Impact of Japanese spacecraft Kaguya (Selene) on lunar surface
Based on the information provided by the Japanese Mission scientists, images of the predicted landing site were captured by using a near infrared camera and a narrow band filter, centred at the wavelength of 2.12 µm, attached to the 1.2 metre telescope. The camera has a field of view of 2 arcmin × 2 arcmin in the sky. The telescope was carefully positioned to avoid the nearby bright edge of the Moon’s day-side and images were taken at one second interval.
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Sequence of 4 images, at 1 second intervals, capturing the impact flash of Kaguya on the Moon. |
The impact flash was recorded at 18:25:10 UT (23:55:10 IST, local time in Gurushikar). The impact created a bright spot seen in the second frame shown above which faded slightly in the next frame and after another second it was no longer detected.
The observations were carried out by Dr T. Chandrasekhar, Mr Rajesh Shah, Mr S.N. Mathur and Mr Raj Purohit of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Division of the Physical Research Laboratory, a unit of Dept of Space, Govt of India.