Transient or not, this sort of dust accumulation is a force to be reckoned with in future designs. Solar panel effects aside, in the distant future people definitely don't want to be breathing this stuff, ever; gonna have to figure out a way to minimize (or ideally repel) this crap.

Intentionally inflamatory comment regarding manned v unmanned exploration deleted - Doug

At last!
Our brave friend is alive and kicking, with enough power to drive right (or near) to Duck Bay after almost 40 sols of stationary activity.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...cam/2007-08-22/

It's time to resurrect the "Opportunity Route Map" thread.

The left navcam is still well covered with dust by the look of it.

...And it is dust. Here's the sky cropped from five recent navcam images.



The first frame is from the left navcam, as are the last three images, taken in different directions up to nearly two minutes later. The second image is from the right navcam, taken at the same time as the first.

I see a pattern!

Andy

On the road again...!!!

V quick and v v messy stitch before heading out to work...



Amazing machines, amazing people, amazing adventure.

Welcome back Oppy. Go get 'em gal!

At last she moves

Never mind the messy, it's great to see a changing view at last ... even if some Entry Pool swimmers might be lamenting...

Really good stitch, Stu, precisely because it's so messy.

Gives you the feeling you're peering out at the surface through a dusty little window... which in a sense we are.

Thanks for the quick map update Tesheiner, and for the pan Stu!

I am surprized at how much dustier the left navcam is than the right. I mean, the left and right navcams are pointing in the same direction only centimetres apart. Does that mean the dust is blowing in clumps? Fortunately the right navcams are always sharper than the left!

We're used to seeing dust on the hazcams, which are low to the ground. For the hazcams, the dust is obviously dust since each grain apears as a large circular disk. For navcam, it's much harder to make out the individual grains, since the focal length is much larger, so depth of field is much lower. That's why those navcams looked to some like they might be showing clouds.

It will be interesting to see how the pancams are doing dust wise, although since their focal lengths are even longer the effect may be even less obvious.

It'd be a shame to have the next rover design not have a small ultrasonic shaker for the front glass of the cams, but I understand harsh environmental conditions might preclude that addition.

Re: Dust in clumps -- I'm thinking more of differential electrostatic charge, perhaps based on position relative to wind direction. Just a wild guess, though.

Maybe, it was due to the angle position of Oppy with respect to the wind direction.

One quick thought before racing out the door (late to work)... perhaps the right camera benefited a bit from the position of the arm.

Yeah, I could see that if the wind was blowing roughly "from the side" of the navcams, ie perpendicular to their optical axes, then if you developed eddies around the PMA that could effect the two navcams differently.

Looking at the dunes under Cabo Verde I wonder if this approach to a reasonably steep segment of the Bay isn't designed to try and find some channeled wind to clean off a bit of the dust before the last of the heavy winds die off.