I noticed that too, but I've replied in the "MSL EDL Hardware" thread here (with graphic) to keep this thread clean of HS discussions.

In response to "MarsInMyLifetime's" post here, yes I took note of that when stitching together the Sol 36 mosaic. Combined with the better positioning and the resolution of MC100 this is the best view we've gotten thus far of the potential heat shield location (pic below), but as for whether it's visible or not, I'm hesitant on that. It looks from HiRISE as if it's well down inside a small crater. Still, the darkish material we're seeing up along the rim of the crater could very well be impact residue. And I'm pretty sure, as I previously illustrated in this post that that's the location of the heat shield. It's probably not on the itinerary, but if Curiosity were to amble over there and peer into the crater it'd sure be interesting to see the condition of the HS wouldn't it?

White balanced & level adjusted mosaic of the 12 new MC100 frames from Sol 36. Really nice detail on the slopes of Mt. Sharp in this light....



...and for anaglyph lovers (like myself!) who relish in gleaning every bit of z-axis eye candy from the landscape here's an anaglyph of the same using Bradbury Landing (MC34 unfortunately) as the left eye baseline differential (which due to the angle of travel is slight, but enough for some noticable depth):

"On the Road Again" anaglyphs from Sol 38:

Anaglyph from photos taken during this CAP so I figured they ought to go in this thread. I used the three partial MC100 BW frames from Sol 25 (left eye), and corresponding color frames from Sol 19 (right eye), so pretty decent baseline separation. I separated them a bit more than usual as it seems the varying depths of field are easier on the eye once you're locked on in stereo. The soft looking layers in the rounded fish hook shaped hollow in the foreground below the hard caprock are pretty interesting. Though the thumbnail looks pink, once in glasses it's quite natural looking...

Very Nice! I find it interesting to note how little input the brain seems to require to construct a reasonably well defined binocular portrait even with such compromised data being received from the other half of the equation. And the general baseline distance from around Bradbury to the present location are really quite nice now for rendering the depth perspectives well without too much exaggeration. Now we just need a few crisp new long shots. Will definatetly be hitting "F5" a bit more than usual...

Oh my, I agree and soon I hope! Using one of the top portions of the Sol 32 MC100 robotic arm photos as the left eye in an anaglyph test, though the horizon is frustratiingly out of focus it was enough to verify that the basline is now quite effective for imaging the base of Mt. Sharp with plenty of eye-popping depth. The test below is a little wonky to the eye because the red spectrum is so darned out of focus but it was enough to test the baseline shift's effectivness. I'd just love to do another full pan anaglyph with a new from a location somewhere well before Glenelg before it widens to much for a good Sol 19 pairing. Please give us another MC 100 full pan soon!

Here's a HUMONGOUS ANAGLYPH for anyone so inclined to peruse the Mt. Sharp foothills in a reasonably perceptible quantum of 3D... and surprisingly, there's some depth there!

After testing a few stitched frames out to see whether the 12 meters or so parallax difference between Sol 19 and Sol 23's color panos allowed for any 3D depth to be seen at the Mt. Sharp foothills or not I decided it warranted a BIG anaglyph just to check. Sol 19's pano has all the pictures down but unfortunately there's still 4 or 5 that have never arrived yet from from Sol 23 so there's a few missing frames in this version (the reddish areas). Now at first glance there doesn't seem to be much depth to perceive at the foothills, but zoom in a bit, and slowly pan around and sure enough... it's there alright. Seems the more you zoom in (better in the FULL version), the more evident it becomes. Sol 23 was used as left eye and Sol 19 as right. Sweet.

Here's a medium sized version (6500px x 922px):




...and here's THE FULL VERSION (19738px x 2100px): http://www.edtruthan.com/mars/Sol19-and-23...-19738x2100.jpg

EDIT: This image has been updated! (missing frames are down). See this post.

A Mastcam 100 three shot stitch from the newest batch of photos down today:

To my eye, there appears to be a sudden spike in brightness around frame 699, some 20 seconds after landing, followed by a darkening that could be interpreted as the resulting plume darkening the sun a bit. There's clearly an interesting pattern to the lightening and dimming of the sun ray seen on the ground for some time after the landing that I explored a bit in this post (with video). The best way to explore the issue until the full set of hi-res MARDI's are down is the complete set of thumbnails. More observed details are in the referenced post.

Two posts later in the same thread user "markril" brings up another interesting observation as well, that of the apparent misalignment of the Hazcam imaged plume after landing compared with the actual azimuth of the DS impact. I've looked at the issue with some careful mapping and imagery and the location of this plume is clearly several degrees to the south of the DS impact azimuth and occurs at some 40 seconds after touchdown (Mardi frame 771). That along with the with slight light spike at frame 699 could indicate that DS hit initially at 20 seconds or so, and at least one subsequent event from the break-up, over to the left hand debris vector, was what Hazcm may have caught. Either that, or there was considerable wind from the north, etc... I've got some additional observations put together for an deeper exploration of the issue but haven't had time to post anything comprehensive yet.

In any case, it seems an interesting forensic excercise to explore.

Excellent point... I stand corrected! With the full reach of the arm, a beautiful self portrait from a variety of angles up to 7 feet away is no problemo. Will certainly look forward to that.

I finally figured out the little voice in my head. Damien and James' panoramas are truly stunning and Damien's desktop version of Mt. Sharp went straight to wallpaper without hesitation. First glance at the screen this morning and the little voice finally spoke up loud and clear: "Hey, where's Curi in this picture?" Of course we'll never have a picture of her on the surface from a few feet away, but a quick trip to Photoshop with a JPL stock photo and Damien's desktop version did the trick. Here's a 1920x1200px JPG. Though a totally artificial scene... I just wanted to see what she might look like in her in her entirety from a few dozen yards away, patiently waiting for commands, and utterly alone in the stark vastness of the Gale wilderness ...

Goulburn Scour looks like it's been zapped!? The six very dark images that just came down from ChemCam, once brightened, features two nearly identical shots in which one show a distinct mark in the center on one of the hapless inhabitants of the scour. Here's animated GIF of the two frames and the location of the victim in question from mastcam. Poor fellow, first the descent stage, now this... just not his week.

That brings the details of the stratifications into much clearer focus, yes. Using Photoshop's levels calibration tool and curiosity as a base for calibrating the black, gray, and white values here's a white balanced version of the whole base of Mt. Sharp. Oh my, there's some interesting stuff up there...

http://www.edtruthan.com/mars/MSL-Sol2-Mt....te-Balanced.jpg

With the missing frames now down, here's the complete 360 pan of the horizon, stitched and blended, full-resolution, uncompressed (29420x1283, 14.1mb):

http://www.edtruthan.com/mars/MSL-Sol2-360...rizon-Color.jpg

Now we need Mt. Sharp...

Here's a quick and dirty video at just under full resolution of all frames so far till touchdown with a nice 0.5 sec crossfade added to give it some some fluidity. Keeping the bit rate up to at 8k to keep the crossfades crispy makes it a 35.3 MB file. Am thinking even when all frames are eventually down that finding just the right cross fade time at 4fps will definately sweeten up the smoothness. What a ride.

http://www.edtruthan.com/mars/mardi-so-far-2012-08-15.mpg

Hmmm... wow... could MARDI have inadvertantly "filmed" the timing and behavior of the descent stage impact?!

I confess I probably watch too much "Forensic Files" and it's certainly a trivial matter at this point compared to to the vast scientific ocean about to be embarked upon but...

Has ayone else noticed this? In the post-landing MARDI footage of the ground under Curiosity there's some interesting phenomena to be observed in the 2 minutes after landing. After skycrane flys away, and the dust settles enough for the narrow sun beam to be clearly evidenced on the ground, the sun beam suddenly goes distincly dark again and then slowly increases back to normal. The event happens around 43 seconds after touchdown and extends from about frames 785 to 900, or just over 30 seconds of time. As it turns out the rear hazcam photo of the impact plume, taken at 15:18:38, corresponds with the MARDI time stamp of frame 771, just 3.5 seconds before the "darkening" event. Could this indicate that the plume imaged by the hazcam at frame 771 continued to grow high enough in the next few seconds to visibly darken the area around Curiosity? If this is indeed the case, perhaps the MARDI images offer some evidence of the plume's relative longevity and even perhaps it's height based on the sun position at the time.

That said, an EARLIER "darkening" event similar to this one ALSO occurs between frames 714 to 747 (8.25 second duration) and slowly lightens until the frame 785 darkening. In addition, this event is PRECEEDED by a noticible "spike" in brightness centered around frame 699 (which is 22 seconds after touchdown). Which brings up the question of when the Descent Stage actually impacted vs. whether the event captured by the rear hazcam could have been a SECOND event, i.e. one of the "bouncing debris imacts" evidenced in the HiRISE close-ups that occurred up to 88 meters away. The sky in the rear hazcam photo is quite hazed over at the time and the crater rim for some distance around the plume is barely discernable. Certainly some airborne dust is still lingering from the landing at Curiosity's location but to my eye the forground still looks relatively clear compared to the air around the more distant vicinity of the plume. Could that be the airborne residue of the FIRST impact (i.e. at 22 seconds)?

Also, does anyone know if telemetry data from the descent stage was actually recorded after separation from Curiosity? Because I remember the time of descent stage impact being estimated at a bit over 20 seconds in press releases before landing and then at one of the post-landing press conferences hearing they'd updated it to over 40 some seconds after touchdown and thinking "that's seems way to long to fly a mere 630 meters..." I assumed the 40+ second assumption was based on the hazcam plume photo timestamp, naturally an irrefutable piece of evidence right? But could the MARDI frames indicate evidence for two imact "events", and the hazcam imaged the second one? The two "darkening" events are separated by roughly 15 seconds or so. Might that be about right perhaps for one or several of the hydrazine fuel tanks to bounce high and down range, and ultimately rupture just before the hazcam photo corresponding to MARDI's frame 771?

Two alternate theories of the phenomena of course are that differingly dense clouds of dust were still settling at or blowing about the landing site, OR that MARDI was automatically seeking to adjust aperature settings, the likelyhood of which could be answered by the imaging team of course.

In any case, here's a (thumbnail sized) video that starts at frame 612 (touchdown) and extends till all the "events" are well done (at frame 1100). Best viewed in a dark room of course. It's rendered in real time at 4fps. White levels have been batch-bumped very slightly in ALL the frames to bring out some sun beam detail, otherwise there's been no alteration of the images. Individual frame numbers have been added at the lower left for reference.

It'll be interesting to look at this segment when a FULL RESOLUTION version is available.

http://www.edtruthan.com/mars/MARDI-Frames-612-1100.mp4

Yup, I tend to agree as it clearly landed in a small depression. Still, as it looks to be quite a bit to the far slope of that crater, the chance that some impact disturbance toward the upper rim might be discernable by MC 100 isn't completely out of the question I suppose. It's interesting to note (unless my math is wrong), how Mastcam 100 may render images of a "heatshield sized" object at that distance though:

Heatshield: 4.5 meter diameter
Mastcam 100 max resolution: 2.9" (7.366 cm) per pixel at 1km OR 7.366 x1.5 = 11.049cm per pixel at 1.5km
Then, 450cm / 11.049 = 40.72767 pixels

... i.e a heatshield diameter of 41 pixels or so at best (photo below). Not too shabby!



Without doubt this could image the backshell and parachute just over the rise to the south very well and they're much closer. Can't wait to see the MC 100 in action on distant obects!

The area of the heatshield impact appears to be clearly visible from the elevated postition that MSL resides but the details of whether the heatshield or its impact scars can actually be glimpsed is hard to discern at the current resolution level of the latest pics. There appears to be "something" there though. From the HiRise close ups it appears to have impacted on the east slope of a small crater so I've been looking to see if anything might be in evidence. Though the pixel resolution at this range is frustratingly poor, using a line of sight estimate based on a distinctive "crescent shaped rock formation" in the dune field narrowed down the azimuth range to look. The HiRISE close-up of the impact area provides additional detail of distinct rock features very close to the Heatshield that appear to be quite consistent with what can be seen from the perspective of Curiosity especially a "big rock" just to the SW and a group of boulders strewn around a small crater directly to the south. See the attached graphic for more. Might be a fantastic target for a Mastcam 100 full telephoto test ay? Mastcam 100 has a 2.9" per pixel resolution at 1Km and the heatshield is only 1.5km away...

FredK, your estimate of 70-80 meters for the height of the DS impact plume estimate is surprisingly consistent with what I got using a line-of-sight estimate based on the known distance and height of the crater rim seen in the background. I came up with almost exactly 80 meters. The methodology I used is illustrated in the attached diagram. Granted, the host of potential variables in this technique are clearly obvious and many, but the biggest one, that of having relatively level ground to both target objects is fortunately not at all bad at all in this case. To the rear left of Curiosity there is a slight rise, but from what I can tell from the images thus far obtained, the line-of-sight to the crater rim directly behind Curiosity (at a 294 degree heading) is a relatively level and unobstucted shot to the foothills. And it helps too of course that the hazcam is relatively low to the ground. Accurate or not, it's certainly worth noting that we both came up with similar numbers.

I recently found the forum here and have to say i've enjoyed the great amount of talent, knowledge, and enthusiasm. Kudos toall. Excellent stuff. Wife thinks Mars is quite a bit less exciting than me so it's good to have some company here...

Still fascinated by the skycrane impact. In an effort to get a grasp on it, I've carefully overlayed the HiRISE close-up into GM, and by my measurements from impact to farthest visible dispersal it's over 290 feet. Here's the impact overlayed on the field at Buccaneers Stadium for some perspective. That looks like it made quite a stir. GM also says the heading from Curiosity to skycrane impact is 289 degrees. So that's 5 degrees left of the centerline of the rear hazcam (294 degrees or so), making it just left of center, exactly where the "impact cloud" is seen in the hazcam shots. Now I'm onto some quick calculations of how high the cloud it was based on a triangulation of the distance and elevation of the crater rim in the background vs. the impact distance...