Distant vistas, Endeavour, Iazu, and beyond Options

[fredk]

To answer Ustrax's querries from the other thread, I think we can now see more of the south west rim of Endeavour and Iazu. In this image I've lined up the views from 1987 pancam (colour on bottom, from Astro in this post) and 2136 navcam (top, from Ant's navcam mosiac):

The leftmost (Endeavour north rim) and middle (far rim) features look similar. But it looks like we can see more stuff on the right, which is Endeavour south rim and Iazu. The view we had a few sols ago (2133) of Iazu was still partly obscured by dunes, so it makes sense that we can see more now.

I can't see Bopolu in the navcams, though it could be there and buried in the jpeg noise...

[fredk]

I've done a cross-section plot of the elevations along our actual route between Eagle and Concepción, and from there to Endeavour, to the end of the proposed route originally posted here. This corrects the blurry number 1325 to 1395. Vertical scale 1 m/px, horizontal scale 24 m/px:

Lots of approximations here: Distances are in as-the-crow-flies segments, rather than odometer distances. The proposed map in the abstract contains an error, as pointed out above. The horizontal resolution of the MRO elevation data probably means we can't take the precise topography too seriously. Curvature of the surface of Mars ignored.

Still, it gives us an idea of when we might get a HOAV. It looks to me like most of the roughly level plain just west of Endeavour won't be visible until roughly halfway between Concepción and mini Endurance. Curvature works against us, but the 1.8 1.55 m height of pancam works for us.

Remember that the vertical scale is exagerated 24 times here! This is still Meridiani, after all. So any "HOAV" we get will likely be dramatic only thanks to the wonder of Phil-o-vision.

[centsworth_II]

I've done a cross-section plot of the elevations...

Where would the elevation of the rim peaks to south of the proposed arrival point at Endeavour fall on that plot?