Working off a spectrum is fine - if you have L2,3,4,5,6,7 - but when you just have L2, 5, 7 or L4,5,6 - youre best bet is always going to be just merging them as channels in photoshop - the challenge is - how to best represent the actual wavelenghts of the filters for each of those images - especially L2 and L7. I've got the RAD files properly converted using teh neuences of each filter now - I'm getting images very similar to that of nasa - just slightly colourifically different if I use L2 or L7 instead of L4 and L6 respectively. L4,5,6 comes out PERFECTLY



- one of my favorite images of the whole mission - theres two frames there - L4,5,6

However



- this is using L2,5,6 - see the slight hue to the image compared to the NASA PAO release - that's almost certainly due to the difference between L2 and L4. I guess I could just sort out a levels-set that compensates that much - and ditto for L257 as well - but I'd rather represent each level more accurately.

Doug

Looks to me like they've done it - a full NAVcam panorama. Not Pancam. No point in another 3 sols of UHF being lost to the third colour panorama of Endurence crater.

And yes - I see no reason why one wavelength wouldnt spot the etched terrain off in the distance and bring it out very brightly - it shows up - like most rock in the area - very bright in the UV.


Might we be seing that feature even from this distance?


1m/pixel of the next few sols driving.

Going on the image time- it would appear that Oppy was re-born at 18:25 GMT today.

That's 322 days and 12 hrs since it's very first image - which was taken on Sol 1 at 14:47 local. It is now Sol 315 - Opportunity has outlived its design life by 225 sols, or 350%

Pando - I dont know if a special rush was put on getting those to the Exploratorium pages - but if it was ( or even if it wasnt ) can you give your 'contact' a very big thankyou on behalf of all of us!

Doug

Ohh - such sweet, flat, WONDEROUS driving terratory



I wonder how the power situation will change there. On the southern inside of the crater near Burns cliff - it was north tilted and got good power - on the easter edge - it got western tilt and now, on the outside of the western edge - it gets western tilt. Would be interesting to see how many WHr's it's getting now

Doug

A watched file listing never updates Andy anyway - your ctrl and r button will wear out

Doug

Anyone got any ideas as to better represent each image in an RGB sequence so as to better represent the wavelength at which it was taken. i.e. L2 isnt classic R (255,0,0) L5 isnt G (0,255,0) and L7 isnt B ( 0,0,255 ) - so to truely use the images we get in the most appropriate way - we need to use different channels - or perhaps a combination of layers multiplied by something etc etc.

http://www.mxer.com/sandbox/wavelengthtoRG...lengthToRGB.exe rather excellently converts from wavelength to RGB value as a starter for ten.

Any ideas?

Doug

Just thought I'd start a new thread dedicated to crater - to - heatshield fun

We SHOULD see Oppy out of it's hole in the next 12 hours or so!

doug

Whilst the spherical distortion on this exagerates things a little - this image does show the slope that Spirit has been traversing along - quite suprising really!

Doug

I think spirit drove last weekend at some point

They can plan a drive for a sunday - but not for a sat - because you cant schedule IDD or remote work after a drive without knowing where you are

Doug

Well - UHF passes are typically 4pm local - and it's almost 9 local now - so it'll be 22:00 GMT before the pass - probably midnight before we see the results on the exploratorium

Doug

It's also used for atmospheric opacity measurements as well

See here..
http://anserver1.eprsl.wustl.edu/anteam/mera/mera.htm

They can also gauge distance travelled etc using innertial navigation - that's the way they generate the little blue squiggly line that you see on some of the SAP screenshots showing driven distance.

ALSO... You can use doppler from MGS and M0 UHF to estimate distance

And local features ( there are quite a few on the way south - eagle-like craters, fram like craters etc etc )

Doug

It's about 150 metres away

Doug

They've ratted it
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/mi...46P2936M2M1.JPG

I think they should brush and rat the BACK of it - which slice across some layers - not the top of it which just slices down thru them.

Doug

Maybe?

http://imaginemars.jpl.nasa.gov/about/webcast_20041209.html

I know it was aimed for kids - but it's actually really good!

Doug
(PS - I'm not the doug who asks about Airbags

Spirit's brushed the rock it stopped near yestersol



Looks a HELL of a lot like adirondak to me! - compare the MI image of the Adirondak brushing 11 months ago...


With the brushing of this rock...



YEah yeah - ok - they're TOTALLY different - but I'm not a geologist - makes an interesting comparison however.

I assume this will be the weekend stop-over.

Doug

Like I've said - I want to build a Pancam mosaic of the Heatshield and impact hole for my Birthday. They've got till Dec 23rd

I assume the comms restrictions are DSN based with Cassini doing the T-b flypast - and/or the ironic status that the highly beneficial power-augmenting tilt actually is a nightmare for UHF passes.

Sol 315 will be a sunday though - they dont 'do' sundays


Doug

I'm not saying this because I want a piece of the action...BUT...

Might there not be scope for a select few people - in the mould of the Solar System Ambassador program - to be contracted (i.e. sign an NDA of sorts ) to the program - for free - to read the daily misison manager documentation, access the genuine raw data as used within SAP etc - and from that - develop a daily news report saying what the rover did, what it saw, and what it intends to do tomorrow. Such a system is probably to legally complex and it is too late in the day to do it for MER now I'd imagine - but for Phoenix and for MSL - I'm sure there's an argument to have the kean members of the public doing the donkey work of spreading the news regarding a mission.

Hell - I'd empty my savings and fly to JPL and do it myself - if I didnt have a mortgage to pay here in the UK

Doug

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...ountain_crash_4

Our thoughts are with those lost, and those they leave behind.

Doug

The drive from site 98 to site 99 was not very far at all.

One rock I spotted in both end-of-drive L7.R1 mosaics came out of the parallax calulator like this..

Site 98
object distance: 15.2 m, one-pixel error: 0.108 m
object dimension: 43.0 cm

Site 99
object distance: 4.296 m, one-pixel error: 0.009 m
object dimension: 42.5 cm

I used the large rock in this view for

Site 99
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...00P2439L7M1.JPG

Site 98
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...00P2438L7M1.JPG (it's right of centre)

Thus - drive distance - to quite a high degree of accuracy - 11m

Doug



and thi

Again pando - a HUGE thankyou

Doug

Looking thru the PDS data of the first 90 sols - the sheer volume of web-enabled information they produce running these things is quite astounding. It would be nice to have this stuff released mroe quickly - the daily manager reports etc - but to be honest - I think we've got complacent. The MER missions have set a new gold standard for public accesability - the raw image distribution is a revelation in itself and we had a LOT of information for a LONG time.

New stuff would be nice - but we've been spoilt as it is

LOL - yeah

"Mr Ellison was arrested by the police for having over 100,000 explicit images of 'rat holes' 'trenching' 'L7 Mosaics' and 'idd work volumes' "



Doug

I have the three Pathfinder IMP Cd's and the two Viking CD's as well - does anyone know if they're planning to release MER stuff similarly?

Doug