Sol 931 right pancam stitch



Dan: Did you mean far rim? I don't see how the bright bits appearing could be part of the near rim.

James

I've just done a quick check and I don't think it can be Sofi after all it's not big enough and in slightly the wrong place. Sofi should be nearly 3 degrees wide - that feature is only 0.4 degrees.

Here's where I think that feature is




James

Looks like more of the far rim is becoming visible (bright line just above the near rim).

And could that circular(ish) looking feature be Sofi?



James

Looks like it was only a short drive (3.5m SE)

Still, it should give us some slightly longer baselines to look at Victoria with.

Data for 931 is just starting to show up on the tracking site. Shouldn't be long now - very excited!

Tht's right. For example the orbit of MGS has an inclination of 92.86 degrees - i.e 2.86 degrees from polar and retrograde. MRO's will be very similar to this.

Thinking about it some more, I'm not sure they would drive away from Emma Dean and then image it from so far away (30m or so to get it all in two frames) so maybe those pancams will be of just one bit of Emma. Hmm.

James

The drive direction pancams are there now.



I'm probably reading way to much into this, but the fact that they are are taking two pancam pointings to image Emma Dean may give us a clue to how far Oppy is going.

James

It's from yestersol (929) - no driving tosol

I think you might be confused about the scale of that map - Victoria is that little circle next to the apex of my sight lines, the big crater is the *huge* one to the south east thats 10's of km across.

James

Well I beleve that the white patch on the left side of that image (*just* over the near rim) is the far rim (or possibly Sofi crater) everything else is further away.

We can't see inside Victoria yet, let alone the centre dunes!

James

Meters - (Oppys landing site (ellipse centre) was at -1440m)

Yeah I'm having a hard time beleving it really is *that* far away. I'm really looking forward to a bit of parallax.

However I don't beleve it can be a mound close to the far rim as I'm pretty sure we're seeing a good expanse of annulus/plain beyond Victoria but in front of the feature.

James

Edit: Maybe it's time for a 'far rim' vs 'really far rim' pool.

Holy smoke! I think your right.

Here are the heading vectors on that elevation map Tim posted:



A perfect match to one of the 'knots' of contours on the far rim.

Wow!

When I first loaded up that image I was sure that one of those mounts was going to be what we're looking at. But they just seem too far off the right direction to be plausable. They look to be the right size and shape so maybe that is what we're looking at but I can't explain the error in the direction. Oh, and I'm kind of hoping that that feature will turn out to be only a km or so south of Vicky and hence be a realistic target post Victoria.

James

Morning Europe.

I'm glad you guys agree with what we're seeing.



Moving on - the next question is - What is that feature on the horizon if it's not the rim?

Here are some lines showing the direction it should be in (the bearings of the left and right limits of the feature)



I don't see anything on this image in the right direction - maybe it's smaller and closer than the big crater?

I'll re-ask the question I asked earlier - Anybody know if there a MOC image for the region south-east of Victoria? I've never worked out how to search for them.

James

I think I understand what's going on now!!

We *can* see the far rim - but it's much more subtle - it's here



The bright section between the two black vertical markers is the bright section of the far rim where the rimshot crater is! The azimuth is right and if you look at the anaglyph that bright section does appear to be further away than the near rim!

So the rest of what we see over the rim *is* the plain (annulus) beyond Victoria - and that distant feature probably is part of the huge crater km's away!

James

Yup me too. The longer I look and think about this the more I'm starting to think that Marswiggle is right.

The way that the distant horizon continues and looks the same well past the edge of Victoria and the lack of features that we should be seeing on the far rim make me beleve that we are seeing the flat terrain south-east of Victoria. It's been mentioned before that the south rim of Victoria could be quite depressed wrt the north, so it is not nesasarily surprising that we can see the plains beyond Victoria.



Yup that's what I see too.



I'm not Michael but I use the same data from the tracking database regularly and I can say with confidence that the azimuth is correct in that image. I don't know the error but it'll be much less than 1 degree.

This is how I see it



Polar of mhoward's north centred pan overlayed on the MOC image

Here is the direction of that feature on the other side of Vicky.



The more I look at it, the more I start to think that maybe it's *not* a rim feature.

I think what marswiggle is saying is that what we can see over the near rim is actully the planes southeast of Victoria and that the far rim is still hidden. The anaglyph is not really much help deciding - it's all well too far away to range.

To me, the picture make most sense if that *is* the interior of Victoria - but after reading Marswiggle's post I can see that it's not the only explanation.

Anyone know if there are any MOC images covering the region southeast of Victoria?

Pancam 'glyph of just the horizon - and with the left/right registering optimised for looking at Victoria.



3x Phil-o-vision anaglyph.



James

Pancam 'glyph

Some rough calculations

The beacon as marked on Tesheiner's map should be almost exactly due east (~90 degrees) of Epslilon where we now are.

Navcam frame 1N210665627EFF75##P0685L0M1 is pointed at 108 degrees (according to the tracking site)

Your mound is toward the right of that image => 108 + ~10 = ~120 degrees

My bright line on a hill is on the left of the same image => 108 - ~15 = ~90 degrees

The left most pancam is also pointed at 120 degrees confirming this.

EDIT: Just to add, I would guess that that mound is the end point of Tesheiner's hypothetical route.

You sure Phil?

I haven't looked at the angles yet but I would say that the beacon is the bright line toward the left edge of mhoward's navcam mosaic (at the edge of the first and second frames). And was visible beacuse it sits on top of a small hill.

James