New Horizons’ best close-up of Pluto’s surface

originally posted by: GaryN
a reply to: wildespace
So more lies from NASA?

CGI does not equal "lies". Besides, CGI is usually easy to recognise, as was the case with when I watched that video. There's no harm in adding CGI to enhance an image or video that's based on real data.

LORRI has no shutter, so if it was pointing at Pluto then the Sun would have to have been in its view both before and after the total eclipse, which is what the video shows. So why would they need to add a CGI Sun??

Perhaps the camera wasn't pointing at Pluto when the Sun would have been so close to it and during the occultation.

The most sensitive camera ever sent on a space mission, but it couldn't see the Sun?

Perhaps exactly for that reason - its extra sensitivity meant more danger from the Sun's brightness. I've shown you an image where the Sun was 10 degrees from centre of LORRI's field of view, and it's already been flooding the camera with some glare.

And it wasn't damaged by looking at the Sun for an extended period?

We don't know that it was actually looking at the Sun.

It is really a strict rule in robotic spaceflight that no camera is pointed at the Sun, unless it's either a dedicated solar-observing camera or it has a solar filter.

But some of my answers here were just conjectures, so I asked the folk at the Unmanned Spaceflight Forum for more details: www.unmannedspaceflight.com...
Hopefully we'll get some definite replies.

a reply to: GaryN
I'm now looking at the LORRI image archive, sorted by the date/time each image was taken, to try to figure out what was happening.

Looking at the video, it seems they used images like this one for the moment of occultation, although the images themselves were taken after the event. Here's the archive page with those "backlit" images: pluto.jhuapl.edu...

But let's start at the beginning.

After flying very close to Pluto and Charon and taking high-rez photos of their surface, the spacecraft started flying away from them and looking back in their direction: pluto.jhuapl.edu...

It then took images of Pluto's smaller moons, started seeing the backlit Pluto, as well as pointing the camera closer to the direction of the Sun to measure how much glare it produces (without actually looking at the Sun): pluto.jhuapl.edu...

Getting close to the occultation time, LORRI took these overexposed images of the backlit Pluto, when the Sun was less than 15 degrees away from LORRI's field of view: pluto.jhuapl.edu...

With the last such image taken at 02:06:51 UTC, LORRI seems to have been pointed away from Pluto and in a direction where it could observe the Sun's glare safely: pluto.jhuapl.edu...

Finally, they were able to point the camera back at Pluto after the Sun has passed behind and out of the direct view again: pluto.jhuapl.edu...

At least I think that's what happened, my timing of events might be off.

a reply to: wildespace

But some of my answers here were just conjectures, so I asked the folk at the Unmanned Spaceflight Forum for more details: www.unmannedspaceflight.com... Hopefully we'll get some definite replies.

Be interesting to hear what they have to say. I think I have figured out the confusion here though, it seems the animation used data not just from LORRI, but from the other instruments too, although that was not mentioned. Certainly there is some Ralph data, and perhaps Alice too, though there is very little info on Alice, particularly in airglow mode. Obfuscation, another NASA tactic.

Is this the same footage that made Greta Van Sustren of Faux News complain about the amount of time it had taken to be released?

originally posted by: Quantum12
a reply to: stormcell
I did not even know there was a movie like this. Is it online?

www.nytimes.com...

I had to view it through the Oculus Rift store (which means having to put on the headset).

Facebook 360 Videos / New York Times

Couple of new(ish) images of Pluto, created from New Horizons data by amateurs:

A synthetic perspective view of Pluto
i.imgur.com...

New combined image reveals mysterious topography beyond Pluto's terminator.
i.imgbox.com...

Source: www.unmannedspaceflight.com...

(Seems ATS disabled uploading images by AdBlock users, again)