Winter Quarters, at Low Ridge Haven Options

[Airbag]

Very nice Doug, especially the first one. Did you make them by using the Hue and Saturation from a suitably scaled RGB image and then adding that to the Value from the super-res image?

Airbag

[djellison]

I used the colour image as a 'colour' layer over the top of the super res image in photoshop - and then adjust the levels of the super res image to bring it down a bit...they can be a bit brash.

D

[Nix]

top of the bill, the first one; I love that photo, and even more now. Very nice

Nico

[alan]

Can almost reach out and touch it

Almost done with Mcmurdo Panorama
914 p2279.06 0 0 0 0 0 0 pancam_McMurdo_Pan_col_27a_L234567Rall

[fredk]

Interesting extremely dark mark in the centre of the latest MI frames. My guess is it's a mark from the "stick" (I don't know the proper name) that protrudes forward from the MI. This mark doesn't have a very smooth or regular shape, though.

[CosmicRocker]

When I saw that my first thought was that it was one of the cracks where the surface soil has collapsed. We've seen quite a number of those nearby. I'm not certain, but this thing seems to be too narrow to have been made by the positioning rod. If you look at the hazcam images from sol 913 it appears they were imaging in the vicinity of the hole they have been brushing in the soil. Near the bottom of the pancams they earlier captured from that area there is a similarly oriented dark line that might be this feature.

I noticed that there was one MI taken that was offset from the rest that caught the left half of this hole, so I thought I'd try to make an anaglyph of it. It's probably not terribly useful for determining what this feature is, but here it is, for those interested.

[jvandriel]

Here is the complete 360 degree panoramic view of the

horizon of the Mc Murdo pan.

Taken with the L2 pancam.

jvandriel

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[jvandriel]

Here is another view of the Horizon of the Mc Murdo pan,

but now centered 180 degree in the other direction.

jvandriel

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[RNeuhaus]

I have read a recently updated article from MER rover's web:

Now Spirit is experiencing on of the coldest days around 5:00 am with temperatures near the surface have dipped to approximately minus 97 degrees Celsius (minus 143 degrees Fahrenheit).

With the deepest part of the Martian winter just around the corner, Spirit is collecting about 284 watt-hours of electrical power each sol from the rover's solar array. The shortest day, winter solstice in Mars' southern hemisphere, will arrive on Aug. 8, 2006. The lowest amount of solar energy the rover is expected to receive is about 275 watt-hours per sol. Hope that Spirit will be able to complete the 360 degree full panorama of McMurdo before it wanes.

I hope that there is no much risk that the power in watts will drop below to 275 watt-hours since the Mars's winter weather, related to tau, would be relatively low which will permit the maximum solar incidence on the solar panels up to August 8 which is the Mar's equinox. After that, the sun incidence will start to improve.

Rodolfo

[kungpostyle]

An update

http://planetary.org/news/2006/0731_Mars_E...ate_Spirit.html

[dilo]

Here is the complete 360 degree panoramic view of the horizon of the Mc Murdo pan.
Taken with the L2 pancam.

nice, this is corresponding pseudo-polar projection:

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[mars loon]

nice, this is corresponding pseudo-polar projection:

Wow

In a fanciful way, this reminds me of the "Guardian of Forever" in the #1 Star Trek episode of all time "City on the Edge of Forever"

perhaps Kirk, Spock or McCoy will suddenly jump through !



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_on_the_Edge_of_Forever

[dilo]

You're right, Ken. I didn't realize!
(another star trek fan...)

[hortonheardawho]

The golden spike:



still lots of missing data and filters to be downlinked -- but the McMurdo panorama is done.

[Marz]

The golden spike:

still lots of missing data and filters to be downlinked -- but the McMurdo panorama is done.

Whew! Glad to see that epic pan finished, since I worry that Spirit is living on the edge of freeze-out. Any guesses as to how large the complete 360 colorized pan will be?

So does the mother of all MI-pans begin now?

Has anyone noticed a change in Spirit's wheel tracks over the months? I'm guessing not, since there's not been any cleaning events, although maybe exposure to UV might've made some slight differences?