Gotcha. I just have this image of Oppy as a weary explorer reaching Santa Maria and heaving a sigh of relief that she's got a chance to rest before attacking Endeavour for real. I see her tootling around the crater for a week or so, maybe a little more, photographing all its layers, outcrops and boulders... but always aware that over her shoulder, on the far horizon, is Endeavour, which is her ultimate goal, calling out to her, siren-like. And after finishing her studies of Santa Maria she takes one last look to the north-west, recalling her epic journey so far, then turns her back on Eagle Crater, Endurance, Victoria and all her other stops, and, with a deep breath, tugging on her rucksack straps, she sets off for Endeavour in earnest...

Ok. Just me then.

(and before anyone sneers "It's a robot, it hasn't got feelings, stop humanising it..." don't bother, I've heard it all before, and honestly don't care. We're all here because we love the rovers, and their missions, in our own ways, and no way is better or more appropriate than anyone else's. )

Ooh! New pics...

Looks like the buggy is off down the hill with no brakes!!

3D view...

http://twitpic.com/3e2rgw/full

Just before Santa Maria, there is a downward dip in the terrain corresponding to a sinuous outcrop line leading off to the NE and SW. This could represent some sort of real geologic boundary (maybe the edge of a layer we will be below as we continue East). This edge is easily seen in the satellite pics, and the slope zone is seen in the elevation maps.
I will wager this boundary gets some rover attention, which could be frustrating to some, with the Santa Maria crater beckoning just a short distance beyond...

Personally I'd like to see a nice big colour pan before we lose too much height, but I don't suppose a grandstand view however magnificent can compete with the serious science priorities.

Hardly any point in posting these anymore, since the view improves so much after each drive now, but here's one more L2R2 average + tiny rotation to reduce noise:

In 3D, it now looks to me like we're seeing pretty much all the way to Santa Maria on the right side now, but the left side and middle section is still obscured.

I'm surprized how prominent the dark streak looks, that trails out of Santa Maria to the NNW.

Even though we're now driving pretty much directly towards Santa Maria, there was some transverse movement between 2442 and 2443. So here's a long-baseline stereo view from those two sols:

You can clearly see depth towards the left side. But I think our approach was more directly towards the middle-to-right side of the crater, so there's less transverse movement there and so less depth in the anaglyph. (Actually, if you look really closely, the depth seems to reverse at the far right, which makes sense because that's on the other side of the direct line of approach.)

But you can pretty clearly see that we are looking through a slot to the far side near the middle of the crater, and that we can't see the far side at all on the left side.

Great pic! for the first time I feel like I'm *really* seeing Santa Maria from the surface.

To my eyes, though, there seems to be a faint horizontal line dividing the outcroppings on the left, which becomes much more prominent when I put my 3D glasses on. It appears to me that the lower portion of that section is 'near side' and that the high white hill is actually behind it.

Interesting. (And beautiful versions Mike and Fred, much appreciated and definitely worth doing.)

I have been trying a different tactic to get 3D. I rotated images for successive days so the horizons were vertical and tried viewing them as cross-eyed pairs. Lacking the relevant computer skills I was doing this with rather poor paper printouts held at different distances to match up the scales. Needless to say I was not too successful except that I did, just, discern that the near horizon was nearer than the crater before the headache came on. I do wonder though what this approach could yield if done properly.

And tosols attempt to match features in a reprojected HiRISE image with those in Fred's images.

Really good stuff, Fred and James. This is fun.

Interesting. The two pics seem to be from different angles -- that is, this one, and the long-baseline 3d I was replying to earlier -- but I can see how the horizontal break I see in the latter might just represent a hummocky ejecta blanket in front of the white hill. (Has anyone started naming these features yet?)

Ah, I've had so much on my plate the last few years, I haven't been fully engaged in this kind of anticipation and backseat driving in a long time. Feels great to be back

Thanks to all you you hard-working vets, this place continues to be the goto site for Rover followers -- except for the way y'all ignore the cornucopia of out-of-focus machine parts and exo-lichens hidden in the images, of course

I think that's it, Steve - we're seeing the ejecta blanket/rays in front of the white hill.

Ngunn - I also tried the vertical 3D, but I couldn't see anything.

You know what would be great - if the drivers wouldn't be so darned perfect, and drift a bit to the north and south as we approach Santa Maria. That'd give us better baselines for 3D imaging!