we are dealing with a large topographic range there, expect the images to jump around a bit when you blink between them – this is due to stereo parallax effects. Please let me k now what you find before 2015 July 15.
Note that this project is now closed, and no differences were found (except perhaps for a ray crater or two where the light scattering properties of the rays make them look slightly brighter in one image than in the other). The temporal image pairs were carefully examined by Jay Albert, Thierry Speth, and Tony Cook. Full details are published on p17 of the July BAA Lunar Section Circular or on p18 of the July ALPO The Lunar Observer.
