Victoria here we come..., Arrival minus one month and counting... Options

[jamescanvin]

Yes, babakm, I am thinking similarly about the horizon feature. I checked the very large colored Meridiani image comprising Victoria (taken by Mars Express possibly?) and the direction is about right if this is one of the mountains on the _big crater_ far rim. It can also be seen in the elevation map that was sent here, in the now closed 'Moving south to Vic' thread. The far (far) rim should be something like 40 km distant (?), I don't know actually.

The link to the elevation map http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...417&st=1455

Further to marswiggle's post, here's a crop of the slinted MEX image from this thread with a rough approximation of jamescanvin's vectors. There seem to be much better candidates on the far rim, although it seems incredibly far to be so clearly visible from here.

Holy smoke! I think your right.

Here are the heading vectors on that elevation map Tim posted:



A perfect match to one of the 'knots' of contours on the far rim.

Wow!

[Pando]

Is that a fact or a guess?

Yes.

[Phil Stooke]

The direction looks good, but I have a problem with this idea. When Spirit saw the rim of Gusev, it was (as we would expect) very subdued in contrast compared with the foreground. Looking through a dusty atmosphere made the distant topography indistinct. But this hill has details on it every bit as contrasty as the surroundings. Anyway, only one small move should be enough for parallax to resolve the issue at once. Going out on a limb, I'll say I think it's close to the rim on the far side, like the mounds we are seeing up close here on the near rim.

Phil

[dot.dk]

Yes.

That was very rude!

[jamescanvin]

The direction looks good, but I have a problem with this idea. When Spirit saw the rim of Gusev, it was (as we would expect) very subdued in contrast compared with the foreground. Looking through a dusty atmosphere made the distant topography indistinct. But this hill has details on it every bit as contrasty as the surroundings. Anyway, only one small move should be enough for parallax to resolve the issue at once. Going out on a limb, I'll say I think it's close to the rim on the far side, like the mounds we are seeing up close here on the near rim.

Yeah I'm having a hard time beleving it really is *that* far away. I'm really looking forward to a bit of parallax.

However I don't beleve it can be a mound close to the far rim as I'm pretty sure we're seeing a good expanse of annulus/plain beyond Victoria but in front of the feature.

James

Edit: Maybe it's time for a 'far rim' vs 'really far rim' pool.

[diane]

Here are the heading vectors on that elevation map Tim posted:

I see some numbers on the contour lines in the elevation map: -1400, -1500. What unit of measurement applies to these numbers?

[Bill Harris]

It's valuable to categorize the rocks at the current position since the impact that made the small crater has excavated some of the ejecta.

I'll agree with Pando. This is a unique opportunity to examine and characterize Victoria's ejecta material. Once we get at Victoria there is going to be slumping, erosion and deposition that is secondary and occured long after the impact. Think of it as a "Qal" unit, which won't tell much about the Pliocene...

Emma Dean is a fine roadcut.

I'll also agree with Phil; the distant feature is too clear and contrasty to be of that distant crater, it has to be a far-rim Victoria feature. We'll know for sure after the next driving Sol.

--Bill

[jamescanvin]

I see some numbers on the contour lines in the elevation map: -1400, -1500. What unit of measurement applies to these numbers?

Meters - (Oppys landing site (ellipse centre) was at -1440m)

[RNeuhaus]

I see some numbers on the contour lines in the elevation map: -1400, -1500. What unit of measurement applies to these numbers?

Diane
That is related to the Mars altitud reference that is 3,522.2 km of its equatorial radius: 3,397 km. Then the contour maps -1,400 meters (1.4 km) below of the reference, that is at 3,520.8 km from center of Mars.

Rodolfo

[prometheus]

The large bump does appear to be on the far rim



If that white patch in the middle are dunes in the bottom, Victoria is not very deep.

[jamescanvin]

If that white patch in the middle are dunes in the bottom, Victoria is not very deep.

Well I beleve that the white patch on the left side of that image (*just* over the near rim) is the far rim (or possibly Sofi crater) everything else is further away.

We can't see inside Victoria yet, let alone the centre dunes!

James

[diane]

Meters - (Oppys landing site (ellipse centre) was at -1440m)

Thanks, James and Rodolfo.

So if I'm reading the map right, within about 200 meters of the far rim, there's about a 100 meter drop in elevation? As compared to maybe a 20 or 30 meter drop from Oppy's current position to Vicky's near rim?

That's why I was questioning the units. The terrain doesn't look that steep, but the numbers suggest that each contour line is a change in elevation of 25 meters. Unless I'm misreading it, somehow.

[dot.dk]

SOL 931 is a driving sol and a check of the RAT bits

CODE

931 p0685.03 0   0   0   0   0   0    navcam_5x1_az_144_3_bpp
931 p1149.01 0   0   0   0   0   0    frhaz_RAT_bit_check_subframe_loco_pri_56
931 p1149.01 0   0   0   0   0   0    frhaz_RAT_bit_check_subframe_loco_pri_56
931 p1149.01 0   0   0   0   0   0    frhaz_RAT_bit_check_subframe_loco_pri_56
931 p1151.04 0   0   0   0   0   0    front_hazcam_idd_unstow_doc
931 p1154.01 0   0   0   0   0   0    front_hazcam_idd_unstow_doc
931 p1205.08 0   0   0   0   0   0    front_haz_penultimate_0.5_bpp_pri17
931 p1214.05 0   0   0   0   0   0    front_haz_ultimate_4bpp_pri15
931 p1305.07 0   0   0   0   0   0    rear_haz_penultimate_0.5bpp_pri17
931 p1311.07 0   0   0   0   0   0    rear_haz_ultimate_1_bpp_crit15
931 p1976.05 0   0   0   0   0   0    navcam_5x1_az_324_1bpp_pri_23
931 p2631.01 0   0   0   0   0   0    pancam_sky_spot_L234567R34567
    Total    0   0   0   0   0   0

But no drive direction panorama? Are they gonna do some work here or do they not predict to be able to do more forward driving once they are at the rim of Victoria?

[jamescanvin]

Thanks, James and Rodolfo.

So if I'm reading the map right, within about 200 meters of the far rim, there's about a 100 meter drop in elevation? As compared to maybe a 20 or 30 meter drop from Oppy's current position to Vicky's near rim?

That's why I was questioning the units. The terrain doesn't look that steep, but the numbers suggest that each contour line is a change in elevation of 25 meters. Unless I'm misreading it, somehow.

I think you might be confused about the scale of that map - Victoria is that little circle next to the apex of my sight lines, the big crater is the *huge* one to the south east thats 10's of km across.

James

[diane]

I think you might be confused about the scale of that map - Victoria is that little circle next to the apex of my sight lines, the big crater is the *huge* one to the south east thats 10's of km across.

Indeed! Thanks, James.

All this excitement over a big hole in the ground, and it turns out that it's not even so big...

Well, we're just going to have to take up a collection so we can send Oppy a maid service to dust off her panels, so she can make it to the next crater!