When the shed-office is finished, I have two plans for 'decorating'. One is the victoria pan on the wall behind the desk - and the other is to print all the individual pathfinder colour frames, trim them out and stick it all on the wall frame by frame

Doug

If you do the maths, and I'm sure it's just an accountants and engineers xls file that will do it..

For a given aperture you need either

A large number of small cheap dishes with a complex interconnection system
A small number of larger more expensive dishes with a less complex interconnection system

i.e. there's will be a graph - with points between 1 x 100 metre dish, and 10,000 x 1 metre dishes where the cheapest option exists....the challenge is to find that point, make it as easily deployable as possible, and then build it - or subsets of it, at various locations.

Doug

I think we're looking at getting to the 'arrival' point from which 'the' panorama is taken possibly as soon as this weekend. It would make sense in terms of sequence writing restrictions ( i.e. every Sunday being restricted in some way )

Doug

And as I sit with a hand under my chin tapping a finger...

"....as I predicted...."



Post 18 - this thread.

DOug

We HAVE seen the first Jupiter image - and we are a LONG way from worrying about the NH Pluto encounter - and being an encounter over a period of a few weeks, it's not analogous to MER or Cassini.

There are reasons to be upset over some things, but NH imagery is not one.

'ETH' is a thumbnail ' EFF' is full frame. 'EDN' is a downsample frame ( i.e. a 512 x 512 or 256 x 256 frame ) and 'ESF' is subframe ( i.e. just the sundial, just the sun etc )



Doug

The absolute record, with perfect terrain and a 100% healthy vehicle is 220.

With half the power, one broken steering actuator.... I would aruge that the very most we could dream of is 150m in any one sol.

Doug

You have it right. I know it's confusing, but basically, the view is quite similar to Endurance, just scaled up

Dogu

Quick Q for you Mike - you've mentioned anti vign. processing... where does MMB put images that have been 'done' in that regard - or is it only an on-the-fly process during pan-viewing?

Doug

An impact - but not a HUGE one - most of the downlink for MRO is 34m based. There are 14 Xband 35m passes per week, and only 3 70m passes. Yes - higher speed with the 70m, but given that it's only 3 passes, they can be offset away from the down-dish.

Colin Clark should be picked up on this one... "a result of a longer than planned shutdown of one of the three antennas that comprise Deep Space Network (DSN),"

The DSN is only 3 dishes is it Colin?... that's just lazy journalism..Each of the three sites has at least four dishes, and a total of 15 I believe.

However there is no doubt that the DSN is in need of serious investment - a good case could be made for several more 35m's at each site - that could be used in an array ( as has already been demonstrated ) for the typical 70m requirements. A concerted effort across the whole network (perhaps even internationally) to build perhaps 6 or 9 identical dishes to reduce costs would be a wise move.

Doug

Now that I didn't know - and ineed it puts something of a a new spin on the multiple occasions when she has objected in one way or another to the use of the JPG's that go online.

I don't think anyone has tried to do anything more than go "oh - look at that" and "oh - isn't that pretty" with Ciclops imagery - and as a result I just can not understand the root cause of her objection. There's no attempts to trump people scientifically ( because we all know the limitations of the JPG's )

Everything done with the JPGs (and the PDS releases that follow) serves to acknowledge and promote the instrument and it's results.

And when one constrasts this attitude to the one we see from the MER team, you have to wonder why the two teams ( which have overlap ) are so contrasting in their attitudes toward the amateur enthusiast.

Doug

"I'd like to thank the members of UMSF without whom this book would have been finished a good deal sooner"



Doug

What more could they possibly have done. They took all the pictures they could, they explained it time and time again in several press confs.

If people don't want to listen - that's not NASA's fault. They HAVE put the facts out there.

Doug

I would say around 25 - 28 metre drive - leaving us perhaps 20 metres from the 'rim'. The 'rim' is a fairly fuzzy target from this distance as it is not really a discreet 'point' anymroe.

Doug

They didn't know what it was so it could have been hazardous to have 'got'

They would have to rendezvous with the thing, but they didn't know the exact orbit of the thing, which direction it was heading etc etc - so they couldn't have caught up with it.

If they HAD been able to specify an orbit for it, design and conduct various rendezvous manouvers to match up with the thing - they would have had to conduct a dangerous and unnecessary space walk to collect it. It's nothing to do with money and all to do with feasability and risk.

I'm sorry - I do NOT want astronauts lives put at risk for a pointless bit of garbage. People suggesting that they should have done need a SERIOUS reality check.

To start putting astronauts lives un-necessarily at risk because of the whim of some conspiratorial nutcases is just absurd and below a joke. One might have to start questioning intelligence on THIS planet before suggesting there's some elsewhere.

Doug

Well - 8 pancam frames can cover approx 2.5 - 3 Navcam f.o.v's - so I think it will be at least all of the two full frames we can see now .
Attached - a rough Pancam f.o.v. over the top of the two nav frames. 6 would cover those two.

Doug

It's not uncommon for the images to be spread over 2, 3 or more hours. There's a full 10 frames of Navcam and 8 of Pancam in the offing, it's just a matter of when they'll come down.

Doug

ctrl refresh ctrl refresh ctrl refresh ctrl refresh ctrl refresh ctrl refresh

Well - another 50 minutes wait now

Doug

Not the first time CP has responded negatively to people using the raw images that get put online.

Compare to Nov. last year when JB was on Planetary Radio - commenting on how he though it was great that people were making their own colour images and mosaics from MER.

It's a pity that CP doesn't see the benefit and seems to think the world is hell bent on trying to trump her scientifically. We're not - we just want to have the best view of things we can, as soon as we can, as often as we can. If that means that someone ends up producing a beautiful mosaic or colour composite before the Ciclops team does....then I'm sorry - that's just the way it is.

Doug

Oooooooooooo - harsh

Doug

Perhaps they could 'do an MGS' and image MEX with HiRISE just to make sure it's still there

Doug

'unexpected sequence' doesn't really mean unexpected. It's a set of images they didn't specifically plan - but that the flight software created. Usually this means mid-drive Navcam imagery generated as part of the mobility plan for the sol for slip-checking etc.

The Jan 31st Pancam Update (Doug 'n' Jim Show episode 2) http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/ma...vers/audio.html talks about such sequences.

Doug

I've done everything I possibly can to try and help Bob get back into the forum. I am 99.999% convinced that the problem lies with NTL ( his ISP ) rather than with the forum host.

Meanwhile - here's a few images he sent through via ngunn

Skycrane is the manouver conducted by the decent stage to deploy the rover... I think that puts the three phrases into their proper context.

Doug