Just for y'all to chew on -- Opportunity spent more time at Olympia than it was originally scheduled to survive for its *entire* primary mission.

Boy, it seems like there's something wrong with that -- but it's the truth.

-the other Doug

And the majority of that time was spent in one spot. I remember how everybody was thrilled when Oppy wheeled up to the Rimrock outcrop.

But it is good to be alive and kicking...

--Bill

Referring back to Phil's Polar of Tesheiner's Sol 747 panorama at: Sol 747 Polar Pan, I went back and located a color image of Payson made during the trek across the North Erebus Rim. North is up on the Poalr and the view is to the Southwest on the Color image.

The dark outcrop slope at the 4:00 to 9:00 position in the Polar is shown as the right dark outcrop in the color image; currently Oppy is at the left side of this first area. The sand dune at the 3:30 position in the Polar is shown in the color image just right of center. In both, the odd evaporite chunk high in the dune can be seen. The Payson promontory area is behind that dune in both the Polar and the color image. The second dark bluff area is hidden behind a ripple about the 4:30 position on the Polar and is on the left side of the color image.

Enjoy both views (the ultimate in long-baseline stereo)!

--Bill

Sol 747 Polar Pan

And more time at Endurance Crater, and more time at and around Purgatory. And hopefully more time at Victoria!

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...cam/2006-03-03/

Wonderful set of high res L7/R1 Pancam images of the outcrop in front of Opportunity.

Yes, nice, but not recent. The timestamps indicate they were taken before yesterdays pans. Does anyone know what Oppy is doing today? Where are todays pics?

Seems like we may have some IDD work scheduled.

God, I wish I could figure out these "*$##@^(*! codes! I know about the "idd_unstow" business, - you can see it unstowed in the haz shot - but I thought they were doing that after every run for safety's sake. There's nothing under the idd but sand! The next two lines differ in their page number, and the end statements: "2_bpp_" versus "4bpp_" . So what does the change from "2 space" to "4 no space" signify?
...sigh... guess I'll just wait for the next briefing.

Go and listen to the second Pancam update I did with Jim Bell - we talk all about the bpp and so forth.

http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/ma...vers/audio.html

Doug

Thanks, Doug.
About your great super-resolution image of Spirit's heat shield attached to the article, I made a further sharpening/contrast/noise reduction in order to better see fine details... even if OT here, hope you'll appreciate!

Doug, how did you produce this? Did you stack it manually or with an auto-stacking program?

Registax

Doug

Speaking of pancam updates ... might we be due for another soon?

Waiting for Jim to get back to base, then we'll sort something out

Doug

Thanx, Doug, that is a fascinating and informative discussion. I understand a bit better now the activities of Spirit around HP. I guess Jim Bell confirmed that the matrix of the 'sandstone' in the upper unit is not iron sulfate from the analyses, and this is a major reason why the 'volcanic origin hypothesis' is in ascendancy at the moment. (I wish he had said what it is, but perhaps that is still not conclusive. )
Obviously I have to put the Planetary Society page on my daily rounds, since answers to my questions can be there without making it to UMSF.
Is there somewhere a page of code explanations to help me understand the meaning of the lines that get posted here? I would like to be more 'in-the-know' than I am.