Re: What are these white dots on a lunar photo?

[William Hamblen <wrhamblen@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 30 Dec 2006 15:55:56 -0700, Randy Merritt <cmerritt3@xxxxxxx>
wrote:

>The white "lines" in several places do bear a remarkable resemblance to
>fingerprints.  How old was the film?  There are also two triangular 
>shaped dots that could be defects on the film.  A few more details on
>what equipment was used in making these shots might help.  I've recently
>completed a series of test shots at half moon using a digital CCD camera
>and I have no spurious spots anywhere (which help eliminate internal 
>light reflection issues).

The image linked to at
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunar_orbiter/bin/info.shtml?223
was created by one of the Lunar Orbiters in 1966-67.

See http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/lunarorb.html for more
details on the Lunar Orbiter missions.  The white spots were caused by
defects in the film processing.  The film was processed automatically
on the spacecraft and the images transmitted to Earth, untouched by
human hands.

This Lunar Orbiter image is one of the great photographs of the 20th
Century:

http://www.donaldedavis.com/2004%20new/COPERNho.gif

I remember it well.  I was in college when it came out.

Bud
-- 
The night is just the shadow of the Earth.