That triangulation matches, by my estimation, the tall, thin, bright, shiny feature seen in these Mastcam images a week earlier.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/ms...325E01_DXXX.jpg

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/ms...044E01_DXXX.jpg

It will also be in this image once down linked at full res
http://marsmobile.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multime..._DXXX&s=590

Such as JPL perhaps where today Justin Maki, engineering camera team lead, has said a shiny rock 160m from Curiosity is a perfectly plausible explanation, as well as a possible navcam light leak or CR hits.
I appreciate your emphasis on keeping the woo out of UMSF, but your repeated demands to shut down the discussion is at odds with mainstream thinking on the issue.

No. It's also visible in two MastCam images from 6 and 8 days earlier - and it's clearly a well wind polished rock.

A large expanse of ice like that would have sublimated away long, long ago.

The rock I think we're seeing glinting is also visible in Sol 582 MastCam as well.

MR - Sol 582
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/ms...325E01_DXXX.jpg

MR - Sol 580
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/ms...044E01_DXXX.jpg

The Sol 588 observation ( visible in Right, not in Left ) is entirely consistent with an actual object being obscured by the perspective shift between the two eyes applied to the northern side of the nearby topography.

The Sol 589 observation does not have a similar topography to explain it's one-eye appearance (although a small rock on the nearby topography might explain it )

However, if one triangulates between the two observations, one finds a point on a small ridge line. That point is also visible in Sol 580 MastCam imagery that shows a tall, thing, bright rock at the exact same point ( see my first post on this thread )

This means either....


1) 2 CR hits happened to appear on two images on the same camera on two sols at different pixel locations that happens to be geometrically consistent with a tall thin bright rock see 8 sols earlier ( which is QUITE a coincidence )

2) It's an actual thing.

I'd expect M100/M35 and ChemCam imagery of the same spot to be acquired soon that should quite easily settle the matter. The object, if it's real, is approx 160 meters away.

I was absolutely 100% "It's a CR hit" when I saw them. I've done a complete 180. 589 could be a CR hit. 588 isn't. It hides behind a hill behind the two eyes. It also happens to triangulate well with the Sol 580 MastCam and 589 Navcam feature to a tall, thin shiny rock.

Well - we have one pair where the feature is clearly hidden behind a nearby hill. The other pair is more curious - it may very well be the exact same situation - more local topography occluding it in one eye. I believe it's near instantaneous - the have the same spacecraft clock time time to the second.

That glint is really nothing like the others in question - that really REALLY is a CR hit. It's nowhere near the local horizon. It's against the Gale crater wall some 25+km to the north.

My very crude take on triangulation from the two Navcam images - put me in a spot that I think is also visible in one of the Sol 580 MastCam mosaics.... perhaps the tall thin rock left of center, near the top, on that rock face, is the cause of the excitement.

Sol 580 MastCam
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/ms...044E01_DXXX.jpg

That area is also visible on Sol 572 in Navcam - and that same rock is just about visible.
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/pr...NCAM00250M_.JPG

You didn't need to annotate it. We can all see exactly where you mean. Go back over the 18 months of images from MSL or 10+ from MER and you can find anything you want. Grid patterns, circles, squares and so on. The human brain is astonishingly good at imposing patterns and so on. It, as you said, likes to join the dots. Are there are few linear features in a row that cross with another few? Yup. Is it anything special? Nope.

Not really grid like at all, and nothing like a wheel imprint. Really nothing special.

Former landing site selection meetings are fascinating. Many don't realize.... Gale was a semi-finalist for MER.... http://webgis.wr.usgs.gov/mer/images/Gale_map.jpg

Sol 580 M100 Mosaic

Full Version : http://dougellison.smugmug.com/Landscapes/...80_panorama.jpg

GigaPan version - http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/152173

It's already available -look under 'My Controls' - with automated DST etc.

If you have to ask that question - why are you posting it?

Doesn't matter if you get your delta-V from mono prop, bi prop, ion, solar sail...the navigation challenge still remains.

Navigation isn't a 'matter of software'. It's a matter of the huge, powerful and complex infrastructure of the DSN combined with comms onboard a spacecraft used as two way and indeed three-way links and regular Delta-DOR for accurate navigation. Your proposal would require quite extraordinarily accurate gravity assist for the return flight to Earth ( if the E-J-E free return trajectory is doable without significant propulsive maneuvers ) - that level of accuracy can't be coded away - it requires ground-in-the-loop hardware, comms etc.

Moreover - name a spacecraft - any spacecraft - that flew as far as Jupiter and Back - without requiring human intervention due to safe modes, TCM's, etc etc.

It's a non starter.

AND the degree of toe in, if any.

Given that it's cameras all work in a push-broom fashion.....astonishingly low.
LROC NA's field of view is (very roughly) a 5,000m by 0.5m strip.
LROC WA - approx (the filters make this a bit fuzzy) 75,000 x 1,000 m strip.
That 75sqkm of LROC WA account for about 0.000002% of the lunar surface, and of course it isn't imaging 24/7.
So -take any statistical chance of a particular area having an impact, and then factor in the likelihood of LRO seing that area at that time....pretty close to zero.
PLUS....these impacts tend to be seen on the night side of moon.....when the cameras will rarely be turned on anyway.

I do.

(but I might not have had enough Caffine when I did....so might have just been my head)

That was purely a parameter setting for the EPO pipeline of raw images. Nothing more.

Inaccurate though they may be ( and I agree with you ) - such claims come directly from the MastCam PI. Indeed - I was sat infront of him when he made them.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/25004956 - 6 minutes in.
"Since my experience is on the Earth, I like to look at things as they would look on the Earth"

His justification also centered around the fact that he thinks it looks prettier with that color treatment...and that, at some level, is probably all anyone is trying to do here.

So what's stopping you? Get GIMP installed ( totally free ) and get processing. Stuff as simple as 'white balancing' or pushing saturation etc is very trivial stuff to do. Go go go.

There are people operating spacecraft at JPL launched a decade before they were born. There are people driving Mars rovers that landed when they were in High School.

When it comes to spaceflight - you would probably change everything else before touching the electronics. Look at Phoenix - it flew with virtual Pathfinder like electronics. The RAD6000 has been flying for 14 years or so. 9 years now since the first RAD750 launch.