Now all we need is a few new placenames...

That prominent hill to the south of the ellipse center looks like the most likely feature - IF any - to show over the horizon.

Phil

An anaglyph from the newest landing ellipse centerline, about 9 kilometers down (ESE) from the centerpoint. The new center line cuts the frame in half, from upper left to lower right (not shown). The image is half of the normal HiRISE resolution and its width is approximately 550 m. I don't think there's significant exaggeration compared to a realistic elevation model, very little at best.

Images used:
PSP_002249_2485 (left eye)
PSP_002328_2485 (right eye)

No mountains visible, but the surface is far from featureless!
Enjoy.

This is the best I can do with one of Randy's DEM's. To be honest, I could save myself a lot of render time and not use the full resolution of the DEM itself, and just pre-displace a 100 x 100 poly plane.

Doug

who cares about the surface anyway? I'm very curious to see if the subsurface will be more interesting than the surface. I would think it is

I like that!

Can I ask - on the USGS geological map, what's the meaning of that funny meandering line of dashes that cuts more or less through the centre of the landing ellipse?

I agree...

If I think that ACC Memorial Station would be a fitting name for Phoenix's landing site, as we're going to the North Pole I would, somehow, like to see a reference to:

EDITED: forget what was written here before...

-Peary, Henson and the Inuits (does anybody know Inuit words?)

Edited again: Got one!:

Tunnga-sugitsi

It stands for "you are welcome here"
A nice way of making Phoenix feel at home...

Rui,

"Tunnga-sugitsi"

Sounds a bit too much like "Tunguska" for my liking and we all know what happened there........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event


Brian

Didn't think of that...

Here's a list of words we can play with...

I like particularly "aimerpok" which stands for "visiting and expecting food"

You'd think I'd get paid better if that were the case! Well, I do get to do fun stuff, I suppose...


I didn't complete my update of the map until late evening last night, and the frustrating thing about going from a graphics program like Canvas to some raster image format for the plotter is that I had to reduce the resolution of the HiRISE images tremendously to keep the file size down (and get home before too late!). I built the Canvas map with 4 meter/pixel versions of the HiRISE images, but by the time I rastered the file, the result was more like 8 meters/pixel. That's still probably sufficient for triangulation to horizon features. And once we know which HiRISE image(s) the lander resides in, matching to local rocks and bumps (hah!) at full resolution will be possible (and immediately "obsolete" the map!).

-Tim.

Phil:

I'm optimistic for two reasons:

Number A: Some of the massifs to either side of the trajectory are over 100 meters tall. If Phoenix lands within 20 or 30 kilometers of these, I think they should be visible (remember that Far Knob in MPF was over 35 kilometers away, though it was something like 450 meters tall, IIRC).

Letter 2: Phoenix's camera has on order 4 times the resolution of the IMP, making Number A easier.

But we'll see!

-Tim.

I had long suspected that you were Tim Parker, it's nice to finally have evidence in that direction.

Number A and Letter 2... an Archie Bunker fan perhaps?

"A, he's unemployed, and 2, he don't woik!"

Phil

As long as we don't have Meathead Mountain on the distant horizon...

He's a Junior Member by post count, but Doug made a Senior Member group just for him and of which he is the only member.