Chandrayaan-2 Initial Data Release

On December 24, 2020 ISRO released the first batch of data from scientific payloads of their second lunar orbiter.

Data files can be downloaded from their dedicated portal but it is not easy to visualize them. Here I put some of them, in a way that is easier to explore. Check it out!

OHRC

OHRC is a visible light imager capable of 25 cm/pixel resolution from the nominal 100 Km orbit. The detector is sensitive enough to pick up dim scattered/reflected light from shadowed regions.

ISRO released 3 OHRC observations, two from February (two hours apart, so from two consecutive orbits) and one from August. The first two show significant motion blur at native resolution, while the August one is the most sharp. All 3 are from the southern hemisphere, and each covers a 3x25 Km region.

Click below to browse the available observations up to native resolution. Also use the slider to increase brightness and take a look where the ground was supposed to be in shadow!

ch2_ohr_ncp_20200229T0739312111_d_img_d18
ch2_ohr_ncp_20200229T0938004033_d_img_d32
ch2_ohr_ncp_20200824T1003365280_d_img_d18
TMC-2

TMC-2 is a visible light stereo camera; it images the same area from 3 different angles and that allows to create 3D models of terrain elevation.

ISRO released 40 triplets, plus derived DEMs (at 10 m/pixel) and orthophotos (at 5 m/pixel) from each triplet. The observations are from the equatorial region, from about 30S to 30N and each covers approximately a 20x830 Km area.

Here is one TMC-2 DEM (ch2_tmc_ndn_20200209T1814138844_d_dtm_d18) that I processed into a color shaded relief. In this one elevations range from -2500m to +2500m, colored from gray to orange.

This is the corresponding orthophoto product (ch2_tmc_ndn_20200209T1814138844_d_oth_d18), both can be explored up to full resolution.