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Unmanned Spaceflight.com > All posts by a member| Posted on: Dec 7 2004, 08:46 PM | |
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Founder  Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 
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QUOTE (geoffrey.landis @ Dec 7 2004, 03:17 PM) Keith Cowling at NASAwatch pointed me to your site... yes, we're looking at the dust on the solar arrays. As I wrote to Keith (NASAwatch): I'm the one who requested the solar array images. Dust deposition on Mars is an interesting problem, both as a science question where studying dust deposition on the surface contributes to our fundamental understanding of Martian climate processes, and also as an engineering problem. There's a lot we don't know, in particular, about whether the native dust is going to form "fairy castle" structures agglomerated together by electrostatic forces, whether and to what extend water or frost modifies the dust deposition process, or whether the individual dust particles deposit separately without interacting with each other. The solar arrays are an excellent surface for studying dust deposition, since we know that all of the dust we see on the surface is dust that has been deposited since January 3 2004. That shouldn't have come as a surprise-- in the Opportunity topic, two weeks ago you you posted this: >Listening to that week+ old teleconf - I heard that they intend to inspect the front edge of one >of the solar arrays to try and identify the mechanism for array output increases ( i.e. the >cleaning events ) - I guess that means an MI obs. of them - as someone touted previously - >should be interesting -- Geoffrey A. Landis www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis Many thanks for your input Geoffrey - much appreciated! - I was wondering if perhaps the Opportunity imaging might be done in Stereo - As we saw way back in Eagle Crater - the ability to resolve topography at a microscopic level is astonishing - http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre...-B019R1_br2.jpg - if dust has settled into peaks or features like that - I'm sure it would be resolvable using stereo imaging. Just got to argue the case for the data budget and time involved  I read with great interest your Pathfinder results some time ago - I dont think anyone would have predicted that we'd be operating a solar powered craft on mars after a year on the surface - let alone producing 80% of the power at landing! Regards Doug |
| Forum: Spirit · Post Preview: #2524 · Replies: 19 · Views: 18754 |
| Posted on: Dec 7 2004, 04:45 PM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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QUOTE (Analyst @ Dec 7 2004, 07:51 AM) @akuo: You don’t have to compare the blueberries in the background. The file name gives you the rover position, in this case “38EV”, and it’s the same in both files, so no movement. But I think we will leave this week, hopefully. Ahh - remember - that number is simply a rover site - where it's location is reset to 0,0,0 - it can then move again near that site to do work without changing site number I think. Doug |
| Forum: Opportunity · Post Preview: #2520 · Replies: 112 · Views: 58634 |
| Posted on: Dec 7 2004, 03:16 PM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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I'd say between the Sol 326 location - and the large rocks by the '3' of 326 on this http://s02.imagehost.org/view.php?image=/0...rit_311-326.jpg Doug |
| Forum: Spirit · Post Preview: #2514 · Replies: 663 · Views: 767566 |
| Posted on: Dec 7 2004, 09:55 AM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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I've only got 1.3 gig of MER stuff at the moment With most of the panoramas and things that I've done - I downloaded a couple of dozen jpgs to a folder on my desktop - made the panorama - then deleted the folder as I knew I'd have to start over when it came to PDS releases. When it comes to PDS releases, I tend to download only what I want, but when its >2meg an image - a 3 x 3 mosaic in RGB can end up being 54 meg before working on it Still none of the mpl and other calibrated image formats for sols 30-90 that we saw with sols 1-30 on the PDS yet  Doug |
| Forum: Tech, General and Imagery · Post Preview: #2512 · Replies: 43 · Views: 28863 |
| Posted on: Dec 6 2004, 11:20 AM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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Took me a while to find this again :0 http://www.copperas.com/merpx/ courtesy of JM -and also in the 'bounce rock in colour' thread - discussion of calculating drive distance based on track width in navcam views:D Anyhoo - was thinking "wow - thats a lot of metres over the past couple of weeks - So - using this - http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...00P1755R0M1.JPG Anyhoo - I make it roughly 200 metres +/- 20m to the turning point we can see at the base of the spur over there. I assume that's sol 328 as this image http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...0P1755L0M1.HTML is 327 - and ranging shows a distance of 140 metres +/- 11metres Thus - a drive distance of 60 metres roughly Some pancam images back toward Clovis would be good to use with JM's parallax calculator Doug |
| Forum: Spirit · Post Preview: #2498 · Replies: 1 · Views: 4556 |
| Posted on: Dec 5 2004, 04:41 PM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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| Forum: Spirit · Post Preview: #2496 · Replies: 3 · Views: 6943 |
| Posted on: Dec 4 2004, 09:14 PM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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Finding the saw-tooth tracks entertaining, I thought I'd try and replicate them with my hotwheels sojourner model using a grey baking tray, and some salt By pushing the model from behind, but slightly off-centre, I simulated the effect of having only two driven wheels on the left, and three on the right  Almost uncanny  Notice that the saw tooth is there on both sides, but is more verbose on the side with 3 driven wheels - which would explain the heavy saw tooth on the left, but less on the right in the navcam image.http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...00P1755L0M1.JPG I may try it with my lego rover and more salt on the patio tomorrow Doug |
| Forum: Spirit · Post Preview: #2494 · Replies: 3 · Views: 6943 |
| Posted on: Dec 4 2004, 08:45 PM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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| Forum: Spirit · Post Preview: #2493 · Replies: 0 · Views: 3227 |
| Posted on: Dec 4 2004, 07:58 PM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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 A little self reflection it would appear - thats a navcam image showing the IDD deploying the MI on the FR solar array ( there's two more as well ) results are...    Quite what can be determined from this I dont know - as I dont believe we have a reference image of the arrays way back at landing time - but a comparison between Opportunity and Spirit will happen I'm sure - as Opportunity will probably be commanded to do a similar exercise over the w'end Doug |
| Forum: Spirit · Post Preview: #2492 · Replies: 19 · Views: 18754 |
| Posted on: Dec 4 2004, 07:53 PM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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Seems normal to me As it drags the FR wheel behind it, the tendancy will be to turn the whole vehicle to the left. After about a 50cm drive, it then corrects this drift by turning, in situ, to the right - then driving again so you get | ..| .....| ........| ..........\ --- ----- ....| ......| .........| -------- ...| .....| ........| etc etc ( ignore the . just look at the | and - ) Remember, the tracks you're seing are the FL and FR wheels - which are at the BACK of the rover when it drives. IT's obviously more common for this to happen on dustier areas than on more pebble ridden areas - as there's less saw-toothing to the tracks from those two rock backwards - but lots of it after that - in a more dusty area Doug |
| Forum: Spirit · Post Preview: #2491 · Replies: 9 · Views: 10956 |
| Posted on: Dec 3 2004, 07:41 PM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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As the great man said "I think there's every chance we'll see some in-situ on that transition over the w'end"  Doug |
| Forum: Opportunity · Post Preview: #2482 · Replies: 112 · Views: 58634 |
| Posted on: Dec 3 2004, 02:47 PM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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QUOTE (Pando @ Dec 3 2004, 12:44 AM) I think nobody knows where exactly the cruise stage ended up after the lander module detached from it. It could be quite far away... or even still on orbit. Oh - no - the Cruise Stage will have entered the martian atmosphere shortly after the entry vehicle, a short while afterwards. Weather any surviving components will have landed short or long comapred to the rovers themselves ( I'd expect long ) - I dont know Also - I think those 'streaks' are just reflections of the sun comign of the slightly imperfect surface of the solar array cover slips Doug |
| Forum: Opportunity · Post Preview: #2477 · Replies: 112 · Views: 58634 |
| Posted on: Dec 2 2004, 10:10 PM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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QUOTE (YesRushGen @ Dec 2 2004, 06:56 PM) Incidentally, totally off this topic... Was the cruise stage of the MERs expected to completely burn up when it entered the atmosphere? Would any component of them have survived to the the surface? Not sure - I wouldnt be suprised to see the fuel tanks make it all the way - the tanks on Delta II second stages often make it to the ground here on earth Doug |
| Forum: Opportunity · Post Preview: #2462 · Replies: 112 · Views: 58634 |
| Posted on: Dec 2 2004, 11:39 AM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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Just a thought - you could use PTGui with like, a 1 degree f.o.v. setting (or lower ) and then let autopano do the matching for you  How about posting a few of the frames in that stitch here, and we can all have a go and compare notes on results?Doug |
| Forum: Tech, General and Imagery · Post Preview: #2441 · Replies: 28 · Views: 18452 |
| Posted on: Dec 2 2004, 11:24 AM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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Oh - book wise will still be manual - there's no other way to go - especially w.r.t. horizons and stuff. BUT This - with 'enblend' - (which I hadnt seen earlier ) saves a lot of time and produces astonishing results for previewing panoramas to check for their worth, and doing big stuff for the web It even managed to pull off a good navcam pan in 2 mins Doug |
| Forum: Opportunity · Post Preview: #2440 · Replies: 18 · Views: 13563 |
| Posted on: Dec 2 2004, 10:58 AM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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Never seen autopano before - all my stuff has been done with manual control points On a 4 x 3 panorama, thats 17 different overlaps that I've done between 3 and 6 points for each - so roughly 100 control pointsAnd all that time autopano was screaming "I'll do it - you go and have a cup of tea "Doug |
| Forum: Opportunity · Post Preview: #2438 · Replies: 18 · Views: 13563 |
| Posted on: Dec 2 2004, 09:52 AM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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EXCELLENT stitching work on that - your software really does produce the goods - just need to get balance between images right ( which is near impossible with the jpl jpg's ) Doug |
| Forum: Opportunity · Post Preview: #2436 · Replies: 18 · Views: 13563 |
| Posted on: Dec 1 2004, 05:28 PM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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Yup - I always wondered why they paid so much attention to Burns Cliff - when the whole entry position was sold to us on the premise of being the same strata of rock, just nicely laid out for us They wont be out today - FH and RH images, with a few N images are the usual end-of-drive sequence. I think there's every chance we'll see either some in-situ on that transition over the w'end - or a climb back to the rim and a new panorama sequence over the w'end Doug |
| Forum: Opportunity · Post Preview: #2421 · Replies: 112 · Views: 58634 |
| Posted on: Dec 1 2004, 01:11 PM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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I bought PTGui a year or so ago as a matter of course. I find it SO good that I considered the price to be a bargin Doug |
| Forum: Tech, General and Imagery · Post Preview: #2405 · Replies: 28 · Views: 18452 |
| Posted on: Nov 30 2004, 08:35 PM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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QUOTE (Analyst @ Nov 30 2004, 06:29 PM) Hello everybody, I’am happy to have found this board. It’s full of information (and some speculation) you can’t get at the official website. But you already know this. I ask myself why are the guys at JPL so lazy in putting new infos (status reports, maps) online? You (in the US) pay for this tax. Where are the latest pictures (haz- and navcam) of Opportunity from? Is there a release before they are put on the official site, because the latest at JPL are from sol 298? I believe they press on for the heatshield and exit this week?! Analyst from Germany (excuse my English) The main reason we dont get many updates from JPL is because they're now running on very little money. It's the minimum number of staff running normal 9-5 hours and it doesnt leave much time to do the publicity side of things. As for the raw imagery - we all look here - http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/ - it's very very quickly updated sometimes. Doug ( from England, it's not my tax money ) |
| Forum: Opportunity · Post Preview: #2399 · Replies: 112 · Views: 58634 |
| Posted on: Nov 30 2004, 04:11 PM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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Would be interesting to visit a rat-hole to see if/how much dust has moved around Doug |
| Forum: Opportunity · Post Preview: #2393 · Replies: 112 · Views: 58634 |
| Posted on: Nov 30 2004, 03:05 PM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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NEARLY there http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...D7P1311L0M1.JPG I think it's done quite a long drive actually - 5 - 10m, straight past that white paved exit road, and much closer to Karatape (I knew it )On this LARGE image - http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre..._cyl-B296R1.jpg I'd put them right on the right hand edge - about 295 degrees and at about 0 elevation. Not a full on Karatape exit - but it will cross it's own track marks just outside the crater on the way to the heatshield - as remember it circled round the southern half of the crater as far as Burns Cliff before going in. Right - I've done some REALLY bad images that depict what I THINK is the route the old girls taken since entering - very very roughly   Maybe I'm really wrong - but it's been difficult to keep track of what it's been doing to be honest Doug |
| Forum: Opportunity · Post Preview: #2390 · Replies: 112 · Views: 58634 |
| Posted on: Nov 30 2004, 03:02 PM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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You could simply go along the PTGui/Panotools route - telling it the info about the camera, and then render out a panorama of one image Repeat for all the images and then you're good to start stitching in Photoshop.you MAY find that Panotools helps - no harm in trying - but I doubt it'll work too well. Doug |
| Forum: Tech, General and Imagery · Post Preview: #2389 · Replies: 28 · Views: 18452 |
| Posted on: Nov 30 2004, 11:34 AM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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oh - and by the way - that lot alligned VERY well as I see it - excellent stuff! Doug |
| Forum: Tech, General and Imagery · Post Preview: #2381 · Replies: 28 · Views: 18452 |
| Posted on: Nov 30 2004, 10:07 AM | |
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14457 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1
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Thing is - with orbiter imagery - it's not particularly valid to use something like Panotool etc - because it's not a panorama from a fixed camera. The camera's moving. Quite quickly - and infact the camera probably isnt changing it's pointing at any point in that series of images at all. When that's the case, I'm affraid photoshop is probably your best answer - unless you use one of the panorama programs to reproject the image using the focal length and f.o.v. of the galileo camera which may give you something slightly easier to align! Doug |
| Forum: Tech, General and Imagery · Post Preview: #2378 · Replies: 28 · Views: 18452 |
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