LCROSS MISSION Impact Observation

On October 9th, 2009, the RAS will attempt to image the impact of the upper stage of a Centaur rocket as it slams into the south pole of the moon at several thousands of miles and hour.

The event will start at 6:30 am, and the impact is expected at 7:30am. We will attempt imaging with a Meade DSI imager mounted on the 16". This will be very difficult though because the sun will be up and it will be very bright out.

Relevant websites  :
 Main LCROSS Website
Page to provide the casual backyard observer useful information for observing the LCROSS impact event
Finder charts

The results will be posted here.

A trial run was held on October 5th. The following image of the moon was taken with the SBIG CCD.

It was determined that the SBIG CDD is very impractical for this because it takes a long time to transfer data. The Meade Deep Sky Imager (DSI) is much more useful because it can give a live video feed. It also has a smaller field of view. Several nice images were taken with the DSI. (will be posted soon).