Signal and noise - Navigation, Astronomyhttp://www.pmonta.com/2009-12-01T12:00:00-05:00Peter Monta's projectsPhotographic lunar distances2009-12-01T12:00:00-05:002009-12-01T12:00:00-05:00Peter Montatag:www.pmonta.com,2009-12-01:/photographic-lunar-distances.html<p><strong>Update, September 2020:</strong> I've written some code to estimate the Moon's position against the stellar background on images similar to those below. It's available at my GitHub repository here: <a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/pmonta/lunar-astrometry">https://github.com/pmonta/lunar-astrometry</a></p>
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<p>These images were taken on November 30, 2009 at 08:29:43 UTC. The location is …</p><p><strong>Update, September 2020:</strong> I've written some code to estimate the Moon's position against the stellar background on images similar to those below. It's available at my GitHub repository here: <a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/pmonta/lunar-astrometry">https://github.com/pmonta/lunar-astrometry</a></p>
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<p>These images were taken on November 30, 2009 at 08:29:43 UTC. The location is 37d 25' 58" North, 122d 11' 14" West.</p>
<p>The 1537 images are the 1/80 sec exposure and the 1538 images are the 1/5 sec exposure.</p>
<p>Original camera images:</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="http://www.pmonta.com/uploads/2009/12/img_1537.jpg">img_1537.jpg</a> (1.8 MByte)</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="http://www.pmonta.com/uploads/2009/12/img_1538.jpg">img_1538.jpg</a> (2.2 MByte)</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="http://www.pmonta.com/uploads/2009/12/img_1537.cr2">img_1537.cr2</a> (Canon RAW) (9.5 MByte)</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="http://www.pmonta.com/uploads/2009/12/img_1537.cr2">img_1538.cr2</a> (Canon RAW) (9.8 MByte)</p>
<p>Below is a thumbnail of img_1538.jpg with contast stretched to show the stars. The reddish bright star in the lower right is Hamal; you can see a few dozen others throughout the field. Looking at the raw file is probably better, but the JPEG seems usable.</p>
<a class="reference external image-reference" href="http://www.pmonta.com/uploads/2009/12/1538-thumbnail.jpg">
<img alt="" src="http://www.pmonta.com/uploads/2009/12/1538-thumbnail.jpg" />
</a>
<p>Checkplot from astrometry.net with detected stars:</p>
<a class="reference external image-reference" href="http://www.pmonta.com/uploads/2009/12/1538-indx.png">
<img alt="" src="http://www.pmonta.com/uploads/2009/12/1538-indx.png" />
</a>
<p>Thumbnail of this checkplot:</p>
<a class="reference external image-reference" href="http://www.pmonta.com/uploads/2009/12/1538-indx-checkplot.jpg">
<img alt="" src="http://www.pmonta.com/uploads/2009/12/1538-indx-checkplot.jpg" />
</a>
<p>FITS images (turned 45 degrees with green pixels only), compressed with gzip. The 1538.fits file contains a WCS (world coordinate system) that, together with a FITS image viewer like ds9, gives a (ra,dec) location for each pixel.</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="http://www.pmonta.com/uploads/2009/12/1537.fits.gz">1537.fits.gz</a> (5.1 MByte)</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="http://www.pmonta.com/uploads/2009/12/1538.fits.gz">1538.fits.gz</a> (6.8 MByte)</p>