Thanks
“Virtual Moon Atlas” realisation by its authors wouldn't have been possible without the support of several world wide known lunar scientists and without the preleminary huge job made by US official organizations involved in Moon exploration.
THANKS TO :
The authors wish to thank Jeff Gillis of “Lunar and planetary institute” who allowed Christian Legrand to use “Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas of the Moon” (LOPAM) pictures. This remarkable atlas can be consulted on the site : http://www.lpi.usra.edu/research/lunar_orbiter/
The authors thank also David Seals of “Jet Propulsion Laboratory” for providing high quality Moon aerographic surface textures. Visit his site for support : http://maps.jpl.nasa.gov/
We must also thanks professor Mark S. Robinson and his team of “Northwestern University”, who has permitted us to use his remarkable mosaïcs he has realized with high resolution Clementine pictures. You can visit his site at : http://www.earth.northwestern.edu/research/robinson These textures are used under copyright of “USGS astrogeology”.
The “United States Geological Survey” (USGS) must be thanked for realizing the remarquable site “Astrogeology / Webgis which presents online the beautiful geological maps used in the “Light” and “pro” versions. http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/webgis/
Integrating Apollo missions and probes pictures has been possible because of NASA general authorization to use them with its public relation conditions as described on the site : http://www.nasa.gov.
Clementine and LOPAM textures of lunar formations use is possible because of the existence of the huge on line pictures library of”the United States Geological Survey (USGS)“ on its site “Planetary Data System / Map a planet” that you can consult at : http://pdsmaps.wr.usgs.gov/
Thanks also to professor Charles Wood who accepted to provide the list of the articles of his famous “Lunar Notebook” that he writes every month in “Sky and telescope” to incorporate them in the database. For more informations on the Moon, visit his sites :
- “Chuck Wood's Moon”
- “The Moon Wiki”.
Jonathan McDowell, NASA staff scientist for Chandra mission, has accepted that part of his craters database could be used as a base for the “Farside Indiced” VMA own craters database, and we must thanked him for his support. His original complete database can be found on his Web site at :
A special Thank to Dr Alan Binder, “Lunar Prospector” mission director to authorize us for using , with a so pleasant and enthusiastic support, the probe datas. www.lunarprospector.com
And we must also thank Mary Ann Hager from Lunar and Planetary Institute that allowed us to pick extracts from the “Lunar Astronautical Charts” and “Lunar Maps”, but also to use “Consolidated Lunar Atlas” plates and Apollo Hasselblads extracts digitized by its Institute http://www.lpi.edu.org
Special thanks to Linda Chappell from Lunar and Planetary Institute that helped us a lot for preparing our participation to the “Combined Exhibit” of the 37 th “Lunar and Planetary Science Conference” in 2006 and 2007.
Also a big thank to Niels Noordhoek for his routine that “destripes” the LOPAM pictures making the first VMA pictures library looking younger.
At least, thank you to all the people that have proposed or will to translate the software and the database, permiting to propose this powerful tool to worlwide amateur astronomer.