MSL Post-conjunction: Drilling at Cumberland, Revisiting Point Lake and Shaler, site 6 cont'd, sols 272-323, May 12, 2013-July 4,2013 Options

[Ant103]

And my take on this wheel MAHLI mosaic :

[EdTruthan]

Sol 275 - MC100 four frame mosaic. The new drill site candidate I presume?

[Gerald]

A Sol 276 animated gif made of two raw Hazcam Front Right B images:

Link to the GIF

It may provide a certain feeling of a push/release action of the rover arm on the presumed new drill target; the action seems to tilt the rover a bit.

[marsophile]

Reply 376 in the "YellowKnife Bay" thread in the yellow blog shows a remarkable change in one of the bumps on Cumberland rock.

[EdTruthan]

It may provide a certain feeling of a push/release action of the rover arm on the presumed new drill target; the action seems to tilt the rover a bit.

Thumbing through at the Hazcam sequence from sol 276, I noticed that little "camera jump" too Gerald. The drill was down at the time, and there appears to be a distinct dark diagonal scar in the MAHLI close up of that area on Sol 276 that wasn't there on Sol 275. The contact looks to have been focused on one of the raised nodules. The original raw images are here: Sol 275 & Sol 276

[djellison]

the action seems to tilt the rover a bit.

As well it might - they preload with quite a force.

[EdTruthan]

Kind of off topic, but does anyone know if the left and right front hazcams actually take their respective stereo images at exactly the same time? The time stamps usually appear as identical with left and right pairs, but is their a slight difference in the actual imaging time of a few milliseconds? I ask because while scrolling through the 14 images taken on Sol 276 (the entire sequence is here), I noticed a bright "smear" in the sky above Mt. Sharp that appears only on one particular right hazcam image of the sequence. The corresponding left image, lacks this anomaly, as well as all the others in the sequence. The JPL raw image page time stamps both left and right images at "2013-05-16 16:45:59 UTC"

Is this a processing anomaly or a lens glint? If it's a glint then from what? The cameras appear to be in full shadow. Upon closer inspection it seems to almost have a "nucleus" of sorts, (one very bright pixel) and even a wispy looking "tail" associated with it. It certainly seems highly improbable this could be daytime meteor trail, but it almost has that kind of look. If the hazcams take their frames at precisely the same moment then of course it's not or it'd appear on the left image too, correct? . Just wondering what might have caused this because I don't recall seeing many distinct single frame hazcam anomalies (like this one anyway) very often, and it doesn't have a 'digital glitch' look at all due it's wispy nature. Most likely a sun-dog on the lens then? Caused by what though? A reflection off the turret?



... same image with levels tweaked to bring out details:

[elakdawalla]

When it's a bright streak on one camera and not the other, it's a cosmic ray hit, just like the ones you see on Cassini; you just don't see them as often on Mars, but there's plenty to be found in rover camera images if you look.

[EdTruthan]

Thanks Emily. From reviewing several "comic ray hits" on other space images from around the web I'd say you nailed it. They seem to take a wide different forms too, not dissimilar to the one I referenced, as in this MSL night image from sol 113. Very similar in pixel spread and appearance. It's placement low over Mt. Sharp is what threw me.

[Gerald]

...The drill was down at the time, and there appears to be a distinct dark diagonal scar in the MAHLI close up of that area on Sol 276 that wasn't there on Sol 275. The contact looks to have been focused on one of the raised nodules.

Watchful observation, Ed!
The scar seems to have been caused by the first Sol 276 APXS contact analysis.
Here a more complete animated gif as split screen, which tries to show the Sol 275/276 activities in the correct order. It may help to pin down the cause of the scar:

Link to the GIF.

Sol 277 MAHLI/HazCam image (taken after the "load test") seem to be available just in low-res yet.

[fredk]

When it's a bright streak on one camera and not the other, it's a cosmic ray hit

Like you've been saying about the wheel dents, Emily, cosmic rays come up pretty regularly on this forum too. Maybe a special topic ("It's just a cosmic ray!") or FAQ list would make it easier to deal with.

[jvandriel]

The Navcam NL B panoramic view from images taken on Sol 270 and Sol 275.

Jan van Driel

[EdTruthan]

With the four Sol 275 MC-34's now in, here's an anaglyph of the recent area of focus. The yellow rectangle outlines the patch being scrutinized by MAHLI imagery of late. The left side of this rectangle is the top in the MAHLI images. And BTW Jan... beautiful work on the Navcam pano with the integration of Mt. Sharp. Nicely done!

[fredk]

Thanks for the context pic, Ed. It looks like the drilling area may be thick with tasty concretions.

Mmmm, concretions...

[dvandorn]

You know, when we first got to Yellowknife Bay, I mentioned that it looked to me like some of the rocks had concretions in them, and Phil (our mapmaker for MSL). whom I much admire, replied with "Concretions, Doug? Really?" Suggesting I was seeing things that weren't there.

Nice to have heard Grotzinger later identified what I was seeing as concretions....

That said, of course, not every little round pebble on Mars is a concretion, and I totally understand caution in making identifications at first glance.

-the other Doug