The latest pancams show some interesting bumps on the far horizon as well as long 'swells' on the plain that might respond well to 'phil-o-vision'. Time for the 'Distant Vistas' team to resume work? I'm not going to attempt the first identifications as I have little idea what azimuths we're looking at. Also I don't know what visibility to expect with the current dust levels.
By jingo - you're right... here's a stretched look at the western horizon. IDs will have to wait a bit.
Phil
Well I think it's likely that the central hazy feature is Bopolu.
Dusting off my 'inverse polar' analysis with my id's of a couple of more nearby craters.
Good! And in addition, in the right foreground is a broad shallow depression visible in both pan and map.
Phil
I guess you all remember how we used to see Victoria coming from Endurance? Yes, the BEACON!
Any chance we could see a cliff of Victoria acting as a beacon...if the MER team is ever to command Oppy to take a picture by early morning?
Vikingmars. fredk, climber: I have something to add here, an enlarged (2x) and stretched (2x) crop of http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2006-09-26/1P212524999EFF76CNP2386L7M1.JPG sol 950 pancam, or rather the equivalent anaglyph, showing exactly those few pixels of Cape Tribulation and some peaks to the south of it.
I think this was the highest location where Cape Tribulation ever was visible at Victoria, and the image represents something like the topmost 10-15 m of the Endeavour rim peaks seen from ~18 km away. Conversely, the high craggy wall of Cape St. Mary facing us now could be just discernible from the summit as a mere sliver of the whole with 1-2 pix of vertical extent, unless the horizon comes between even worse than I imagine and/or the weather renders visibility too poor.
(Edited for style and to correct minor errors.)
As amazing as it sounds, I'm pretty sure that that bump just peeking above the horizon in marswiggle's post is a piece of the rim of Iazu, rather than Tribulation. The sky was extremely clear at that time. And Iazu should actually look a bit higher than Tribulation from Victoria.
Compare the view from 1820 (upper part of my new pic below, from James's post), when we got our first clear view of Tribulation with the bump in marswiggle's post (lower part):
Wow, fredk, never thought of that possibility. Another consideration, the azimuths from sol 950 location to the highest peaks of Endeavour / Iazu (using Google Mars) pretty much converge to each other, could they even be blended into one and the same blurred shape here? Admittedly, the shape in my previous post is largely similar to the Iazu outline, which does not exclude the possibility that Tribulation is 'shadowed' by the more distant rim.
Yikes, you may be right. Here's the Duck Bay - Iazu line of sight, showing it does come very close to Tribulation:
I don't know if this has been noticed before. In the attached (enhanced) pancam image taken on sol 3873, there is a very faint hill. I tried to bring it out somewhat (noise removed, fiddled with curves in Photoshop). The direction is over the plains, to the right of Cape Tribulation. Could it be Bopolu crater? On the other hand, it doesn't seem wide enough for that.
I've been eyeing that feature for several sols - notice how the view has improved since 3863: we have climbed substantially since then and can see much more of the feature:
http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/gallery/all/1/p/3863/1P471125576EFFCJL1P2426R1M1.JPG
This is too far to the south to be Bopolu and has the wrong shape - here's an old view of Bopolu:
I've been watching that too and thinking it might be Miyamoto. I'd expect the 'mule ears' to be lined up to appear as one from where we are now. But I have no handle on the azimuths so that was a wild guess. It would be exciting to be seeing an even more distant feature but I'd find that surprising given the curvature of the planet. Might be worth checking the theoretical visibility with Google Earth Mars
A crude estimate from the pancams puts the main peak 40 to 45-ish degrees to the right of Tribulation summit which I think is about right for the combined 'Mule Ears'. Also I think there is a long low distant horizon feature well to the left in that same image. This could be the nearer hills we were originally looking for in that general direction when the 'Mule Ears' popped up instead.
Based on the Azimuth and size I think it is probably this:
Do you mean that is the main peak showing in the image charborob posted? That's the feature I thought might be the lower hills I referred to in my post just before yours. The trouble with those hills being the main peak visible in charborob's image is that if they were that big we should have seen them before when we first saw the 'Mule Ears'.
Yes I think that is the horizon feature charborob posted. Back in 2010 when we were looking at the 'Mule Ears' we didn't have a great view on that azimuth. It sits in a bit of a dip and we had a closeish horizon in that direction back then. Now it looks to be much more favourable. I don't think the azimuth is right to be the 'Mule Ears', if we got the ID right back in 2010 they should be about half a Pancam frame further to the right.
OK, thanks. I'm glad you're in on the hunt. If you're right we should have a great view of the Miyamoto rim just a bit to the right of what we see now. It's not much further away than than this feature. Maybe there is already something visible at the extreme right of the image. I've been scutinising that but everything darkens there so it's difficult to say. I hope you will have time to provide us with one of your wonderful reverse polar horizon analyses when we reach the summit.
Yeah really looking forward to the summit pan, that should nail things down. I wonder how good the view will be though. I don't think the visibility is all that great, else I we should be able to see more of Miyamoto right now.
Clear view forward: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/navcam/2015-01-07/1N473881179EFFCKDGP1870L0M1.JPG
YES ! Incredible ! We are now standing at the very summit of Cape Tribulation !
Here is the view towards the south : we are indeed standing at the topmost point.
I could not imagine such a feat in 2004 for the Opportunity mission in my wildest dreams...
CONGRATULATIONS to the MER team !
My take on this breathtaking and monumental vista. A truly wonderful achievement for the whole MER team.
https://flic.kr/p/qHuyU5
Polar:
https://flic.kr/p/qHuzDm
1920x1080 Desktop Background
https://flic.kr/p/qqZFT5
Stunning!
This is James's panorama in circular format.
Phil
Wow oh wow! I never thought I'd see Oppy become a mountain climber!
And for the past month or so - without the use of flash memory.
Extraordinary.
Congrats to the team! 11 years after landing; well deserved.
Presumably there will be a short stay to make a big panorama?
Hi climber!(From climber)
If this isn't today's newspaper headline somewhere, then I'll be disappointed
Ha! But maybe considering the translation from 11 human years to "rover years", and Oppy's condition, the story would read:
115 year old lady, deaf and suffering from arthritis and dementia, reaches summit walking backwards.
Deaf how? The antennas are working just fine! Maybe the old girls' senses of smell and taste have declined (her spectrometers), but those eyes are as sharp as ever...
Sense of touch too is fine too; the RAT drill is still usable, right?
I guess the analogy strains when pushed a bit too far. But the important point is that it's absolutely incredible that the fiesty old "lady" has made it this far!
Go, Granny, go!
The 360 color Pancam Cape Tribulation pan has begun.
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2015-01-08/
And it's going to be epic...
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2015-01-08/1P473962313EFFCKE1P2443R2M1.JPG?sol3895
To help me keep track, I'm going to be personally using Phil's projection of my Navcam summit pan to highlight what is roughly down sofar.
For years now we have been wondering if Victoria crater would be visible from Endeavour. Well, it's too bad about the dusty sky, but if it's ever going to be visible, it will be in this pan. Look for a narrow strip along the horizon ridge. In images taken in the afternoon, the visible far rim (under Cape St. Mary) would be shadowed, so the crater should probably look dark if we see it at all.
Phil
Still some work left to be done on this segment, but here is a screenshot of the pan sofar.
https://flic.kr/p/qGtvSA
Hmm, do I want the tau to improve over the next few sols so that we can see distant hills more clearly, or do I want it to stay the same so that all the pieces of the summit panorama will be taken under similar lighting conditions?
Good question SFJCody !
On my side, I vote for the Tau improvement to see more details in the far distance, because I can play with the contrast (i.e. reduce it) in my image processing
Well Spirit held the mountain climbing height record for a good while, but Opportunity has eclipsed that too.
I'm interested in knowing the elevation we are at here. It's difficult to get actual figures. Larry Crumpler's excellent contour maps have no numbers on them (or am I wrong?). We were quite high around Concepcion crater. How high are we now relative to that point? It seems to me we descended a long way before climbing this hill.
Emily did a blog entry on MOLA tracks back in August 2010 and Conception is recorded as having an elevation of -1372m relative to Mars datum. Cape Tribulation has an elevation of -1380m so at the top of the mound near Conception Opportunity was a smidgeon higher than she is now. But relative to the approach to Cape Tribulation Opportunity climbed around 135 metres. Spirit climbed around 107 metres above the landing site but only some 82 metres above the base of Husband Hill.
I imagine this is the highest elevation she'll ever drive to.
Unless of course they manage to get down to the northern rim of Iazu.
A marathon is all very well, but achieving 100X the mission success drive goal would be something else!
If -1380 was the rover elevation, not the summit, in Crumpler's previous post then maybe the summit is at -1370, not -1390 (easy to go 10m the wrong way when counting backwards). That would make Rayl's statement correct, by a margin of 2m! It's silly really but now I've started to query it I would like to find out for sure.
Another segment, another screenshot preview. This is the false color view.
https://flic.kr/p/qtLSuT
Gasp!
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2015-01-13/1P474410193EFFCKE1P2444R2M1.JPG?sol3900
No Phil-o-vision required!
Wowsers! Finally I'm superfluous and can go back to my real love, knitting.
Very faintly visible above the ejecta of Iazu (right of centre) is a more distant ridge. It must be part of the rim of the un-named crater south of Iazu.
Phil
Good spot Phil. (I was looking at that very same area and couldn't figure it out.) Although these images will undoubtedly contribute to the complete panorama they also look like drive direction shots so presumably someone is already planning the next move.
While we're still on the top can I reiterate an earlier question: What is the elevation of this summit relative to Mars datum? Is it -1370, -1380 or -1390 metres . . or something else? Recent blog posts by Larry Crumpler and A.J.S. Rayl seem to give conflicting information. Somebody here must know definitively.
http://www.midnightplanets.com/web/MERB/image/03900/1P474410193EFFCKE1P2444R2M1.html pan segment anaglyph
Just to be absolutely sure I emailed Larry Crumpler and he confirmed that -1380 figure for the summit.
Thanks a lot ngunn.
Please, tell me if I'm wrong, but I recorded that the altitude of Opportunity's landing site is -1387m.
It means that with the -1380m figure we are now just sitting slightly above the landing site, knowing that we have travelled down a slope to reach Endeavour crater...
A local contour map from the HiRISE DTM fredk linked to. Values look good to me!
Here's another PanCam view of the distant hill in a somewhat South-West direction. This time with 2x Phil-o-vision:
Yes and the latest NAVCAM of your hill (dead centre here) shows another smaller but clearer feature about 15 degrees farther to the right plus a possible faint hint of the Miyamoto rim extending between the two.
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/navcam/2015-01-15/1N474591710EFFCKGKP0704L0M1.JPG
And thanks pgrindrod for those excellent, very readable contour maps. They're exactly what we need and I'm delighted you're still with us on this forum.
A Request: Can we please have some 'mystery men' stationed along the rim southward?
Here is a great boon for distant horizon watchers. Larry Crumpler's latest field report for 15th Jan includes a navcam panorama with an azimuth scale. The central image in the panorama is the one I linked to two posts up. This should nail the IDs of the horizon features.
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=larry%20crumpler%20field%20reports&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnmnaturalhistory.org%2Frover-field-reports-from-mars.html&ei=Ktu4VLCXIIr_Uo6ggdgH&usg=AFQjCNGq1ExTttHmVEHBq4ufRcwvu6QELA&bvm=bv.83829542,d.d24
EDIT: Apologies for the messy link. Maybe someone can replace it with a better one?
My first rough estimates for the azimuths: charborob's hill 197, possible Miyamoto rim 205, smaller closer (around 32km) hill 210. James Canvin will tell us whether this makes any sense I'm sure.
The Summit of Cape Tribulation!
https://flic.kr/p/qQbuWT
Gigapan:
http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/167859
Thank you James, just ... WOW!
James, your work is incredible! Thank you for sharing your skills!
OMG!
I am glad I have lived to see a view like this from Mars.
Thank you, James.
James, fantastic work. I assume this is 2/3 of a 360 degree view? Or is this the essentially complete pan?
I think that's got to be the whole pan, since we're not using flash at the moment so whatever's down now is all we're getting. The http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/mission/status_opportunityAll.html#sol3895 says "The project plans to implement the masking after an independent review is held later this week."
But wow, what a view!
Thank you everyone for the comments on it.
On Sol 3902 we drove about 20 meters, so I took it at that point the pan was done so I then wrapped it up. The latest update also says that it was going to be a 360, so for what ever reason I'm assuming they terminated it early. My guess is a mix of ants in their pants to drive and get a better view of Marithon Valley and the preparation for masking off the flash. I was secretly hoping for a 360 pan with the possibility of a rover deck pan. But we can't always get what we want I guess....it's a wonderful view regardless.
Boy did I bite the dust! It had not occurred to me that the image of the RAT was part of the summit pan.I was looking for that missing pointing.... http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=pia19109
Great map! Here are a couple of Navcam horizon sections from sol 3909 - with a considerable vertical stretch - st show the distant features. I think the sky is clearing a bit, but there's a long way to go.
Phil
Thanks fredk for the link to the map, and thanks to the professionals who produced it and made it available. It's exactly what we need. Phil - can you provide a context (or azimuths) for those horizon views? I've been looking hard at one part of the the horizon but I can't locate it in your images.
Finally, a pancam view in the right direction . . I think that's Miyamoto on the left, big and very faint with a smaller hill in front of it.
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2015-01-25/1P475483468EFFCLBXP2351R1M1.JPG
Phil's stretched images reminded me of something. While Opportunity is near its current "mountaintop" location in dusty conditions, is it possible that at sundown it could image the mountain-shadow phenomenon that visitors to the top of Mauna Loa often can see?
http://darkerview.com/wordpress/?p=8766
The physics being the same on both worlds, I suspect that it could, since the "point" is more of a trick of perspective and viewpoint than of the steepness of the slopes. But perhaps the altitude is not enough to obtain that perspective.
I've had a crude go at tweaking brightness and contrast to bring out the outline of Miyamoto.
Just curious. Marathon Valley has been a key objective for years and now it's potentially a few days drive away. Are there any other targets of comparable interest within a few months drive? Curious about the next big goal and the overall mission strategy after this.
<edit: sorry this is probably not the place for this discussion, but I am not seeing an obvious way to delete it>
ADMIN: No need to delete, we just moved it from the 'map' thread to here.
Iazu crater has been talked about as a future destination for a while, despite being ridiculously far away (you know, like Endeavour was when we were at Victoria).
So it's interesting to see this at LPSC:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2015/pdf/2548.pdf
Nowhere does it say specifically that it's a future destination. But a co-author is Ray Arvidson. So maybe this will be the next goal. It would be several years away.
Phil
Thanks Phil for that reference. The image on the second page is spectacular.
There is something to be said for driving Opportunity until she fails just to see how far she can go for engineering reasons. I would never bet against her at this point.
Part of my question is really about the value of other parts of Endeavor vs. Marathon Valley. Is there any other destination in Endeavor that has major incremental value after Marathon?
On the other hand....
https://twitter.com/CaseyDreier/status/562330771935883264
On page PS-43 of the budget released today (173 in the PDF):
Not again!
Picking on the little one is not nice!
Noooo!
Planetary Society's Casey Drier says this is actually routine; happened last year, but was fought over, so not a big worry yet.
If it ends up being a choice between Odyssey and Oppy, well....that's going to be a tough one.
Another glimpse of Miyamoto from sol 3921:
It's actually visible at the far right of Jan's latest Pancam panorama. (Not everyone's priority I know, but it's a lonely mountain on Mars and somebody has to love it.) I'm hopeful that as we descend towards the next crater target we may at last get a pancam view of Bopolu to 'complete the set' of distant features visible from Cape Tribulation.
LRO at least is good for 7 or 8 years - I know nothing about Odyssey.
Phil
That's an amazingly clear version - a big thanks for posting it. What did you do? Stack a load of images? Whatever it was I think it would be worth trying on the Navcams too. Miyamoto is just perceptible in some of those, and of course they extend farther west to include Bopolu also.
For Bopolu I think we may soon be able to do long baseline 3D with the other 'eye' at Concepcion.
I think so. Isn't that it on the left here, for example? http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/navcam/2015-01-25/1N475485427EFFCLBXP1828R0M1.JPG
Nice work. I think it's also visible on the right in these images from yesterday which extend over to Miyamoto too. http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/navcam/2015-02-09/1N476726083EFFCLUBP0705R0M1.JPG
There's another faint feature visible at the extreme left here (left of charborob's hill) - http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2015-02-11/1P476821257EFFCLUBP2361R2M1.JPG
I think that's likely to be the ridge that ends under the t of Miyamoto in the colour map in post 17 - http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=7934&view=findpost&p=216406 Charborob's hill is in James Canvin's red circle there.
An attempt at bringing out the faint feature noted in previous post:
The discussion of Opportunity in 2016 got me wondering when winter is, and it looks like it's the final two months of 2015 and first four of 2016, according to the nice timeline by moreInput here:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=3705&pid=217352&st=320&#entry217352
I was wondering about finding a haven if necessary, and Doppler Radio campaigns perhaps scrounging up some funds for the year.
Doesn't marathon valley run more or less east west, so if it stayed on one side of the valley you would get a good winter tilt?
Now that we have such good views to the SSW here is a link back to the orbital images of Miyamoto rim and surrounding area originally posted by Doug (and isn't it great that those links still work, unlike so many from a few years ago): http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=6438&view=findpost&p=157420
You can see charborob's hill there, among the rest. I'm still not exactly sure where the 'Mule Ears' are located in the orbital images, nor if they are identical with the two highest peaks of Miyamoto visible now, though that seems pretty likely. Whether or not we are treated to a pancam view of Bopolu on the way, we will surely lose the distant horizon soon as the geologists get down to business with the smectites in the valley.
There are some interesting features out across the plains here. I haven't checked the azimuths but I'm wondering if this is our best view so far of the Victoria-twin crater off to our southwest: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2015-02-28/1P478402348EFFCLZEP2372L2M1.JPG
Also there's something on the horizon there, possibly Bopolu.
Definitely Bopolu. I'm looking on a different monitor this morning and it shows up very clearly on this L7.
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2015-02-28/1P478402622EFFCLZEP2372L7M1.JPG
It has a longer 'tail' extending off to the left than I was expecting.
Bopolu again, though still not the rightmost part: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2015-03-05/1P478848181EFFCM29P2374L2M1.JPG
Here is a list (left to right) of all the distant features visible from Cape Tribulation. I hope it's complete, if not please add. (I will insert some relevant post numbers from this thread as edits.)
1/ Iazu, including the prominent northern bluff, nice phil-o-vision from fredk in post 33
2/ Crater south of Iazu, noted by Phil Stooke, post 59
3/ 't-ridge' left of charborob's hill, posts 110/111
4/ 'charborob's hill', noted by charborob and identified by James Canvin, posts 16 and 20
5/ Miyamoto rim, with two nearer hills in front, post 102 for the clearest view - also includes features 4 and 6
6/ Another nearer hill a few degrees to the right of Miyamoto
7/ Bopolu, with 'Victoria-twin' crater in front, posts 4 and 117
8/ '500m crater at 14Km' identified by James Canvin, post 4
We have had clear Pancam views of all of these features except for the left end of 3 (terrain obstruction) and the right end of 7 (no imaging yet).
I still hope that James will do another of his excellent reverse polar views showing all this.
Well, I don't know why these full and part frame views were acquired but it almost seems that someone wanted to complete the distant horizon survey. Here is Bopolu complete to it's rightmost flank:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2015-03-09/1P479207910EFFCM29P2377L7M1.JPG
And this looks very much like the '500m crater at 14 km':
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2015-03-09/1P479207678ESFCM29P2377L7M1.JPG
Quote James - 'It's on my list of things' - we can ask no more. (It's hardly urgent.)
Here is Larry Crumpler's oblique view of the future with distant features 1-7 from post 118 annotated in red:
Some distant features can be seen again in the latest Opportunity Sol 4686 images
I think that we see a glimpse of Iazu at left and the protruding hills from Miyamoto Crater at right.
https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/gallery/all/1/p/4686/1P544193105EFFCXGTP2387L2M1.JPG
Here below are two quick processings :
1) A first process :
Yes, I noted the visibility of 'charborob's hill' (my feature 4) here: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=8237&view=findpost&p=235123
But now since you are finding more, and while we are still just about on Cape Tribulation, it's a good idea to revisit this thread. I don't have a good grasp of what is what among the fainter features yet. Some of them may look different from this lower and more southerly location compared with the views from near the summit.
A quick look suggests these identifications. I don't have time to look more closely right now.
Phil
Agreed. Compare posts 99 and 102, this thread.
Thanks a lot Phil for your expertise
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