Lunar Observations with the Boston University Imaging System

With the same 0.1-meter telescope used for the Jupiter observations, we image the faint sodium exosphere of the moon. An occulting mask blocks light from the moon's surface to reduce scattered light in the telescope. Near full moon, the scattered light overwhelms the faint emission from the sodium atoms, so we observe near first or third quarters or during total lunar eclipses.
 

Image of the lunar sodium exosphere 5 days after new Moon. (Mendillo et al., Imaging Observations of the Extended Sodium Atmosphere of the Moon, Geophysical Research Letters, 18, 2097-2100, 1991.) 
Image of the lunar sodium exosphere at third quarter. (Medillo et al., Imaging Experiments to Detect an Extended Sodium Atmosphere on the Moon, Adv. Space Res., 13, 10313-10319, 1993.) 
Images of the lunar sodium exosphere during total lunar eclipses. (Mendillo et al., Observational Test for the Solar Wind Sputtering Origin of the Moon's Extended Sodium Atmosphere, Icarus, 137, 12-23, 1999.) 
Lunar eclipse images of the sodium exosphere corrected for the penumbral illumination function. (Mendillo et al., Observational Test for the Solar Wind Sputtering Origin of the Moon's Extended Sodium Atmosphere, Icarus, 137, 12-23, 1999.) 
The average lunar sodium exosphere at full Moon. (Mendillo et al., Observational Test for the Solar Wind Sputtering Origin of the Moon's Extended Sodium Atmosphere, Icarus, 137, 12-23, 1999.) 
Images of the Moon's sodium tail following the 1998 Leonid meteor shower which peaked on November 17. Please visit our page on the Moon's sodium tail for more information. 

 

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