New images/video from DSCOVR - showing its first view of the Moon passing in front of our planet!http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/from-a-million-miles-away-nasa-camera-shows-moon-crossing-face-of-earth (video in article)
Quote from: Lars-J on 08/05/2015 05:42 pmNew images/video from DSCOVR - showing its first view of the Moon passing in front of our planet!http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/from-a-million-miles-away-nasa-camera-shows-moon-crossing-face-of-earth (video in article)This is an astounding picture. I notice Baha has a cyclone nearby. What are the green flashes at the leading limb of the Moon? Atmosphere? Dust particles? Camera artifact?Enjoy, Matthew
The time cadence will be no faster than 10 spectral band images every hour.
Combining three images taken about 30 seconds apart as the moon moves produces a slight but noticeable camera artifact on the right side of the moon. Because the moon has moved in relation to the Earth between the time the first (red) and last (green) exposures were made, a thin green offset appears on the right side of the moon when the three exposures are combined. This natural lunar movement also produces a slight red and blue offset on the left side of the moon in these unaltered images.
Remember, the purpose of EPIC is to take color images of the Earth. The Field of view is just large enough to accomplish that with pointing tolerances. The scale maximizes the resolution and the resulting vignetting, the circular limit on the image, doesn't interfere with the purpose. Similarly the imaging speed is enough for the rotating Earth without artifacts but not enough to image the transiting Moon without them because the former is its purpose and the latter is not. Choices have to be made in engineering.
Quote from: Comga on 08/06/2015 05:36 amRemember, the purpose of EPIC is to take color images of the Earth. The Field of view is just large enough to accomplish that with pointing tolerances. The scale maximizes the resolution and the resulting vignetting, the circular limit on the image, doesn't interfere with the purpose. Similarly the imaging speed is enough for the rotating Earth without artifacts but not enough to image the transiting Moon without them because the former is its purpose and the latter is not. Choices have to be made in engineering.But it does make the images look very flat, they appear as if paper cutouts.
NASA Launch DSCOVR "webcam" type site:http://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Beginning at Noon EDT (1600 UTC) on Wednesday, July 27, 2016, SWPC will start using data from NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft in its operations. This data will replace the data currently provided by the ACE satellite. Details can be found on the SWPC website.
Another feature of the EPIC data helped confirm that the flashes were from a high altitude, not simply water on the ground. Two channels on the instrument are designed to measure the height of clouds, and when the scientists went to the data they found high cirrus clouds, 3 to 5 miles (5 to 8 kilometers) where the glints were located."The source of the flashes is definitely not on the ground. It's definitely ice, and most likely solar reflection off of horizontally oriented particles," Marshak said.Detecting glints like this from much farther away than in this case could be used by other spacecraft to study exoplanets, he said. As an Earth scientist, however, Marshak is now investigating how common these horizontal ice particles are, and whether they're common enough to have a measureable impact on how much sunlight passes through the atmosphere. If so, it's a feature that could be incorporated into computer models of how much heat is reaching and leaving Earth.
Cislunar object recovered. TLE for Falcon 9 rocket body (40391 / 2015-007B) used to launch DSCOVR in 2015 updated - last update was >5 yrs ago. Great job @18SPCS ! Alas, normal Type 0 TLEs will not propagate well for this orbit, but hopefully the object will now be maintained.