Google around for Quicktime Alternative and H264 and you can play these without.

FWIW - the H264 codec is well well worth it - it is superb - and something I'm seriously looking at w.r.t. HD MER stuff in the not to distant future ( cough ahem S1K celebration movie hint cough ahem )

Doug

Give that Beagle 2 was expected to create a crater ejecta of ( if you read the B2 reports ) up to 7m across I think - that sort of figure. DS2 being so small - I'd be suprised if it could be anything more than about 2m - so truth be told, in terms of MOC imagery - you'd never be able to seperate it out from the background to be honest.

Doug

Here's my Beagle Crater Itinery

Arrival Sol - final drive
+1 - part one of 180 degree Pancam mosaic ( 4 x 3 frames L256R1 ) and matching Mini TES
+2 - part two of 180 degree Pancam mosaic ( 4 x 3 frames L256R1 ) and matching Mini TES
+3 - Full filter set targetted observations and small FOV MiniTES Observations of potential targets
+4 - begin drive around Beagle Crater
+5 - continue drive around Beagle Crater
+6 - continue drive around Beagle Crater
+7 - Replicated Sol +1
+8 - Replicated Sol +2
+9 - being drive to selected IDD work space
+10 - further drive to selected IDD work space
+11 - approach drive
+12 - +18 - IDD work on selected IDD work space and full filter suite Pancam imagery toward VC
+19 - back off and remote obs of IDD work volume
Repeat +10 to +19 for further IDD targets if identified, otherwise
+20 - leave Beagle en route to VC.

The imagery from BC-Pan1 and BC-Pan2 should also be used, with a few VC-direction L2/R2's to do some moderate baseline stereo imagery of the drive to VC to give a good sense of any obsticles out to 100m or so

Of course, any mission scientist or engineer could now rip my schedule apart - which is why I'm here typing, and they're over there driving rovers

Doug

People wilth a genuine passion for and knowledge of this sphere of activity are rare...those who can tie that knowledge and passion into an ability to communicate in an entertaining and informative way ever more so. People like Mike are few and far between so he will be much missed. My thoughts are with his family and colleagues.

Doug

Obviously as part of the MPL MOC search, DS2 impact sites would probably have been covered - but I never heard much about it.

Doug

The total federal budget would be a pile of dollar bills X km tall, with the NASA budget being only X metres of that?

Doug

I used to think "ahh - HiRISE imagery will make doing route maps much better, I'm looking forward to it", now instead I think "ahh - HiRISE imagery will make Phils route maps much better, I'm looking forward to them"



Doug

Yeah - the anaglyph effect only works over a certain range I find - one has to coregister them on the point of interest - and sometimes that means you can get half a dozen anaglyphs from a single image pair

Doug

Just a thought - would recompressing to something like an H264 codec Quicktime or a WMV help?

I'm still striving to get the damn thing.

Doug

I've tried to compare the MOC image texture of the apron to other previously navigated areas...and to be honest, the best match I've found is the area between Eagle and Endurance, and about as far South as Vostok...i.e. utterly beautiful, perfect driving ground. Now it may turn out to be very different, it might be horrific - but personally, I think it could well be a perfect stunning drive straight to the rim post-corner.

Doug

Would have made sense to have started it with a bit-torrent really.

Doug

Sweet - thanks for that

Doug

It's a cloud day outside - your average large dustbin lid isn't going to cast any visible shadow when it's more than about 2m off the ground. I find it near impossible to believe that in even more hazy conditions Huygens would have caught an image of its own shadow. PERHAPS it's own heatshield after jetison if images were taken soon enough after that, but certainly not it's own shadow...it would have had to be only a few M above the ground, and I don't believe even the last image before impact shows that.

Hopefully we'll see some Huygens data on the PDS this summer, and we can be more informatively speculative

Doug

We even had a colour mosaic up at Naturaliste - I'd say a 5x2 or a 6x3 or something like that at Corner...with Victoria in the bgrnd.

Doug

The later

Doug

Don't talk about Le Mans....I am a fan of Radical and Aston Martin....and neither did too well

Doug

These two pages cover most of the 'astronomy' observations...

http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_...projects_2.html

http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_...projects_3.html

Doug

I think it's the Galileo laser-comms experiment.

Doug

Oh - I quite agree ( and mentioned earlier ) there are few parallels

The simplest way to do this sort of thing is to put a human brain in the loop.

Doug

Just a few

http://www.solarviews.com/cap/earth/earthgal.htm

I hope that they will release this thing on WMV-HD and not just DVD in the autumn, because it's STILL not hit the UK in any IMAX theatre

Doug

To be fair - it was hardly a beautiful tarmac highway....

http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge05/gran...05/dsc_3925.jpg

There are bits of the floor of Gusev crater, and almost all of Meridiani where I would rather drive my car than on that road

Doug

As I understand it - the pre-launch ellipse ( i.e. what they'll pick ) will be 'butterfly' shape becasue the geometry will change so much between the opening and closing of the launch window.

Now - as the ellipse moves from the opening to the closing position, it draws out quite a large area they have to 'certify' as suitable for landing....not easy.

More equatorial sites, the ellipse just moves around just a little.

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/do...fobjectid=36770 is quite interesting on the issue - not sure how up to date that is however. (attached - screenshot of interesting page)

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/2341.pdf as well

The phrase 'butteryfly' gets mentioned, which I believe is the shape drawn by the opening and closing ellipse
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/guest/...23_phoenix.html

Doug

I think Wales tends to get used more with the 'an area of rainforest the size of XXXX is destroyed every YYYY'



This is wandering WAY off topic - I'll tidy it up later.

Doug

Don - have you seen the results of the Darpa challenge? It couldn't be any less lab-conditions - it was quite an achievment. Loads of the entries were complete failures - but a few were superb and completed a complex course over terrain both rough and smooth, with plenty of obstacles, totally unassisted.

Doug