If you’re a high-definition TV aficionado in Canada, you’re in for a treat: HD video from a Japanese moon probe.

The Discovery Channel Canada is airing a half-hour special tonight at 8 p.m. EST (check local listings) to broadcast Return to the Moon: The First Images – a look at high-definition video of Earth’s neighbor recorded by Japan’s Kaguya lunar orbiter.

Launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in September, Kaguya and its two mini-satellites are circling the moon to conduct an in-depth survey of the lunar surface, subsurface and gravitational field. The probe is also equipped to record high-definition video and images of the moon and the Earth as it rises above the lunar surface.

JAXA has already released its first high-definition images taken by Kaguya. Japanese television broadcaster NHK will air a live program later today that will precede Discovery Channel Canada’s broadcast, which will occur during its Daily Planet science magazine show.

Former Apollo 12 moonwalker Alan Bean and researcher Junichi Watanabe, of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, will weigh in on Kaguya’s HD video and imagery during Return to the Moon. You can learn more about the show (or if you’re stuck in the U.S., live vicariously) by clicking here.

Tough luck for the rest of us here in the U.S., but there is hope.

Discovery Channel Canada also produced the Mars Rising science miniseries about a manned mission to the red planet, which is airing now in the U.S. on the Science Channel.

So perhaps the moon will follow suit.