================= From LCROSS Facebook and Flight Director's Blog http://www.facebook.com/pages/LCROSS-Lunar-Impactor-Mission/154478180006?ref... LCROSS Lunar Impactor Mission Paul, our Flight Directory, posted a blog about LCROSS's first night in space, at http://wiki.nasa.gov/cm/blog/lcrossfdblog LCROSS is currently on its way to swing-by the moon. Closest approach is timed for June 23 (DOY174) 10:28 UTC. Then LCROSS goes into a Lunar Gravity Assist Lunar Return Orbit (LGALRO) for 113 days until impacting south pole Oct 9 (DOY283) 11:30 UTC. ================== LCROSS cruise orbit acquisition Horizon's ephemeris data for LCROSS (for my topoecentric o.p. at 110W and at 6UT each), indicates that acquisition imaging attempts for LCROSS for larger apetures might become practical between June 26 through 28. After June 28, increasing First Quarter Moon to Full Moon sky washout will interfere. LCROSS Ephemeris for 110W 41N (modified NASA JPL Horizons data) Date-time UT RA Dec Alt Az SOT Const Jun-19 06 051124.04+104844.4 344 -37 15 Ori Jun-20 06 060500.85+174703.6 333 -27 6 Ori Jun-21 06 062424.94+194718.1 330 -23 6 Gem Jun-22 06 063700.30+210241.5 329 -21 8 Gem Jun-23 06 064425.29+222015.0 328 -20 8 Gem Jun-24 06 072652.87+323702.4 325 -7 18 Gem Jun-25 06 083257.05+395958.6 319 5 33 Lyn Jun-26 06 094418.89+440326.1 313 17 46 UMa Jun-27 06 105428.70+445954.2 307 27 58 UMa Jun-28 06 m 115711.67+432850.9 299 36 68 UMa Jun-29 06 m 124950.06+402024.2 291 43 78 CVn Jun-30 06 m 133301.19+361616.9 281 48 86 CVn Jul-01 06 m 140838.66+314400.1 270 52 94 Boo Jul-02 06 m 143837.52+265931.7 258 55 102 Boo Jul-03 06 m 150430.63+221124.4 246 56 109 Boo Jul-04 06 m 152727.83+172353.2 234 56 115 Ser Jul-05 06 m 154821.08+123852.2 224 54 121 Ser Jul-06 06 m 160749.67+075702.3 214 52 127 Ser For the history of prior amateur imaging acquisitions of a similar sized Apollo 12 booster in 2002-2003 at analogous distances of 500,000-700,000km using 12" and 14" of aperture, see Selenology Today Issue No. 13 at: http://digilander.libero.it/glrgroup/selenologytoday13.pdf - at pages 83-84 (digital pages 86-87) and Spaceweather.com http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/images/mysteryobject/gallery/gallery... (2002). Between June 19 and lunar flyby on June 23, LCROSS will be too close to the Sun to image. "SOT" in the above table means Sun-Observer-Target angle. Clear Skies - Kurt