LUNAR IMAGE: The World's largest ground-based lunar image mosaic, 4th April 2009.

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Sheet size 608 x 507 mm, under photo mount. Signed in the image by the members of the team. This Photographic print was presented to Sir Patrick Moore by the team members on the occasion of the Guinness Wold Records presentation event, which was hosted at his home on July 11, 2009. ---- An ambitious plan by a group of British based amateur astronomers was devised to create the largest lunar mosaic image ever taken by ground-based telescopes. Using amateur equipment, a team of world's foremost astro imagers gathered at the home of Sir Patrick Moore in April 2009. It was agreed to use a range of 9.25" to 14" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes for this task, working at 5.5 - 7.8 m focal length, in combination with HFR planetary imaging cameras. The 9-day old Moon was ideally placed for the attempt during the first week in April. Each of the eight team members was assigned one unique segment to capture with an approximate overlap of 25% for each sector to ensure full coverage of the entire area. Two further team members imaged the entire Moon at 2.3 - 3.0 m focal length to ensure that if any small gaps were missed, these areas could be filled in using the lower resolution data. Sir Patrick Moore had been instrumental in mapping the Moon for both the Russian and American space efforts, during the Apollo era in the early to mid 1960s. The team requested that the attempt be made from his grounds in Selsey, further adding to the excitement being generated for this audacious plan. Sir Patrick generously accepted, and was hugely supportive of the project from the outset. In February, once the plan was agreed, Guinness World Records were contacted, and a claim for the attempt lodged on their website. Guinness took several weeks to research our proposal, before replying that the record attempt was valid, and our criteria would satisfy the record book entry. They also indicated that not only would it be the largest mosaic image of its type taken by amateurs, but would also eclipse any taken by a ground-based professional observatory. The 4th April was a Saturday evening, thus not clashing with team work commitments, and the 9.2-day old Moon was nice and high at over 50 degrees altitude. Many of the participants had previously done large lunar mosaics, but none at this high a magnification or to this size and scale. (Online resource: lunarworldrecord-org). Seller Inventory # 003191

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