Simply click once where you wish the line to start, drag across to your chosen finish point and then double click. For example, clicking on the middle button revealed by the spanner (the ‘line tool’) allows you to use the mouse to draw a line between two points. Other valuable tools may be pressed into service by clicking on the spanner icon in the top right-hand corner. You can also overlay useful datasets, including a colour-shaded relief map (Fig 2 – this shows the small crater Rhaeticus A) and mineralogy data from the Clementine mission (Fig 3).There are many more useful options under the ‘layers’ menu, and I urge you to experiment.įigure 4. (False) colour relief setting for crater Rhaeticus A. Once you have zoomed in on your area of interest, the ‘layers’ menu offers you various overlay options, including a latitude/longitude grid and nomenclature.įigure 2. You can then zoom in on your chosen projection by scrolling your mouse wheel, double-clicking on a selected region, or using the plus and minus buttons in the extreme top left corner of the page. orthographic nearside or farside, north or south polar, or cylindrical) by clicking on the round icon in the top right-hand corner of the ‘layers’ menu. You can also select your preferred map projection (e.g. Following that link will take you to the QuickMap homepage, where you will find the screen shown in Fig 1. This shows as default the current Moon phase, but you can deselect the phase view by unchecking the ‘sunlit region’ box under the ‘layers’ menu in the top left corner. The Quickmap home page in its default setting.The resource in question is called QuickMap and is supplied by the Applied Coherent Technology Corporation, a key player in the geospatial data applications industry. Much of this data has not been systematically used by professional scientists, simply because there are not enough professionals and too much data! There is thus a great opportunity here for amateurs prepared to familiarise them-selves with the datasets.įigure 1. The earliest such datasets took the form of high-resolution imagery returned by the Lunar Orbiter and Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, but recently we have seen the release of a wonderful new resource that allows us to access and manipulate imagery and data derived primarily from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter vehicle. The truth is just the opposite: spacecraft datasets, freely available via the internet, have provided powerful new suites of tools that the amateur can use to supplement his or her observations. There are those who would argue that the ever-increasing flow of lunar data from spacecraft has effectively rendered the telescopic lunar observer redundant. “ An up to date tutorial on the latest Quickmap has subsequently been published and can be found here.” 2017 February 2 Introducing QUICKMAP – an invaluable resource for the lunar observer
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