I cheat, and just use http://maps.google.com



Home
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=52.601171,-...52967&t=k&hl=en


Local airport
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=52.826320,-...09560&t=k&hl=en

Where we're going for Holiday in a fortnight...
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=36.744662,-...05935&t=k&hl=en




Doug

I must admit - doing mosaics with a combo of PTGui and Photoshop is a lot easier now Photoshop has the warp tool, very powerfull and usefull

Doug

Nooooo - that's a Phil-O-Sphere - Phil-O-Vision is vertical stretching

Doug

http://www.space.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/cubesat/index-e.html has a few

to be honest, they're terrible, but it's the thought that counts

Take enough of them...

As I understand it - XI-V is one of the development models for XI-IV (which emailed me lovely earth pics every now and again ) - but with a better, 320x240 camera.

Of the three - UWE has been detected fine, NCube2 may have had a beacon signal detected, no news from XI-V yet.

Strangely, NCube 1 was a failure, but they've taken it's engineering model camera and adapted it for SSETI itself - 1280x1024 images with approx 100m/pixel resolution.

Doug

L1 is usually used for an albedo type observation in conjunction with an orbiter...i.e. it looks this bright HERE, and that bright from up THERE, so we can interpolate actual surface brightness across more of the planet.

But damn - it looks like it's out of focus doesnt it? I hate L1

Doug

And with it - three new cubesats

Doug

I disagree.

Yes - we have a very poor understanding of anything other than recent history, but because the means to record, archive and document things that happened did not exist in the way it does today.

Doug

For what purpose? It'll just be sat in the inner solar system, probably end up getting crashed onto an asteroid as an extended mission. If the ability ever exists to find and retrieve it, then we'll have no need for the information.

PS - you can be the one to take a few tens of grammes of RCS prop. out to carry the mass of your info-store at the expense of a few extra days of extended operations

As a Plan.Soc. member, yes, I'd support spending money for the adition of information to misisons leaving the solar system, but I would rather not see money wasted in doing similar exercises for inner solar system missions.

Doug

Ahh - I think what happened was that he uploaded an image with one post, but didnt put any content in it - and I accidentally deleted that post as it said something along the lines of duplicate or delete or something on it.

T - you might want to re-attach the attachment to another post.

Doug

Eeek - not sure I like where this thread will end up going, but let's see what happens. Play nice boys

Doug

Well - MEX can do about 6 - 12m res in colour, but the suposed 1.5m res super resolution channel is really really crappy, and can actually get about half of that.

Given MEX's orbit and it's visiting of any one site on mars less regularly than MGS, and it's resolution to MGS, MGS is by far the better spacecraft to do this sort of thing.

Doug

Here it is with its next door frame, not a lot of colour imaging being done, but then I'd rather they just did imaging dedicated to good driving. 40m+ is great in these conditions. -
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_images/erebus_3.jpg

Doug

The dynmaics of something as complex as the cruise stage entering the martian atmosphere is almost un-calculatable.

And iirc, there was a distance of several tens of km's between the cruise stage and the entry shell before entry.

Doug

They're the pancam and navcam electronics boxes. They contain circuitry for the cameras. There's one for each of the four Hazcams as well, and the MI ( it's on the end of the IDD, we saw a cool picture taken by a Hazcam, of itself, reflected in the MI's electronics box once) and the DC (it's on the empty lander)

You can see the two Navcam ones in the middle there ( one is 'upsidedown' compared to the other ) and the Pancam ones are at 90 degrees to them, tucked in at each end.

Lots of pictures like this one...


Here ->
http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_...ng_testing.html

Doug

We dont know that

If they went up range, then how could they not make it this far.

I'm just suggesting it as a possibility - there's possible other reasons, obviously. I thikn they warrant some closer inspection.

Doug

And neither is the cash - this isnt a BIG budget mission.

I appreciated the motive, but to be honest, there's little point in putting something on NH as no one's going to see it again. There's no point putting something on a solar system spacecraft because if someone does see it again, they've come from this planet to see it.

And it may seem like a fickle, quick, easy thing to impliment, but you would not BELIEVE how much it would cost to flight qualify and buid something to bolt on there.

Doug

So where did the cruise stage remains impact then

Doug

Consider the 4 big budget genuinely deep space missions ( Voyager 1, 2 and Pioneer 10 and 11 ) - they have included imporant data.

But a mission constrained to the solar system, well, it's pointless.

Doug

Ahh - THAT'S Haskin ridge, I thought it was something way down the East spur.

See your point now - that'll be fun

Doug

Another drive...

Before
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...00P0635L0M1.JPG

after
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...00P0655L0M1.JPG

You might be able to spot a small black triagular rock in both shots that demonstrates the progress, probably the same as the last one I'd have thought. Good driving terretory all the way out here - I could imagine some really big drives soon - 50+

Doug

I cant imagine enough convection on mars to keep a raindrop elevated long enough for a good sized hailstone to form.

It beats me though - one would have thought that the dunes are active and that something like this wouldnt last long.

Are we seing the results of the cruise-stage entering behind the spacecraft? Small components making into the surface and bouncing out, and the resultant crater being 'softened' over 600 sols by wind?

Doug

There are smaller, similar-from-MOC-images patches seen on the south slopes to the north of Husband hill - just depressions that collect the stuff, just like Bonneville has.

Doug

I tink 900 sols and 6000 m would be a major milestone - that would be exceeding the two main mission requirements by an order of magnitude

Doug

It's in this forum somewhere - the search tool will probably help. I dont think the exact algos have been diulged, but they were improved upon.

Doug