Here's your first.

OK folks. I have to admit I'm starting to feel a little overwhelmed in HiRISE images already, and I know the tap hasn't even been turned fully on yet! There is just so much territory to be looked at.

To help us all see just a little bit more I propose that we start a 'Picture of the day' type thing (not necessarily one per day, the more the merrier ) of HiRISE screen sized sub-images. Not necessarily the most amazing bits, but a bit random, I find myself quite drawn to the less obvious bits that no one may have seen yet.

I'm going to use the same filenames as the original images appended with approximate pixel coordinates of the sub-image so that it can be found easily in the original.

James

The left edge of that image points on a bearing of about 12 degrees, so that image misses Endurance and Erebus. I think we would need two more pancam frames to the left to be pointing at Endurance (and another one or two more to get Erebus). The topographic high (hell of a view) is also the direction of Erebus/Endurance, so although we can clearly see a long way in the direction of your image, it's not clear that the view would be as good in the direction of Endurance.


Please take an image in that direction Jim, just one little subframe?

James

And the afternoon version.



James

Sol 1006 (am version) image of Cape Verde in L257 colour.



James

Only with the navcam.

I doubt we could have seen Endurance but it's still a little disappointing. There is so much to take pancams of and limited flash space and downlink capacity (mars on the opposite side of the sun + limited power during winter) that it's understandable that Oppy can't take many 'tourist' shots at the moment.

James

Yep, an artifact, go and look at the right eye image taken at the same time, it's not there in that one. It's always worth checking the filter for images like this, 8 (in either eye) is the solar filter and will never be of anything except the sun.

This image is part of an observation of the atmospheric tau at sunset and you can actually see the horizon across the image.

James

Err, not Phobos and Deimos - It's the sun.

Thanks Fredk, that's great. To see some tiny dot on the horizon over a mile away get bigger and bigger really shows the power of rovers. It's a shame that we didn't go over and MI the beacon, it would have been great to end your sequence with an image taken from just cm away.

James

Discussion drifting away from Opportunities 'route'. Posts moved to "Farewell Beacon".

Sol 1025

They are there:

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...20P2578L6M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...20P2578R1M1.JPG

I don't know what has happened to the rest of the Cape Verde pan, but I've updated my version with what we have.



James

No prize for second place, but here is my version for what it's worth.



James

The east side of Cape Verde from the Sol 1006 (11am version) pancams - L2



What a fantastic view!

I'll do the anaglyph when I get a chance - that should be awsome!

James

Good catch I hadn't noticed the second entry.

1415 meaning 14:15 is a good guess, the problem is, 14:15 is a perfectly normal time to take images (Cape Verde was taken at this time) it may be the other one that is at an unusual time.

We'll know soon enough, should be a nice dataset.

James

Opportunity future activity update: It looks like we'll get pancams of this side of Cape Verde tomorrowsol (1006) then driving on 1009.

It may be the first, I was tempted to suggest that when I first posted. But it could have happened before without me noticing and I don't know of an easy way of checking the database for this. Probably better just to ask JB.

James

I know we've all moved on to Victoria now, everything else is ancient history, but I was really looking forward to seeing the Emma Dean pan in 3D, it should have looked really nice.

However, looking at the tracking site it looks like all the right eye images (R1267) have been deleted before being downlinked. Obviously a consequence of the full flash over conjunction and that Victoria now takes priority for every last bit.

Quite disappointing, but understandable I guess. Doug, this may be a good question for the next JB Q'n'A, it must be a difficult decision to decide to delete stuff.

James

Yup, according to the rover quaternians on the tracking site (which I'm more confident about, after getting the tilt change right last time ) we are now at 12.55 degrees tilt and angled only 8.5 degrees from north.

James

I think we're here to get a look at the other side of Cape Verde. We're close enough to the edge for that.

After that I guess we'll head over to some of the beacon outcrop.

Not much imagery to base this on yet, but should be about right.



James

Indeed. Done.

I was considering changing the title anyway considering we don't actually know what 'mode' MGS may be in by now. I hadn't noticed the subtitle, good call oDoug.

Thanks for that, marswiggle & fredk, and the map link atomoid.

So long ago and so far away, I can't believe we're (hopefully) sitting right there on the fabled beacon now!

James

That's awesome Lyford!

This is was I love about this place, there can't be anywhere else on the web where science, engineering, exploration, fiction, poetry, music, images, sfx, comedy... are produced and discussed so effortlessly side by side and all, as one rover PI might put it, at such an impressively high level.

James

Great track Lyford, a perfect accompaniment to the image. I've added a link to your track onto my site so that people can grab it at the same time as the image.

James