In this image of the Palomar there are a number of things which I see as 'wrong' but I have been conditioned to believe that this is a real image of the LCROSS impact area. Looking closely at it, I am not so sure, and I feel that it may have been altered to hide things - possibly evidence of habitation where the LCROSS part of the spacecraft impacted the Moon.

As I understand it, this is an infrared photograph has been taken from Earth by the Palomar Observatory and has been processed with "Adaptive Optics" to reduce the effects of the Earth's atmosphere. We can all see the vertical 'scan lines'in the image but what we cannot see is the vertical join in the middle, running right the way through the main crater.

I understand that the sun is very low and this can make shadows appear completely wrong. Also the perspective of this photgraph makes it very difficult to understand the topography and features in the area.

In spite of this, there are a few things which I feel are out of place in this image, but as always, I could be just a conspiracy theorist and there may be nothing wrong at all.



The coloured arrows and lines are interpreted by me as follows:

Yellow lines show unnatural straight lines and I cannot see any hill or feature which would cause these absolutely straight lines to occur naturally.

Green line is the direction of where I assume the light source is located (ie, the sun)

Working from the left to right:
Royal blue arrow is another straight line which I cannot see any reason for.

Red arrow shows an isolated shadow area.

Light blue arrow is an obvious 'Z' shadow and at 6 o'clock another smaller one.

Orange arrow shows what some articles say is the plume of dust or its shadow showing on the top ridge of the crater wall, and, along with a small oval light coloured grey area on the opposite side of the crater in the middle or the black crater 'shadow'. I just do not believe it because I do not see any plume and in my opinion, it is wishful thinking.

Left Pink arrow points to an area of shadow which looks like the letter H or rectangular in shape and does not appear to be related to any ground feature.

Right Pink arrow points to an entrance of some kind with a 'shadow' area just in front of it. I suspect the shadow is hiding maybe a craft or something similar. The tunnel entrance/inverted U is clearly seen behind to the left of the 'shadow' in front of the arrow.

Dark Pink top arrow points to a platform of some kind with maybe a real shadow underneath it to its left. It definitely does not look like a natural feature.

lol if you think the image from that article shows authentic plumes, you must be kidding. Just a  photoshop ordinary blurring effect on the area. You should know better by now Q. lol.

Mount Palomar's Cabeus observation turned to litograph, making the relief of the area come to view. This crater I suspect, is no ordinary crater.

-- Frutty

I do not think we all realise just how big an issue this was at the time. Many observatories wanted to see the plume and take the best pictures of the crash(sorry, "impact") into the Moon. One of these articles says that NASA were at pains to make clear that there were no explosives involved...

The planetary society
(The image referred to is the same as posted above)
Here's the sharpest optical image shown today of the Moon, from Palomar Observatory. You can see a notch in the bright mountain ridge in front of the crater, and a sunny spot on the far wall, which together appeared to look like a plume and its shadow in the much blurrier MMT image posted earlier. I see no plume in this image, and Jennifer Heldmann, who coordinated the Earth-based observations, didn't see one either.

Palomar Observatory Adaptive Optics image of Cabeus after LCROSS impact
This sharp image of the crater Cabeus near the Moon's south pole was taken by the Palomar Observatory's 200-inch telescope using its adaptive optics system. The image was taken at a near-infrared wavelength of 2.1 microns. No impact plume is obvious, but analysis of the data may yet reveal something subtle in the shadows within the crater. Credit: Palomar Observatory / Caltech


10 and 15-second images after impact
In each of the images the field of view is 71 km (40 arcseconds, with ~200m resolution), recorded at 2.1 microns wavelength. Images were produced by Antonin Bouchez.

Caltech university page on LCROSS impact giving names of the 13 observatories that were watching the impact.
MPEG Movie of Cabeus Crater from Palomar (18.8 mb). The movie compresses 12 minutes (4 prior to LCROSS impact, 8 minutes after) into 34 seconds.

Schedule (Times UT, updated 10/6/09)

* ~02:00 Spacecraft separation
* 08:30 Acquire Cabeus crater; determine best feature to use for AO lock
* 10:30 Acquire 1st set of sky background frames
* 11:00 Begin impact imaging sequence
* 11:31:19 Centaur impact
* 11:35:45 Shepherding spacecraft impact
* 11:50 End impact imaging sequence, acquire 2nd set of sky background frames
* 14:00 NASA ARC press conference (submit graphics by 12:30)

Observing Plan
Our goal is to image the evolution of the LCROSS debris plume at the highest possible spatial resolution. We plan to use the Palomar Adaptive Optics system to lock on a bright lunar feature, probably a crater wall or mountain peak, near the predicted impact location. Full AO correction should provide spatial resolution of ~0.1 arcseconds (180 meters at Cabeus crater) across the 40 arcsecond (71 km) field of view of the PHARO near-infrared camera.

The debris curtain is expected to expand at ~150 m/s, reaching maximum brightness after ~60s at a diameter of ~20 km. We will acquire 1.4s integrations every 2.8s, thus providing a ~40 frame movie of the expanding debris plume during its highest density phase. We will observe at K band (2.1 microns), to maximize AO correction and sensitivity to large particles.

We have allocated 2 hrs (8:30-10:30 UT) to locate Cabeus crater and test surrounding features for that providing the best AO correction. We will then offset to blank sky to acquire bias/background frames, and begin our impact imaging sequence at 11:00 UT. We intend to continue the image sequence through impact and for at least 15 minutes after Centaur impact.


Context area image

Area as seen by Palomar Observatory



The movie shows absolutely NOTHING - it is almost as if it never happened... no dust cloud, no change that I can see at all.

NASA LCROSS website Now going on about the water they just found.
Frequently Asked Questions - except for the one about "Why was a plume NOT seen?"
...The LCROSS impact will not be noticed by the Moon and only noticed by those on Earth with telescopes trained on the impact site. What makes the LCROSS impact special, compared to the ongoing, natural barrage, is that we control the LCROSS impact to occur at a precise place and time. allowing us to sample a specific piece of lunar real estate and be in position to monitor it

I added the bold bit...
...While we have a bit of an advantage over Deep Impact in that we have a better understanding of the Moon and its physical properties compared to those of a comet, that fact that we are purposely targeting a part of the Moon we can’t see (it being permanently shadowed) does keep things interesting!

In addition to the observations made from the LCROSS spacecraft, we are organizing efforts for both ground- and space-based assets (telescopes, cameras, spectrometers) to observe the impact. As the impact date nears, LCROSS will provide the exact impact location and time to the science community and public via the web. The goal is to muster as many eyes and instruments as possible to observe, record and analyze the impact event and the following ejecta and vapor cloud. Yes, why ARE they targeting an area which is in the shadowed part of the Moon? What reason do they have?

More links than you can wave a stick at Both before and after.

What's in the pithole at Cabeus?

i read somewhere, that i didn't chronicle, that they found rust on the moonrocks they brought back.

that says, O2 or water?

or either? 1 leads to another, right?

it didn't happen as they hoped.

Im usually pretty good for a few one liners......but sometimes......just sometimes...i put a little work into it....lol

O ya...2 answer the thread....

Yes I think it was a failure....

Chrispin wrote:

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Does anyone have an official explanation for this? It's pretty obvious that the mission was a failure, but they say otherwise? For example, did they say whether or not they detected water-ice on the moon? I sure didn't hear any news on that..

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I've heard they detected water. But that could have been done years ago, with the satellites already orbiting the moon and their infrared mapping , radars, spectrographs  and whatnots type of electronics they carry. So this Lcross fiasco is still a mystery for all of us.