Although Lowell thought he saw "man"-made canals. As for seeing evidence of water channels generally on this very dry world, Lowell has plenty of modern company. In fact, the word "water" almost seems to inhabit every other sentence in the history of Mars scientific inquiry and ruminations, relative lack of said substance notwithstanding.

Except that this image was taken at almost 7pm...

There are billions of tonnes of water on Mars. It's mostly frozen though..........

I sit entirely corrected; the azimuth of 110 degrees is also a giveaway that this image was taken looking almost due East, i.e. it is an early evening shot. So, this is the shortest shadow for around 7pm

Next time I will be more careful...

Airbag

The point I was trying to make is that the human brain is very good at connecting the dots, especially in low contrast images, and see lines where there are none.

Absolutely right. Especially given that in Lowell's time, it was generally assumed that the Moon and other planets (especially Mars, given its telescopically visible polar ice cap and seasons) had intelligent beings living on them. Even when I grew up, about 75 years later, it was still assumed that Venus was a habitable jungle world. In a very real sense, then, Lowell was just seeing what he assumed he might see. At the time, few had reason to doubt his vision.

-- HDP Don

Looks like a bit of "opposition effect" here, and would be interesting to examine this at the highest possible solar elevation.

Steve

P.S. I'm unsure how to show the attachment in my quote, but you can see it in post #219.

Hello everyone, I'm a newbie again (felt scared off last time). I have been lurking for some considerable time since my first registration. Now I feel, that I can contribute in a more meaningful manner.

A couple of images from Phoenix below & some confirmation & to share a thought / idea.

If my maths is correct, Phoenix lies approx 1,303 KM / 809 miles away from the North Pole?

Below, I had a go at working on the central portion of the colour pan looking north. I have cropped out the section from Azm 350 deg, to 10 degrees, therefore due north is dead centre.

There are three low rises visible on the horizon? Pingos perhaps? Any thoughts.


Below is the view centred on Azm 151.58 degrees, showing two large boulders. The nearer one, I wonder, could that be examined in high resolution through all filters on the SSI & that data be matched by HiRISE of Heimdall Crater, to see if that boulder is a match? I suspect the one right on the horizon is too far away? That large boulder to the north of the backshell is very interesting. I could not find it on the HiRISE image of the landing site of Phoenix & components.

My guess is that this boulder would have been large enough to have been seen, or is it deceptive, smaller & closer to Phoenix than I'm imagining?


Also I thought this knarled up piece of rock looked very interesting. I have cropped & enlarged it.


Does anyone know if any Midnight Sun observations are going to be made? Perhaps a time lapse movie of the Sun swooping low over the northern horizon? Also this would be a good time for Azm 90 & 270 degree views & for glows / high cloud studies/ Martian Parhelia. Any thoughts?

Hopefully I will be feeling more confident once I've been back a while.

{Edited: Added some text}.

Andrew Brown.

I assume you mean the one I've arrowed in the inset:


I think I've identified it on the hirise view (arrow). The azimuth looks right (a bit "left" of the backshell) and the distance too (comparable distance to the heatshield). Obviously its colour is a close match to the surroundings, but you can see a shadow in the hirise shot which looks right.

Andrew, interesting image that, looking due north . . .

Thank you so very much, that's it. The positioning on the HiRISE image is perfect, 151.5 degrees Azm from Phoenix. That is definitely it. I really hope that the boulder will be a target of interest, when the SSI is used to cherry pick interesting features.

Below, near the WNW horizon, I think I may have spotted a small impact crater, at the bottom of this frame, I've cropped & enlarged. I know, it's rubbish compared to the professionals here on UMSF, but I thought this would be of interest. Also blocks & boulders on the hills?




Thank You. Yes I like that image very much. It is a crop from the colour swathe released a while back, but I altered the contrast & brightness a little bit & the result is what you see. Carry on straight up the middle, & eventually you will come to the pole.

The image I cropped it from is below. Also the due north point is in the very centre.


Andrew Brown.

( Edit - remove foolish attempt at stretching the wrong bit of Andrew's image... !!)

It looks suggestive to me, but I haven't the time or especially the skills to search in that direction for candidate features on an orbital view.

PS No need to feel intimidated, we don't bite! I, at least, have a lot less skill with imagery than you've already demonstrated

EDIT: ...and to prove it, I completely misinterpreted your post and did an excited stetch of the horizon, convinced I could see a typical crater...

This is a big part of what I like about UMSF -- the international aspect. "Carry on straight up the middle, and eventually you will come to the pole" -- the essence of British matter of fact mode. Of course, we will never be able to top the romance language mystique of the "Ultreya Abyss"!

I need some help. The HiRISE team has released a new image of the Phoenix landing site, taken on June 16 (sol 21). The dynamic range in this image is big enough that detail in the parachute is lost to saturation in the version that I can view with IAS viewer, and I'm traveling and not on a connection reliable enough to download any of the big images. Is there someone out here who can get me a segment of the RED image maybe in a 16-bit format that preserves the detail in the parachute?

--Emily

I looked at the JP2 images--not sure if the following have more detail than the largest wallpaper on the HIRISE site, but they're different anyway:







Those are just JPG crops, with a little processing--not sure how to get a 16-bit format.