Hi Ant, welcome back!

On another topic and while preparing the current route map update, the one for sol 2633, I said to myself: "Only 80m?!?"
But then I remembered the time when the surface ops started, the mission successful requirements and expectations during those early days... and wondered which would be the reaction after such a drive right after leaving Eagle.

When is the next drive planned?...oops, just noted the post a couple minutes earlier

I used the same method to find that Oppy is 2.25 km from Spirit Point (actually a point east of the crater). I think I did my math right.

Oppy is now closer to 'Spirit Point' than Spirit was to the Columbia Hills when it landed.

Oh, it is so close I can almost taste it.

Are we there yet?

Oh, congratulations Ant, and welcome back.

Thank you guys for all your messages

Yep Tesheiner, that's what amazed me sometimes. I remember the times when we had a look beyond the rim of Eagl Crater and see this "untouchable" Endurance crater. Those rims… And now we are largely out of the landing ellipse, prepare to reach the biggest crater ever seen. Just wow !

Short 16m autonav drive thisol (2634). I guess it's due to the lack of nav/pancam "post-drive" images from yesterday so better move a short distance in "safe-mode" than wait for another sol.

That would be Gusev crater (166 km), not Endeavor (22 km). But we never saw Gusev from its rim.

So we are now just a little over 2km from Spirit Point. I'm slightly mystified that we don't seem to have the great view (HOV or whatever was the acronym) that has been predicted for the past Earth year or so.

I believe there is a rise ahead blocking it in part, then a further dip, but I'm beginning to suspect the elevations of the crater rim are going to appear as gentle undulations rather than stupefying verticality...

I don't think anyone's ever expected, or predicted, "stupefying verticality", because that's impossible. If you look at this pic...



...you'll see that we are still 3.6km away from the Tribulation Hills, and once we reach Spirit Point the cratered hills on the far side of Endeavour will just be 2km nearer than we are now, they'll still be 21km away. That will hardly change their appearance at all. So no-one's expecting them to suddenly stretch vertically and rear up like some eagle-circled crags from Middle Earth. What will change, and where I think we'll get that HOAV, is we'll see a) deeper down into the crater, exposing the lower parts ofthose hills, and 2) we'll have a much wider angle view, seeing the lower hills on either side of that main hill. We'll also be able to "look down" the Tribulation range, which I think will be pretty cool.

Tribulation is going to be fairly stupefying. It's only Cape York that will dazzle us with its horizontality. But I think there will still be lots to see. For one thing, we may end up looking at it from close to its downhill side, or at least end-on. And the far side hills will look totally different when it's not just their tips we are looking at.

Phil

Thank you both for your analyses, which if not quite stupefying, are certianly dazzlingly apposite. Whatever, there will indeed be lots to see once we crest the rise.

(this really ought to cross-refer to Distant Vistas, but I imagine most followers will be scanning both Topics.)

I'd say that we're fairy drunk on horizontality by now -- going back to before oh...... Rub al Khali.

I'm definitely expecting a dramatic change in our view soon. Looking at the latest pancams:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...2M2.JPG?sol2635
compared with just a few sols ago:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...2M1.JPG?sol2630
you can see that we've dropped a bit. Looking at the orbital view, you can see that we're skirting an ancient, heavily eroded crater basin. Once we get up on to the exposed bedrock ahead, I'm sure the view will start to open up. And that's only about half a km!

In addition to the topography, I'm also looking forward to seeing some interesting albedo features, like the vast dark dune fields in the south of Endeavour. But the deepest part of Endeavour is around 500 m below the rim - that's serious topography for Meridiani!

Agree. I've had a pin on my GM for a while now that is essentially the "no question about it" point where we will see Cape York. As far as I can tell it's no more than two or three fair drives from where we are now.

I agree that jaws start dropping around Stu's flag

Hmmmm...could this maybe be something starting to appear?

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...R6P2449R2M1.JPG