User:Visual Moonbounce

Visual Moonbounce is an application developed by media artist Daniela de Paulis in collaboration with the CAMRAS team at the Dwingeloo radio telescope. De Paulis approached the team with the idea of sending images to the Moon and back for her art project OPTICKS. VM uses Moonbounce technology for sending images to the Moon and back as radio signals. During each live performance of OPTICKS digital images are sent to the Moon and back in real time and projected in a hosting exhibition space. The show was also presented during Global Astronomy Month 2011 in collaboration with Astronomers Without Borders.

On 6 December 2009, as a result of De Paulis's proposal, Jan van Muijlwijk (CAMRAS team) moonbounced the very first images in collaboration with a transmitting station in Switzerland and using the dish in the back garden of his house for receiving. The very first moonbounced images show that greater improvement was needed, after several experiments they started showing better definition. VM is becoming a popular form of communication for radio amateurs and science outreach activities.

Visual Moonbounce requires two large radio stations and suitable Moon conditions in order to take place. The images are converted into sounds by the MMSSTV software, these are sent to the Moon as radio signals and reflected by its surface. The moonbounced radio signals are scattered in all directions and partly received by a large antenna. The signals are reconverted into the original sounds using the MMSSTV software, then into the original images. Moonbounced images show some noise or distorsion, this is caused by the great distance travelled by the signals -nearly 800.000 Kilometres- and by the fact that the Moon is not a great reflector.

Sources: https://www.opticks.info https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/LEON_a_01098 https://web.archive.org/web/20230324033354/https://www.camras.nl/woordenlijst/visual-moonbounce https://www.microwavers.org/eme2012/eme/psa.html