CFHT Observation of SMART-1 Impact

Details CFHT Observation of SMART-1 Impact CFHT Observation of SMART-1 Impact

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.5717v&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #57.17; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.1303

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Scientific paper

Through the use of Director’s Discretionary Time on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on top of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, an attempt was made at observing the planned impact of the SMART-1 spacecraft. Even though the instrumentation available on the telescope the evening of the impact was not the best suited to the observation of such a fugitive event, a reconnaissance at the impact site the prior evening to tune to the observing strategy and some luck with weather and timing at impact time allowed us to obtain a good temporal series (10-s exposure time images every 15 seconds) of the crash area covering 17mn before the crash and a full hour after. Observations were made with the wide-field infrared camera WIRCam through a molecular H2 narrow-band filter. The flash of the impact itself was captured, allowing us to independently locate the point of impact with respect to the lunar features seen on the Earthshine lit lunar landscape. The images taken over the minutes following the impact provided the first ever observations of an ejecta cloud in expansion from an impact on the Moon. The last results from the analysis of the images of the impact itself and the subsequent dust cloud will be presented at the time of the meeting.

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