Over the course of a month, the LRO spacecraft is able to image the entire lunar surface with the Wide Angle Camera (WAC). By mosaicking thousands of WAC images together, the LROC team produces large-scale maps such as the LROC WAC Global Mosaic. In the polar regions, grazing sun angles create vast shadows that hinder mapping. However, with careful selection, polar mosaics with minimal shadows can be made. For this polar mosaic, we selected and mosaicked images acquired when the sub-solar point was its lowest in the southern hemisphere (around 1.5° S) and when the angle between the Sun vector and the orbital plane of the spacecraft is minimized. Using these criteria, we selected images acquired between 9/21/2010 and 10/23/2010.

To produce the mosaic, we map projected the 643 nm band of each WAC image using the GLD100 (WAC derived 100m/pixel DTM) and a LOLA shape model near the pole (80° to 90° S). Accurate positioning of each WAC image was ensured using ephemeris provided by the LOLA and GRAIL team (Mazarico et al., 2013) and an improved camera geometry model (Speyerer et al., 2016).

When citing this product, use the following reference: Speyerer, E. J., M. S. Robinson, A. Boyd, R. V. Wagner, and M. R. Henriksen (2020) Exploration of the lunar south pole with LROC data products. Lunar Surface Science Workshop, Abstract #5132.

The final mosaic is available in a polar stereographic projection spanning 45° from the pole and in eight different pixel scales: 100 m/pixel, 256 pixels/degree, and 128 pixels/degree, 64 pixels/degree, 32 pixels/degree, 16 pixels/degree, 8 pixels/degree, and 4 pixels/degree. <\p>

Product Name	Resolution
WAC_ROI_SOUTH_SUMMER_100M	100 meters/pixel
WAC_ROI_SOUTH_SUMMER_256P	256 pixels/degee
WAC_ROI_SOUTH_SUMMER_128P	128 pixels/degee
WAC_ROI_SOUTH_SUMMER_064P	64 pixels/degee
WAC_ROI_SOUTH_SUMMER_032P	32 pixels/degee
WAC_ROI_SOUTH_SUMMER_016P	16 pixels/degee
WAC_ROI_SOUTH_SUMMER_008P	8 pixels/degee
WAC_ROI_SOUTH_SUMMER_004P	4 pixels/degee

Low-resolution 8-bit browse products in PNG format for this product, along with full-resolution 8-bit GeoTIFFs, are available at the following location, with names matching those of the full-resolution IMG files: http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/data/LRO-L-LROC-5-RDR-V1.0/LROLRC_2001/EXTRAS/BROWSE/WAC_ROI/WAC_ROI_SOUTH_SUMMER/

References:

E. Mazarico et al. (2013) Improved Orbit Determination of Lunar Orbiters with Lunar Gravity Fields Obtained by the GRAIL Mission, 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Abstract #2414.

E.J. Speyerer et al. (2016) Pre-flight and On-orbit Geometric Calibration of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, Space Science Reviews. doi:10.1007/s11214-014-0073-3

For more information on LROC Reduced Data Records (RDRs), please refer to the LROC RDR Software Interface Specification (SIS).

WAC South Pole Summer Mosaic