LCROSS Fizzle

Early this morning the Hale Telescope locked on the crater Cabeus to watch LCROSS impact into the Moon. No impact plume was observed at Palomar or elsewhere, but we did get some great images of Cabeus.

Be sure to click on it to see it in full resolution.

This image was taken 10 seconds after the LCROSS impact using the 200-inch telescope and adaptive optics. Cabeus is dark region in the center, just behind the large bright mountain. The field of view is 71 km (40 arcseconds, with ~200m resolution), recorded at 2.1 microns wavelength.

While no plume was observed, the above image shows off the power of a 5.1-meter telescope armed with adaptive optics. Thanks to Antonin Bouchez and the AO team at Palomar/Caltech/JPL for their hard work and quick turnaround on the image.