08-22-2018, 04:07 PM
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Master Modeler
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
Posts: 6,507
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ghrocketman
REALLY "High" resolution....
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Yes--when reproduced at the lower, intended resolution, the Luna 3 photographs were scientifically usable, although the resolution led to the mistaken identification of the Soviet Mountains, which better Zond and Lunar Orbiter farside pictures showed weren't mountains at all, but a light-colored linear area. The Pioneer 0/1/3 infrared spin-scan TV camera and the (un-flown) Pioneer 3/4 visible-light spin scan television camera, had either reached the Moon or been flown, would likely have produced better pictures. Also:
Explorer 6 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorer_6 ) carried a spin-scan TV camera rather like the Pioneer 0/1/2 device, but its Earth pictures were hard to re-construct because the less-rigid satellite, with four solar paddles on outrigger struts, wobbled; the biconical, battery-powered Pioneer 0 - 2 spacecraft were much more rigid, had better mass distribution (like a top) and had more stable spin axes. Pioneer 3 and 4 also had stable spin axes, having nearly all of their mass--including their numerous mercury batteries--concentrated in the short, wide cylindrical section at the base of the hollow, conical, gold-washed fiberglass off-center-fed vertical dipole (cone-rod) antenna.
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