[meteorite-list] Moon rock?

[Mark Crawford]

I can't speak to the specifics of which metal maps to which colour, but 
there are definite colour varations on the lunar surface which can be 
imaged.

With a programme like Virtual Moon Atlass (free download) you can 
highlight areas high in Iron, Hydrogen, Potassium etc.  There's a photo 
of mine here

http://astro.annasach.net/moon.html

...along with a comparison from VMA highlighting the same date.

Mark


ensoramanda wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Not far back there was a discussion on the list about iron contentent 
> in lunar samples/meteorites and I thought this seemed related.
>
> I have just been sent this email by a friend from my local astronomy 
> society who is into astrophotography and wondered if any knowledgable 
> people on the list would like to comment.  I have never heard of of or 
> seen this before and thought it sounded dubious.  If anyone is 
> interested in the photograph I could email it to you.
>
> email below...
>
> Last night (29-04-07) I managed to image the moon and process it in 
> such a way that it brought out the lunar colours signifying different 
> types of rock on the surface. There are two images attached to this 
> email, one is an unprocessed one (almost "black and white" but it is 
> in fact a colour image!) and the second has had the colour process 
> done on it.
>
> The images are a stack of 31 frames taken with a C8-NGT/Moonlite CR-1 
> and a Canon EOS300D/MPCC combination. Each single image was at 100ASA 
> and exp was 1/200th second. To achieve the colour processed the image 
> was neutral colour balanced so that when the saturation was adjusted 
> it didn't favour any one colour. Once done, the saturation was 
> increased in three stages of +30 and then in a couple stages of +10. 
> Once the final colour balance was achieved, the image was unsharp 
> masked and contrast adjusted to achieve the final result.
>
> Checking information on the internet, the colours signify areas of 
> differing amounts of metal in the basalts on the Mare regions, the 
> bluer the area the more metal, the oranger the area the less metal. 
> Mare Tranquilitatis is very blue in comparison to neighbouring Mare 
> Serenitatis although round the edge of Serenitatis, the metal 
> composite is higher around the edge of the "shoreline" in comparison 
> to the centre of the "sea." Mare Humorum (to the lower left) displays 
> the opposite colourations to Mare Serenitatis. Sinus Iridum, on the 
> other hand,  is very clearly low on metals and has a distinct border 
> with Oceanus Procellarum plateau and from the processed image Mare 
> Frigoris, on the northern edge of the lunar face, is low on metal.
>
>
> Graham Ensor, nr Barwell UK
>
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