WAC Global Morphologic Map

The WAC global mosaic is comprised of over 15,000 images acquired between November 2009 and February 2011. The WAC maps the whole Moon in one month, however the solar incidence angle at the equator changes about 28° from the beginning to the end of the month. To even out the incidence angle variations, the mosaic is comprised of data collected over three periods (2010-01-20 to 2010-01-28, 2010-05-30 to 2010-06-06, 2010-07-24 to 2010-08-07) (Table 1). Some gores were filled with data taken at other times between 2009-12-10 and 2011-01-31; complete image lists for each tile are available under "Supplementary Downloads". The non-polar images were map projected onto the GLD100 (WAC derived 100m/pixel DTM) while polar images were map projected on the LOLA shape model (80° to 90° N/S) and the GLD100 (60° to 80° N/S). Accurate positioning of each WAC image was ensured using ephemeris provided by the LOLA and GRAIL team and an improved camera geometry model (Speyerer, E.J. et al, 2014, Pre-flight and On-orbit Geometric Calibration of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera). To reduce brightness discrepancies across image boundaries, all images were corrected to a common photometric geometry using a Hapke model with model parameters varying across the Moon (Sato, H. et al, 2014, Resolved Hapke parameter maps of the Moon). This mosaic uses only the 643 nm band of the WAC.

The WAC global mosaic is archived in ten regional tiles at three different resolutions: 100 meters/pixel, 256 pixels/degree, and 128 pixels/degree. Eight of the tiles are equirectangular projections that encompass 60° latitude by 90° longitude (for the 128 pixels/degree products, these tiles extend from the equator to the pole). The remaining two tiles are polar stereographic projections for each pole from 60° to the pole.

Lower resolution products (at 64, 32, 16, 8, and 4 pixels/degree) are available in single global equirectangular tiles, centered at either 180° or 0° longitude (longitude ranges from 0° to 360° and -180° to 180°, respectively, and latitude range always from -90° to +90°). Additionally, orthographic products are available at all resolutions showing the hemispheres centered at the equator at 0°, 60°, 120°, 180°, 240°, and 300° longitude, and the polar tiles described above are also available at all resolutions. Each file is named with the following pattern (see table below for examples):
WAC_GLOBAL_[E|P]###[N|S]????_***[M|P]
where:
[E|P] indicates the map projection (E=Equirectangular or P=Polar Stereographic)
###[N|S] indicates the center latitude in 1/10th degrees North (N) or South (S)
???? indicates the center longitude in 1/10th degrees East
***[M|P] indicates the scale in meters/pixel (M) or pixels/degree (P)

When citing this product, use the following reference (but see also Wagner et al. (2015) for a brief summary of updates made in 2014):
Speyerer, E. J., Robinson, M. S., Denevi, B. W., & LROC Team. (2011). Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Morphological Map of the Moon. In Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (Vol. 42, abstract #2387). https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2011/pdf/2387.pdf

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