Journey to Mt Sharp - Part 1A: Darwin, Sol392 [Sep13,'13] to Sol401 [Sep22,'13] (Waypoint 1) Options

[fredk]

Starting to see some clouds as we head towards winter - they're pretty subtle in this new hazcam shot:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/pr...FHAZ00206M_.JPG
but compare them with this shot from 20 minutes earlier to see that they're not just dust on the optics:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/pr...FHAZ00206M_.JPG

[vikingmars]

Thanks a lot Deimos, jmknapp and Greenish for your interesting explanations. The boresights and optical FOVs illustration from jmknapp explains it also very well... And as Napoleon said : "A picture is worth a thousand words" ! Thanks again a lot to you all

[fredk]

Better view of the clouds in this late-afternoon hazcam shot:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/pr...FHAZ00215M_.JPG

[atomoid]

thanks for catching the clouds!
more nice MI topography coming down sol399..

[blake]

more nice MI topography coming down sol399..

Sol 399 MAHLI blink image, cropped, downsized:

[jmknapp]

Photoshop from MR sol 395

[Astro0]

That was quick!?!


Matt Heverly tweeted: # Curiosity is leaving the first scientific waypoint on the route to Mt. Sharp. Only 1.1 km until she stops again at science waypoint 2.

[elakdawalla]

Yes, I'd heard it would just be a few days. They have to really move fast to make it to the mountain by the end of the nominal mission.

[jmknapp]

Sol 402, 26 meters

Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. -- Walt Disney

[Greenish]

Tons of MAHLI imaging on 399-401, including what looks like some stereo in addition to the focus merge depth mapping, and coordinated obs with Chemcam.

Tried a regular mosaic from one sequence on Sol 400 (still a missing a few missing but wanted to see if I could do it). May post a full res if I can when all of them are down. Really need to start paying more attention to the day job...

[Gerald]

Autostitch of Sol 401 (sol of data product) focus-merged MAHLIs, full-res:
(7 MB)

[atomoid]

more sol398 fun

[Astro0]

ADMIN: A whole lot of posts related to night sky observations have been moved to a new dedicated thread for the subject.

[elakdawalla]

Here's another long-range RMI image, from Sol 396 looking to the ESE. This is a focus merge of 6 images, flatfielded and contrast enhanced. I am pretty sure it's it's aimed at the location circled in the NAVCAM image below, so the upper half of the image may show the flank of a "mesa" near the dunes (edit: seen also from a slightly different angle in the Sol 389 mastcam image also attached)

Looks like they also did multispectral MR100 imaging of the same spot on sol 387 (far right side of this image and subsequent 4 IR images). Wonder if they are using the passive spectroscopy capabilities of ChemCam and taking the above images to document it.

Amazing picture! I think it's here, marked on a pan from sol 364 so not seeing the same foreground features. (so this is the left side, not the far right side, of the pic Greenish just linked to)

I learned at LPSC that these images -- M-100s for context and RMIs for detail -- are taken by a group led by Nathan Bridges that is attempting to spot changes in the dune fields at the base of Mt Sharp over time. They're not looking for changes in the big dunes, but rather in the smaller sand ripples atop the dunes. They have not yet spotted any changes, but the comparisons are really hard because of the degree of foreshortening and the long distances involved. Earlier in the mission, right after landing, they got some lossless M-100 images down from the rover (the ones that look gray, because they didn't do the Bayer interpolation) on which they could clearly discern individual ripples. The compressed images they're getting now are not as good for spotting and matching specific ripples, so they're advocating for more lossless M-100 data; otherwise, they depend on RMI images. We'll keep seeing these sets of M-100 and RMI images as they traverse.

[Greenish]

Thanks, Emily for this update - great that you were able to get some insight on this.

Now I just need to make the time to reprocess some of those mosaics & focus stacks now that the PDS images are available. The "partially radiometrically calibrated" RDRs for the RMI are way better than the quick look JPGs... not saturated in the center, flatfielded & de-ghosted, and available as 16-bit TIFs (compare an EDR JPG vs PDS TIF)