Beyond Lewis and Clark Gap, Sol 4482- (September 2, 2016-) Options

[fredk]

Our first good look through the gap:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol4482

[Phil Stooke]

Beat me to it, fredk! This is the start of a whole new adventure - and a new thread, methinks.

Phil

[fredk]

And according to Crumpler, we are headed eastwards, ie straight downslope, after threading the gap.

[elakdawalla]

Beat me to it, fredk! This is the start of a whole new adventure - and a new thread, methinks.

Seems right, so I made a new thread. I'll rename it if this valley gets a name!

[charborob]

Sol 4483 Lpancam. Reminds me of Lindbergh mound.

[Floyd]

This is the best map I could find, but ends just where we want to see where we are going. Can anyone link a better wide view map, or one with an elevation grid?

[fredk]

This official route map has contours and extends a ways south and east of Marathon. (We should move this to the new thread.) [MOD: DONE.]

[charborob]

Sol 4484 Lpancam view of Plymouth II and Wharton Ridge:

[Floyd]

Thanks fredk, the official route map is great. However, I don't see any difference in the slope of the two valleys. So does anyone understand why we couldn't go down Marathon valley to the bottom and we can this new valley?

[marsophile]

My take on this is that we could go down Marathon Valley, but then we could not come back up in order to go down this other valley, which is what we want to do for science reasons.

[vjkane]

This official route map has contours and extends a ways south and east of Marathon. (We should move this to the new thread.) [MOD: DONE.]

Would it be possible for someone to do a version of this map that shows the gulley that is the goal of this extended mission?

[Phil Stooke]

My impression - without a direct link to the mission team - is that the rover will not go all the way to the bottom until it reaches the gulley area. Where we are now the valleys slope down until they reach areas with too much loose debris on them, making a climb back up very uncertain. So they can go up and down as targets present themselves, to a certain point but not beyond.

Phil

[Sean]

I hope this doesn't qualify as spam...but here is a delicious 3D model of the area;

Marathon Valley @Sketchfab

[atomoid]

Would it be possible for someone to do a version of this map that shows the gulley that is the goal of this extended mission?

The location of the gully doesn't appear to be covered by that map, but big THANKS to Sean who has made it easy and indeed delicious fun for us to explore certain areas in high resolution by sharing his Sketchfab projects.
Here's an excerpt from that showing (1) approx sol4488 and (2) that bright dome and (3) the presumptive gulley, further detailed in Post #314 of the Marathon Valley thread (IPBoard cross-thread linking doesn't seem to work)
I'd venture a guess Oppy will traverse at various elevations along the ridge distracted by ad-hoc targets as it makes its way south to (presumed) gully.

[Phil Stooke]

Wharton Ridge... do we know where the name comes from? I'm thinking it may commemorate Robert A. Wharton of the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, who died on 19 September 2012. He conducted research on Antarctic ice-covered lakes with similarities to possible environments on early Mars.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Sol 4500 !!! - and another drive, bringing us close to the little hill whose name is still not released yet. Map update this evening.

Images are HERE , not yet on Midnight Planets.

Phil

[charborob]

Sol 4500 navcam view of Spirit Mound:

[charborob]

Sol 4502 Lnavcam. Moving closer to Spirit Mound:

[charborob]

Sols 4502-4504 Lpancam view of Spirit Mound:

[JohnVV]

Would it be possible for someone to do a version of this map that shows the gulley that is the goal of this extended mission?

i am working on a dem using ASP b,but the hirisd data files are huge 6 gig each
even a cropped area of the current location is 1.5 gig

this will take some time

[atomoid]

sol4505 windtails in lower right suggest consistent upslope winds here, wondering if that is generally true on both sides of the rim, as i was under the impression that the wind pattern over the crater is west>east on a high level which id assumed would also tend to effect that at ground level as well, but i guess not being a meteorologist i was surprised by this, so am just guessing its still on the mains a general west>east flow but the air is instead getting pulled up the rim under a vortex effect imparted by the intervening crater rim to that flow, or perhaps its just rising up due to ground heating and following the contours up the rim..?

on another note that spire just behind the boulder on sol4506 turns out to be part of the ridge, not a background feature (parellel view)

[Phil Stooke]

Given the complexity of the topography here, it's not really possible to guess a local prevailing wind direction from a regional upper-level wind direction. In the floor of Endeavour below us, the large field of light-toned drifts suggest north-south winds, approximately.

Phil

[JohnVV]

the topography is fun . a small area cropped out of the Hirise stereo pair
-- just the current location and a EARLY run of ASP

[atomoid]

a couple rotated MI anaglyphs of... (Council Bluffs? Gasconade? Phil's map) from sol4512

[Phil Stooke]

It's Gasconade.

Phil

[Sean]

Here is an update on the Oppy arena...



Beyond Lewis & Clark Gap @ Sketchfab

[fredk]

A sketch of future plans from the latest PS update:

Once her work at Gasconade is done, Opportunity will rove on, driving southwest through the rim and then angling to motor up a Cape Tribulation slope to targets at the top of the hill.

The longer-term objective is to head south across the plains or along the apron on the western side Endeavour’s west rim and over to Cape Byron where there’s a gully believed to have been carved by water or a liquid debris flow.

"...we will exit the gully much farther into the crater than we are now at Spirit Mound,” said Arvidson. “There are a set of benches we'll drive across and one of them could be an outcrop of Matijevic Formation."

[atomoid]

Still trying to get a handle on where exactly we are going... perhaps the area rectangled (with adjacent processed inset) in the google earth extract below may be the assumed gulley that fredk pointed out early on, if it's enough on the Byron side, and it does seem to be the only feature that fits the description to my untrained eye, if that all pans out the arrows may identify the bench of the presumed Matijevic Formation.

[Phil Stooke]

Yes, I think that is the gully.

Phil

[Jaro_in_Montreal]

Interesting.
How come Oppy gets to go near potential sources of moisture, but Curiosity must be rerouted to avoid them?

[fredk]

The features near MSL bear some resemblence to recurring slope lineae (RSL), dark streaks that appear and reappear and that might be related to current water.

If the gully near Oppy was carved by water, it was probably in the very distant past - I haven't heard anyone suggest water was still present. The Oppy gully isn't an RSL.

[atomoid]

It's almost as if the gulley near Oppy had to have been exhumed, it just looks too surficial to be that ancient, perhaps what we see is just a lingering remnant of its once lower reaches, though I have no idea if we know how deep these slopes have been eroded over the eons.

[Phil Stooke]

Check this out... MEPAG presentation from yesterday's meeting, with Opportunity's future route mapped out.

Phil

http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/meeting/2016-10/...MarsScience.pdf

[James Sorenson]

Opportunity's Navcam view from Spirit Mound.


https://www.flickr.com/photos/43581439@N08/...211963/sizes/k/

[Habukaz]

Check this out... MEPAG presentation from yesterday's meeting, with Opportunity's future route mapped out.

Phil

http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/meeting/2016-10/...MarsScience.pdf

Excellent, just what the official release was missing.

I like that they are planning to visit a small well-preserved crater; makes me all nostalgic.

[marsbug]

It's almost as if the gulley near Oppy had to have been exhumed, it just looks too surficial to be that ancient, perhaps what we see is just a lingering remnant of its once lower reaches, though I have no idea if we know how deep these slopes have been eroded over the eons.

TBH my bet would be that it's more recent, and due to dust or debris flow with little or no water involved - perhaps a little lubrication to help things move if it dates from a high obliquity period, but my gut feeling is that the idea of liquid water being involved is more wh\t people are determined toi find than what is actually there.
Would be delighted to be wrong though!

[atomoid]

sol4522 rotated MI anaglyph and snippet in parellel:

[James Sorenson]

From the tracking site.
pancam_EDM_test_L6R2
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...A4P2671L6M1.JPG

Looks like the MER team is getting ready to attempt to image Schiaparelli's descent.

Good luck on the Imaging attempt, and good luck to the Schiaparelli team!

[Explorer1]

Since Oppy is on the inner west rim of the crater though, the best view would be if the trajectory overshot the centre of the landing ellipse and ended up far to the east; if the targeting is perfect than ironically the slope will block the view (see http://www.leonarddavid.com/europe-readies...ber-touchdown/) . And obviously the MER team has its own mission which doesn't involve doubling back to the other side of the valley for the sake of one 1 pixel. Don't expect anything like the cover of the Martian Chronicles..

[PaulM]

Am I right in thinking that the landing ellipse for Insight at Meridiani Planum is roughly the same as that for Schiaparelli? Oppy may therefore be able to take a photo of Insight landing in 2 Year's time.

[Phil Stooke]

No, not at all. Insight is heading for an area north of Gale crater, half a world away from Meridiani Planum, and too far north for Curiosity to see it.

Phil

[fredk]

Here's the difference of each 4528 pancam frame from their mean, then stretched and smoothed:

I see no sign of Schiaparelli, just a few cosmic ray hits. (This is daytime at Meridiani so the exposures must be very short and so I wouldn't expect the lander/chute to be streaked.)

[James Sorenson]

The 1x3 SW Ridge mosaic from 4535.

[James Sorenson]

I have been assembling the Spirit Mound mosaic that it has been taking. Here is a preview GIF of it.

[Phil Stooke]

http://nmnaturalhistory.org/space-science/...ld-reports-mars

New field report from Mars!

Phil

[James Sorenson]

The scene to the South on Sol-4534.


False color:

[James Sorenson]

The view to the Northwest from Spirit Mound, Sol-4542.



False Color:

[charborob]

James, where did you find these images? There is nothing on Midnight Planets for sol 4542, and the MER raw image page doesn't have them either.

[fredk]

They're available at the merpublic site:

http://merpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/oss/merb...es_sol4542.json

There are other images missing from the jpl and exploratorium sites - they missed 4536 and 4537 eg but those images are at the merpublic site.

This site was discussed in this post.

[Floyd]

Opportunity is doing great explorations and there are lots of images on the Exploratorium site. Thanks James for recent image mosaics. Opportunity should get at lest some of the love mostly going to Curiosity.

[charborob]

To comply with Floyd's wish, here is the sol 4556 pre-drive Lpancam panorama:


And here is the Lpancam post-drive view (sol 4556):

[Floyd]

Thanks charborob! Like Spirit Mound, Pompy's Tower looks very white with the standard pancam filter. See James Sorenson's image above in post #44.

[alan]

Lots of rocks beyond Pompy's tower, in combination with the slope I suspect they will need to watch the tilt closely as Oppy drives across that.

[Phil Stooke]

This is a crop from James Sorenson's earlier post showing the view to the north from Spirit Mound:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/43581439@N08/30746579826/


I just noticed that this little bit right at the edge of the mosaic shows Cape York peeking round the shoulder of Cape Tribulation:



(with a bit of additional enhancement from James's original)

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

http://www.midnightplanets.com/web/MERB/im...UP1211L0M1.html

Right through the boulder field!

Phil

[charborob]

Two Lpancam views on sol 4558:

[charborob]

A quicky thrown-together crude Lnavcam panorama on sol 4561:


(Almost ashamed to post this. )

[Phil Stooke]

Don't be!

Phil

[JohnVV]

you do know there are flat field calibration files for the pancam
but for the navcam ???
and you mean sol 4561 and not 4661

[JohnVV]

a quick mask for the left navcam "raw'ish" jpg's
the 8 bit mask


copy past it onto the jpg
then in gimp set it to 33% transparent and use the "grain merge" layer blend

[charborob]

Sol 4562 Lpancam (filter2) view of Pompy's Tower:

[atomoid]

Thanks for that nice stitch. I tried to put the sol4561 boulder field into perspective and had to settle for a two image join in ICE to limit the bad seams. stitch anaglyph plus simple crosseye of a portion.

[James Sorenson]

Beautiful work guy's!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving for those of us in the USA.

[Sean]

Excellent work as usual James... any news on whether the horizon will be filled out in due course?

[James Sorenson]

More images just came down for this mosaic of the ground around Pompys Tower and our wheel tracks that we left during the last drive. I likely won't get to those today. Will most likely release a final version shortly after we leave this area just incase more are taken before hand.

[James Sorenson]

I am really impressed with Oppy's Sol-4564 down-link. 80 images down, I haven't seen that many down in a single sol for quite awhile, Since Sol-4006...A sign that Oppy is testing in flash? Or just a great down-link while still in RAM mode? time will tell.

[Phil Stooke]

This is Robert's panorama with a bit of extra processing - and I added a half frame at the end which he had omitted. I forgot to match the two ends properly so it doesn't join properly in the circular view. Still, it gives an idea of the surroundings and the tracks skirting Pompy's Tower. What would little Pompy have thought of this?

Phil

[James Sorenson]

My final version of the Pompy's Tower mosaic.



False color

[charborob]

Sol 4571 Rpancam:

[charborob]

Sol 4576 Lpancam:

[Floyd]

Looks like a easy drive ahead for Opportunity in post #70, but is somewhat frightening when you tilt the image correctly as in #69. To the left is a true Slippery Slope.

[Ant103]

I don't come here often, so, here the last panoramic I did (Sol 4562)



And terrific work James

[atomoid]

Nice stitch Ant103, always love to see your work, as Sarah Winchester said, keep building!
Looking at Phil's sol4582 map, it seems we can see over the first ridge now, so im trying to get a handle on the path ahead so unless I'm mistaken it looks like we cannot yet see the destination gulley in the sol4582 navcam as i suspect its still out of view behind the second ridge to the right in the direction of the arrow in the below crosseye.

[James Sorenson]

Thank you Damia, very nice job as well, as always!!

We sure miss your work here, I certainly do.

[Ant103]

Question James : where did you get the Sol 4563 pancam pictures to complete the previous Sol pan ?
I found nothing on both MER website, Exploratorium and Midnight Planets.

Thanks

[fredk]

They're available at the merpublic site:

http://merpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/oss/merb...es_sol4563.json

This site was discussed in this post.

[Ant103]

Okay, I get it Thanks !
I didn't saw this discussion because it was during my kind of break of imagery processing, especially with Oppy's datas.

[James Sorenson]

The public JSON server. That is the most reliable and fast server that I have found.

http://json.jpl.nasa.gov/data.json

I use the JSON plug-in for mozilla, but chrome has the same plugin. I then use the DownThemAll plugin to link follow and download the images.

[Ant103]

I'm on Opera, but I found some Json plugin to display url as clickable links.

Sol 4584 Navcam pan also (updated with next sol imagery)

[Phil Stooke]

Wow, beautiful view... and thanks to this link:

http://www.nmnaturalhistory.org/space-scie...ld-reports-mars

(Larry Crumpler's latest field report) we see that this valley has a name: Willamette Valley. Soon to appear in a map near you.

Phil

[Sean]

Oppy's Navcam left mosaic, Sol 4587



Extended sky & foreground patches.

...updated with CG Oppy

[charborob]

Sol 4587 Lpancam:

[Sean]

Sol 4586-4587 Navcam L+R mosaic



Extended sky & foreground patches.

[Ant103]

My panoramics today. One navcam corresponding of Sol 4586 & 4587 :



And one Pancam of Mount Jefferson, Sol 4587 :

[James Sorenson]

Great work Sean and Damia. Might do my take on on the new Pancam's and Navcams after work.

[Ant103]

Sol 4588 Navcam pan :

[charborob]

Rough, uncorrected sol 4589 Lnavcam panorama:

[Ant103]

My take, same Sol

[Ant103]

And updated with Sol 4590 Navcams :

[fredk]

I missed that we dug in a bit on 4589:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol4589
A short drive back downhill and we're free on 4591:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol4591

[Phil Stooke]

Interesting, as I had interpreted that as the deliberate creation of a trench to provide something to study over the holiday period. But maybe it was an accident as you say. And maybe a spot of serendipity.

Phil

[Ant103]

Sol 4593 Navcam pan. Looks like Christmas day was a busy day for Oppy ^^

[vikingmars]

Thanks a lot Fred : here are the 3-D images for Sols 4589 and 4591 showing one of the trenches dug by the wheels

[charborob]

Sol 4599 Lpancam:

[algorithm]

An L257 version of the wheel trench.

[algorithm]

And an anaglyph to go with it.






Some well defined imprints, not sure what that says about the texture of the soil. Extremely fine?

[algorithm]

The bunkers are done, and once the fairways and greens are in, the real estate prices are going to rocket around here.

[algorithm]

Trouble getting up the hill, or just a spot of light excavation work?

[Guest_Steve5304_*]

An L257 version of the wheel trench.

That crack in the soil is really georgia clayish....mmmmmm

[Ant103]

A color mosaic to start the year (a terrestrial year, I know ^^)
Sol 4602 pancam :