Extrapolate a tiny tiny force, over millions and millions of years.

What do you get? A big difference.

You even need to include things like solar pressure etc etc. Very long period orbital extrapolation is fraught with nature's subtle influence, much of which is very hard to simulate.

Every solar conjunction is a little different - but there's no reason why MSL would be out of touch any shorter or longer than Opportunity.

A simple background sequence that does meteorology each sol will probably be left running during that time.

If you read a document like this (which explains the reasoning behind the Cassini RTG's for example) - http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/safety/eisss2.pdf - you will see it's not just cost.

Massive massive solar arrays are heavier than an RTG, more complex to deploy, require accurate pointing and articulation, and constrain slew rates etc.

And - RTG's present a less expensive option. In FY93$ a solar array option for Cassini would cost around $190 - $225M.

The RTG option only cost $117M

It's not the cost of the RTG's that are the problem. It's the lack of a healthy planetary science budget.

The REMS instrument isn't a NASA/JPL instrument - it's from the Centro de Astrobiología, Spain

Again -as the PDS release schedule states
"Part 2, March 20, 2013, will include the derived data products (RDRs) for Sols 0 though 89 for the APXS, ChemCam, DAN, Hazcam, Navcam, and REMS instruments, along with both the EDRs and RDRs for the CheMin and RAD instruments, and the RDRs for the SAM instrument."

No - as the PDS release clearly states, they are releasing raw data - not the calibrated science data.

It is - as yet - of no use to us.

There are quotes from science teams saying they were already looking at it on the ground - so yes.

So as of now, img2png + MSL Navcam IMG's = no joy.

I'd imagine Bjorn's already on it

Got it again - Scope 11 of iTelescope this time. 300sec exposures
$35k of telescope and $6k of CCD...and it cost me $26 to use it for 25 minutes

Here's one of the frames, full size..... find the comet :0 http://dougellison.smugmug.com/Photography...1-W-300-002.jpg

I remember during the research I was doing for the MSL animation - Dan showed me a 3D printed version of CHIMRA. I was staggered by its elegance and complexity. These materials are an unknown, the hardware so very complex - but as Rob says....the work arounds are there to get the job done.

It's almost sad to see the last of MSL's 'Firsts'

As you can see - they're planning to observe it for several days. I'd expect results wouldn't be released until they're finished
http://gssr.jpl.nasa.gov/Calendar/month.php

That lesson was learned by Beagle 2, CoNTour, and Mars Polar Lander.

Not transmitting during EDL for the tech demonstrator is utterly idiotic.

So no one has tried taking the known diameter of the hole and the location of the shadow at the bottom in conjunction with the known local solar time to figure out the depth?

I'm travelling so can't bash out the numbers myself. It's not that hard though, surely.

A pretty picture or two wont change that - I promise you.

I'll be honest - I had a tiny insight into what life must have been like for Tombaugh. It took me half an hour to find the comet at all on the images I took 19 hrs apart with the larger T11.

I tried it back in the GRAS days - and decided to try again with a hope to imaging Juno during its flyby later in the year

I managed to bag a few shots of ISON using a couple of telescopes in the iTelescope network. This is from last night, by far my favoriate so far
http://twitpic.com/c1j5cj/full

Yes - it really is such a shame that they've not taken pictures with a great public impact.

Apart from the three self portraits - or each time they've gone back and added Mt Sharp into a panorama - or the fact we already have several MastCam 360's when actually, the plan wasn't really to get many at all.

Given the engineering contraints - ESPECIALLY as we're still comissioning the vehicle - we have, frankly, been spoiled.

One could calculate the dpeth by the position of the shadow and the local solar time.

And another observation. 5 images of 500sec exposure with iTelescope scope 5.

I'm not much of an observational astronomer - but using iTelescope scope 11 - I think I caught motion in ISON over 19 hours.

Nope - that's wheel damage. Entirely expected and nothing to worry about. These wheels will be very beaten up after a few 10km's - it'll happily keep on truckin.

Now THAT is how you colorize a Navcam pan. That's stunning.

Percussion on a rock could trigger such motion. I believe the first drill use is percussion only. Later a small drill - followed by a large drill.

If you look at http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~lemmon/mars-tau-b.html you'll see that we get basically the same peaks and troughs each year - but there's often a lag early or late depending on how the weather is doing. Regional dust storms I think can bring spikes forward or push them back.

No.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/pr...FHAZ00206M_.JPG

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/pr...FHAZ00206M_.JPG

Compare the two. It's an imaging artifact