Up Close With Venus

[Dave In Vermont]

Yesterday our esteemed member, 'cotterless' (Nick), posted a truly fantastic Moon map from NASA on a thread. That's here:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/259788-nasa-lunar-chart/
 

And I have been busy exploring the Moon-maps available there. For the huge ones with the most detail - you need a special viewer. I found several, but many were more complex than necessary imho. So I linked the best one. It's free and makes for a worthy addition to a computers' arsenal of functioning. It can be used for many other applications.

Here is that:

http://jvsmicroscope.uta.fi/?q=jvsview

And here is the listing of Moon-maps available through the site Nick found:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/mapcatalog/

Now on to Venus - our supposed "Sister-Planet." What has been done to the Moon is also done with Venus. As well as Mars and Mercury. And others, too. So here's a ticket to Venus:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/venus_maps/

Venus hasn't been actually visited by human craft except above the clouds (aside from the Soviet Venera - which fried in 2 hours on the pizza-oven surface). So what's available s derived from radar-mapping technology. And it's quite impressive. I find Venus to be irresistable due to it's anonymity under it's dense atmosphere. So I'll leave off with one such image.

Enjoy!

Dave

Feel free to download and see how much detail you can glean by zooming it!  This image is the smallest ones they have - the BIG one is VERY BIG!

[laudropb]

Thanks for the info. Will keep me busy as it pours with rain here.