Applications to Lunar Remote Sensing - 3D Computer Vision: Efficient Methods and Applications - page 330

Fig. 8.17 Lunar Orbiter images of lunar mare domes. Image credit: NASA/USGS. ( a )LunarOr-
biter images IV-133-H2 and IV-126-H2, showing the mare dome field between Milichius and To-
bias Mayer. ( b ) Lunar Orbiter image IV-133-H1, showing the domes near Hortensius. ( c ) Lunar
Orbiter image IV-073-H2, showing the domes Diana (D) and Grace (G) and the domes of the North-
ern Tranquillitatis Alignment (NTA). Circles indicate dome diameters. The images are reproduced
at uniform scale, north is to the top and west to the left
film with a hand-held Hasselblad camera from the Apollo 15 command module and
is therefore also unsuitable for a photometric evaluation. However, this image qual-
itatively reveals the large-scale shape of Mons Rümker, indicating that the western
part of the plateau is more elevated than its eastern part (cf. Sect. 8.4.3.1 ).
While the Apollo images used for preparing the Lunar Topographic Orthopho-
tomaps are virtually distortion-free, they cannot be used for photoclinometric
analysis, again due to an unknown nonlinear relation between incident flux and
film density, and many of them were acquired at high solar elevation angles.
The morphometric properties of a limited number of lunar volcanic edifices have
been derived from the Lunar Topographic Orthophotomaps by Pike and Clow
( 1981 ).
The fact that nearly all Clementine images were acquired at local lunar noon
implies high illumination angles for the equatorial regions of the Moon, where the
mare domes are situated. Consequently, for the important lunar dome fields these
images are neither suitable for stereophotogrammetry nor photoclinometry or shape
from shading.
More recent spacecraft images of lunar mare and highland domes are shown in
Fig. 8.20 . The images in Figs. 8.20 a, b, and d were extracted from data acquired by
the Chandrayaan-1 Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M 3 ). The M 3 images are made up (in
global mode) by 85 channels with centre wavelengths between 461 and 2976 nm at a