New versions using the clean MOC image that has just been released. Now with a third version that includes JPL's numbered capes as well (right).



James

Dilo, I was under the impression that JB and co had tried to measure the change in IFOV across the image and found it to be zero within there error limit (~0.5%).

0.273 ± 0.001 is good enough for me. If you want better, then before you start worrying about unknown distortions, you need to start worrying about which pancam you are using!

Camera : Focal Length mm : FOV deg : IFOV mrad/pixel : f/#
103 43.018 ± 0.220 16.052 ± 0.082 0.2736 ± 0.0014 20.00 ± 0.06
104 43.165 ± 0.220 15.978 ± 0.099 0.2723 ± 0.0017 20.06 ± 0.09
114 43.065 ± 0.220 16.015 ± 0.068 0.2730 ± 0.0012 20.02 ± 0.06
115 43.019 ± 0.220 16.032 ± 0.094 0.2733 ± 0.0016 20.00 ± 0.03

The twin peaks are on the north rim of the big crater, roughly 18 to 20km away I would say.

James

Well I think it's beacuse some respectable places like this quote the wrong value that it has become such a widely beleved myth in the first place. Just beacuse somebody/somewhere respectable believes in a myth doesn't mean it isn't one!



Sure it doesn't really change the result by a huge amount (the cliffs are big - we know that ) but you did quote your result to 3 sig figs. More importantly you handed out a .xls sheet which I assume contains the same error and the 16.8 error has already spread way too far without it being used in tools that people will beleve are accurate.

James

Aaarrgh! Not this again!

Looks like your using 16.8 degrees as the pancam fov - this is a myth! it's 16.0

People got so confused before that we ended up having to ask Jim Bell directly here

Each pixel actually subtends 0.273mrad (0.0156 deg)

James

Hi Mike,

I've just tried out mmb's export to PTGui for the first time and I have a problem. On my Mac, if I try to open the project in Hugin (the free open source PTGui equivalent) it tells me that it can't find the images.

This appears to be because Hugin needs the filenames in the .pts file to be wrapped in quotes, i.e.

#-imgfile 1024 1024 "1N212522868EFF76CNP0666L0M1.png"

Assuming this doesn't break the PTGui version, could the quotes be added to the next version?

Cheers,

James

Great comparison Fred. Burns cliff is totally insignificant beside any Victoria cliff.

Maybe Burns should be demoted to a "dwarf cliff"?

James

Route Map for Sol 950.



Getting real close!

James

Just to add to fredk's point 2. If JPL continue to only name features after they are seen (and only tell us about them a week or more later) then these names are virtually useless to us. The most likely time folks on this board are going to want to talk about a feature is within hours (or even minutes!) of the images hitting the ground and that's when we need to be able know what we're refering to.

Well I'll add JPL's names to my map and then we can use either or both. Both schemes are complicated enough that if your going to get confused by which one is being used your definitely going to need a labeled map to tell you which is which anyway. It's gonna get even more complicated when some of them get official "Magellan" names as well.

James

Notice in todays JPL update they agree that the main peak is on the far (SE) rim of the big crater (35km away)

Also note that some smaller features can be seen in todays pancams.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...CNP2386R1M1.JPG

I haven't looked at the angles but I would bet that those are the hills on the west side of the crater that SFJCody plotted the route too in the first post of this thread.

James

Hmm, I don't think confusion does reign. It's not like the same name is used for different features in the two schemes. Hence there can never be any confusion!

The only confusion will be when we see more of the crater and JPL has to assign more names out of sequence. I can't beleve they only named the things they could see at the time - how short sighted is that! And I can see at least two major bays between Bay1 and Bay2 that they could see at the time as well. Pretty poor effort in my opinion, I'll stick with my scheme for now I think.

James

Here is the distorted MOC image alongside mhowards pancam mosaic.



Amazing views!

James

Well no more images this hour - I guess that's it for now.

I'm off to bed then...

According to the tracking site todays drive was ~27m

Match to MOC image from the two navcams so far.



James

Hold your horses, it does look steep but fredk and I have done some calculations and it doesn't seem so bad - The view is very forshortened from this angle.

Oops, I was a little bit over zealous with my cropping, here's another one that follows the rim a little bit further to the left.



James

Just to make sure everyone knows what they are looking at.



Look at the huge chunk that looks like it's fallen from F3!

James

I'll try and fill in as usual, although with the downlink time heading into night here I might not be very prompt.



Will do, cheers.



Well not tonight, just looked out and we just have the orange glow of city lights reflecting off cloud. But it is stunning sometimes, I don't mind doing the washing up so much when I can see the Southen Cross out the window while doing it.

Me too. It's 9pm in Sydney now and I'm not expecting any images for a while yet. Could be a late night tonight! I'll take a coffee if your offering.

OK here is the comparison (just one pancam frame) using the tracking data to scale and align the images, not by eye as I did before.



James

You just missed me at work and am now home and on dialup - but hopefully in a few hours we'll get a much better view which should resolve things anyway.

If I get a chance I'll do further analysis on the pancam and MOC images to get it scaled and aligned using the pointing data from the tracking database.

James

And we have an 8 pointing, L7/R1 drive direction pancam mosaic on the menu now as well!



This is gonna be great, even if it turns out to be a short drive.

[Two reasons why L7/R1 is better, 1) much better resolution than the usual L2/R2 and 2) The outcrops won't be so bright compared to the rest of the image and so shouldn't appear so overexposed in the jpegs we get]

James

Me too. Just last week I started Red Mars for maybe the fifth time.

Good alt naming scheme.