Official Press Release on the wire-brushing just posted: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?rele...elease_2013-009... The rock target's name: "Ekwir_1"...

A quick revisit to Shaler in 3D. Finally had a chance to render these anaglyph mosaics from back at Shaler and since I didn't see any previously rendered full pano 3D versions in this thread from earlier I thought I'd post 'em. Each contain all available frames from their series, have been MC100 spot cleaned, and carefully aligned for as little eye strain as possible. I'm still discovering plenty of wonderful little geologic puzzles in these. There were four dedicated MC34/MC100 color stereo pairings on Sols 120 and 121 and full resolution versions of all four are below:

Sol 120 - The Big Picture: a wide view from MSL's position that morning just previous to moving closer to Shaler around noon... (19872x2160px / 11.6MB)


Sol 121 - Portrait oriented close up of the right side of Shaler, (very long depth of field, so channels so adjusted primarily for foreground viewing)... (4782x7044px / 7.3Mb)


Sol 121 - Close-up of the foreground in the middle of Shaler... (6565x3926px / 4.8MB)


Sol 121 - Small close-up of the dark boulder formation... (2337x1325px / 650KB)


Unfortunately the absolutely killer close-in wide pano of Shaler from MC34 at mid-day on Sol 120 after MSL had moved closer (posted by Ant103 here) never had a corresponding MC100 series to get a stereo view from (shucks!...sigh...). C'est la vie.

Sol 149 - Front Hazcam - A four frame animated GIF anaglyph of the turret activities...



960x600px - 1.43MB

Another MC34/100 anaglyph from Sol 136. The diagonal sequence seems to follow the "swath" or "channel-like" feature that's loosely flanked in spots with lines of rocks on either side. Remnants of it almost appear to align and continue towards the upper left even across either side of the rock formation left of center. Pretty intriguing. Full resolution is 9000 x 6000 px (5.4MB).

A 2D MC100 version (with a little extra coverage) is here.

Yes, Happy Holidays to all, hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Had family here all week and I'm just getting caught up on all the new imagery. Wow, lots of exciting finds this week, nice work everyone. Here's the broad open vista from Sol 136 in a tightly aligned "spot free" anaglyh pairing of MC34 and MC100. I first panned this with glasses on from right to left pretty well zoomed in, and I have to say - especially with this nice depth of view - when Mt. Sharp loomed into view at the left side it quite took me by surprise at just how fargin' enormous the mountain looks. Looking forward to getting over there in 2013... Happy New Year to all!

Click thumbnail for the half-sized 10,312 x 866 px (2.4MB) version:


And the full resolution version at 21,625 x 1,859 px (8.1MB) is here:Sol136-MC34-and-MC100-Panorama-Anaglyph-21625x1859.jpg

Sol 121 Navcam - Upon close examination it's certainly tempting to think this object could be and intact "sphere" (or "bubble", whatever we're calling them). Hmmm. Look closely at it and you'll see three circles in near perfect triangular pattern. Did they hit this with a laser? (Actually looks like a bowling ball!) As for the soil disturbance question, it might be a compression artifact from the rover's weight having been on that rock, but in the full frame I don't see any track marks between the rover and the rock, though it's pretty rocky in the general area so they might not show...



...and a cross-eye view...

Just saw those a while ago too James. Due the quantity and the consistently rounded nature of these objects it's easy to imagine the formation they're embedded was the muddy bottom of a water body, which through periodic floodings received these fluvially rounded stones, which then sank to the bottom, were covered by subsequent sedimentation, and afterward developed their encrustations by some interactive method between themselves and their substrate. That their original material was softer than their surrounding environment is clearly in evidence, so it makes sense that the heavier silts surrounding them might have easily permeated their outer skins quite easily under a bit of pressure. And of course their inherent softness would have contributed to how they became so well rounded to begin with. On the surface at least that seems to be the most terrestrially equivalent comparison. But this Mars, so anything goes...

Sol 123 - Rear Hazcam anaglyph view...


...and a cross-eye close-up:

It's clearly something like that, a crust that formed around a relatively softer object... but, it's the near perfect oval shape of it that makes one wonder just what that softer object was.

Here's a cross-eyed view for those without R-B glasses...

Sol 122 - Front Hazcam. The "bubble" can be seen at middle left here too...



...and a decidedly eerie looking view from the Rear Hazcam.

Sol 122 - Taken just over 4 hours ago:


..and the anaglyph:


There's an enigmatic round formation at the center bottom, the lower half of which is just off the left channel a bit. It looks like a hollow dome - that's collapsed (really need glasses to see this). What the heck could form that?


Edit: Just noticed it's in the Sol 121 Navcam shots too, from a slightly different angle...

Nice to be rolling. I'm surprised a few more Mastcam or close-up Mahli images weren't taken at Shaler. It'd be interesting to look closely at a cross section of the rock slabs to examine their depositional structure. Perhaps there'll be a double-back later? Here's a stereo view from the Sol 121 front hazcam. The little drift in the rock depression at foreground has some interesting little mini-ripples...


...and the Sol 121 view out the rear hazcam. To my eye the rear cameras seemed to have picked up noticeably more dust since the early Rocknest images. Perhaps facing at an angle more toward the direction of the predominant east-west winds for the entire stay at Rocknest account for this?


...and Phil, your map updates are so much appreciated... & the Sol 121 pans Ant103... nice.

It is very exciting to finally be at this stunning set of outcrops at last. Have been wanting to go straight there since it was first glimpsed two months ago from the heights above Rocknest...


..and a pretty quickly put together (but aligned well enough for a quick first look) anaglyph. My, it's nice to see these formations this much closer...

Turret Activities ~ Sol 117...

More new anaglyph perspectives from the recent downloads...

Sol 110 - The right side of the "slab field" from a dedicated MC34 &MC100 pairing (5213x2328px - 3MB):



Sol 113 - Here's the left side of the slab field rendered from a makeshift pairing of a crop from the Sol 106 MC34 pano and the small MC100 pano on Sol 113. These presumably were not meant to be anaglyphed together but since the sun angle was similar I thought I'd give it a shot. It works reasonably enough to give the slab field a bit of z-axis from MSL's slightly new perspective since Rocknest (6400x2500px - 4MB):



And the "Piece de Resistance" ... much more of the MC100 Sol 107 & 109 pano in 3D. From the MC34 thumbnails in evidence, the entire Sol 107 & 109 pano will eventually be covered from foreground to foothills. This is the center slice so far - with a fantastic view of Yellowknife Bay:

Click thumbnail for the half resolution version (10070x1955px - 7MB):


...Full Resolution Version (20141x3911px - 19MB) is HERE.

I have updated the Sol 106 MC34 Pano in my original post as well, preview below. My stitch seems to have picked up one of the four missing in Ant103's version, but as of now there are still at least three frames out. When they arrive, I'll update too. This new version offers superb detail of the soil and rocks in foreground and the shadows from MSL provide good scale reference. I endeavored to project it so the width to height ratio remains fairly intact for the frames toward the bottom. Kudos to the imaging team for another excellent portrait. Well done. Click thumbnail for the original post with the updated files:

Just in a while ago and sweet. It's an almost 360 degree view from MC34 on Sol 106 measuring a whopping 28,924 x 4399 pixels (Edit: now 29956x9599). This batch didn't show up on Joe's image browser for some reason, nor the "Raws by SOL" at the MSL site. I just happened to stumble across them in the MSL "camera specific" feed. There's a really nice view of Rocknest at the far right.

Click thumbnail for quarter sized version at 7491x2401 (3MB):


Half Sized Version at 14982x4801px is (11MB) HERE.
Full Version at 29956x9599px (31MB) is here: Sol106-MC34-Panorama-29956x9599px.zip.

EDIT 12/01/12: Updated addition 40 frames and added quarter sized version for quick viewing.

Spot-free anaglyph of the extent to which the currently available MC34 frames from Sol 109 thus far overlay the MC100's. Judging from the copious number of matching MC34 thumbnails accompanying the MC100's all week this could get way bigger...

NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) on Monday, Dec. 3, to discuss the latest findings and travels of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft. MORE HERE

Press release on the Dec. 3rd AGU press conference in San Francisco just posted here. The gist of the statement reads:

"Rumors and speculation that there are major new findings from the mission at this early stage are incorrect. The news conference will be an update about first use of the rover's full array of analytical instruments to investigate a drift of sandy soil. One class of substances Curiosity is checking for is organic compounds -- carbon-containing chemicals that can be ingredients for life. At this point in the mission, the instruments on the rover have not detected any definitive evidence of Martian organics."

Nice Gigapan iMPREPREX. This is Z-axis-eye-candy for sure. The low sun angle offers some extraodinary detail of the surface textures, even in the drift surface. Here's an anaglyph version that retains the full resolution of the MC100 channel (9381x4507px). Naturally the MC34 left channel gets blurry at higher zoom levels but the lighting immersion makes up for it. The thin wafer jutting out from the rock towards the lower left of center is especially interesting to ponder.

Under the front bumper - Sol 111...

Wowsers! Another complete HALF of the MC100 Sol107 mosaic just arrived, showing splendid detail of the entire foreground. One frame (0107MR0682055000E1_DXXX) is still AWOL but here's the rest so far...

Click thumb for Half Resolution version (8333x4680px 11MB):


Full Resolution version (16666x9360px 32MB) is here: Sol107-MC100-East-Looking-Mosaic-16666x9360px.zip.

The blocks at center right seem to be the same ubiquitously distributed material that Phil's Sea Lions are made of. Almost every instance of this formation as seen in previous panoramas seems to readily split into blocks. To my eye this formation seems to overlay and form outcrops across much of the area.

Great pano Ant103, thanks. Very nice to see the new perspectives almost all the way round. What a difference a few meters makes ay?
Here's a Sol 103 three frame anaglyph looking toward Phil's sea lions, and the rock slab outcrops. Catches a nice slice of the the foothills too...

That "kiss" (and yes, still at Rocknest) according to the time stamps was taken just over an hour before the few "final shots" before leaving Rocknest. If one studies the ground in those, and the "kiss" shot, it's clear that the small move forward to steal that wayward kiss is what doomed the scoops. I'll always kinda think fondly of those ol' scoops. Call me a softy. In a sense, it was the first time MSL really reached out and "touched" Mars so to speak, and by extension I suppose, so did we. I was kind of hoping they'd just drive a way and leave the scoops intact...

C'est la vie... onward into the wilderness!

Sol 102 - 1:17pm LMST - A few final shots at Rocknest. The scoops have been driven over and are now a memory. Aloha...





Sol 102 - 3:23pm LMST - Saddle up the palominos boys... we're movin' again...