It looks like Opportunity is on the 1st summit on Sol 3641.

Jan van Driel

As Viking's first pic shows, the "first summit" is very broad and flat, but since we can see over it now it does look like we've crested it.

The "second summit" is along the clay signature we're headed for, and with these energy levels we could get there fast...

Here's a circular version of the 3641 mini-pan to show where we are, and a map showing the location (I am deliberately not drawing this up as a full map and putting it in the route map thread because I don't want to take over the 'official' Opportunity mapping)

Phil

Hi Phil or any other cartographer--could you post a larger context image of all of Murray Ridge or Murray Ridge and Tribulation (either here or in the map thread). In the map thread I went back a dozen or more pages and could not find a helpful context map. The map of the all of Endurance is too large--sorry to be picky.

Thanks in advance fredk [how did I know fredk would post--must be a time warp]

This image extends just a bit into Tribulation.

Sol 3642 navcam pan: clear view of Cape Tribulation.

I'm sure this was posted here before, but as we get closer to the big clay signature it seemed worth a second look.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/mult...y/pia13708.html

Also, one of many papers you get by searching the web for papers on the topic:

http://www.planetary.brown.edu/pdfs/3954.pdf

Very nice cloud sequence on 3640, eg
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol3640
There are four good cloud images that piece together in pairs (I can't see the two pairs fit together). Definitely an advanced stitching job for our resident experts, considering cloud movement and stretching differences...

On another topic, the tau measurements have plummetted down close to 0.2 recently, which is very low for this (or any) time of year. There's always some potential degeneracy with dust factor which relies on modelling to resolve, but still this is probably as good as it gets for imaging distant features.

I'm on it

Beautiful clouds there !

Latest position and a reprojected pan originally from Charborob.

Phil

Yep -- and I believe that the brighter cloud arc to the right of the (not imaged) solar disc may well be a sundog. Looks like a subtle arc forming a portion of a halo around the sun, not directly associated with the cloud structures.

Cool!

-the other Doug (with my shield, not yet upon it)

Doug - any chance you could point to your arc candidate on an image?

fredk: I would bet on tau retroactively jumping up within a week or so. The reported values are quite extraordinary.

Sure. Here's a piece of the cloud mosaic; the black arrows point to the top and bottom of the arc that I'm seeing. I put a green bracket to the left of the arc I'm seeing, as well.

Now, the thing that makes it look like a sundog to me is that in the middle of the arc, it looks like the cloud structure is unchanged but that it glows more brightly than to the right or left, or even up and down the ring arc a bit. That would be the center of the sundog on the right side of the sun.

I've seen the same kind of thing here on Earth thousands of times, and this looks like the same thing to me...

-the other Doug (with my shield, not yet upon it)

I doubt it's a sun-dog/halo. Those are 22 degrees from the sun usually, and this looks to be at least one NavCam FOV (45 deg) from the sun

Simulations here http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/owmars.htm

More likely an internal reflection from the camera