June 20, 2021
11-1-11
Originally published November 1, 2011
image captured from WAC-wrapped Google Earth (and video) by Andrew Chaikin
Click here for a video demonstration - no audio, expand to 720 pixels
Here is something I've done with Moon in Google Earth, pasting LRO WAC images onto the entire globe (or nearly—there are gaps at the poles that I haven't figured out how to fix yet). Maybe someone has already done this, but I haven't seen it, and when I talked to my contacts at Google and at NASA Ames it didn't sound like the LRO imagery was going to be incorporated into Google Moon anytime soon. I didn't want to wait so I did my own handmade version. I created the overlay using screen grabs from the LROC ACT-REACT site. By zooming in to various magnifications I can create detailed overlays in places I want more detail, or leave it at moderate resolution for more regional views. The overlays are easy to create — you just click the "add overlay" button on the Google Earth toolbar and browse for the particular image, then select it. You have to align it with the underlying imagery by fading its opacity down to 50 percent and using handles on the overlay to move, resize, and if necessary, rotate the image. Then you put the opacity back up to 100 percent, click "OK", and it's in place. This is my version 1.0, now I challenge LPOD readers to do it better (and then share)!
Andrew Chaikin
CAW Note: Andy is the author of A Man on the Moon.
Related Links
Andy's website
Yesterday's LPOD: A Planetary Loss
Tomorrow's LPOD: Mooned River
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