MSL Post Landing - Commissioning Period & Early Observations, Commissioning Activity Period 1B - Sols 9 through 16 Options

[climber]

Stu (and all), can you please point out what you think will hidden our view?I'm trying to find the maximum altitude we'll see in order to match this with a similar view on Earth. It is actully difficult to find a view with ~ 5500m altitude difference, so if the real difference is much less, it'll make search easier and comparison real.

Thanks all for you input.
I think the best equivalent picture will be of Mauna Loa or Mauna Kea in Hawaii at a distance of about 20km from the summit. The altitude (~ 4000m) would be about right.
I'll try to find that and see how it compares. Any better idea welcomed.
climber

[djellison]

It's just like any other mountain - you very rarely see the absolute summit till you're on it.

[fredk]

here's a vertical profile of a line directly connecting the landing site to the summit and showing that it is out of the line of sight

I thought that the true summit was farther south, more or less dead centre in Gale:

This elevation map and GM seem to agree that that's the highest point. Your summit corresponds to the "northern spur".

Either way, both "local maxima" will likely remain out of sight for a very long time. Although the "true summit" is sharper, so it might be easier to see from afar...

[Stu]

I thought that the true summit was farther south, more or less dead centre in Gale:

That's what I'm going by, too...

[Tesheiner]

Yeah, I was afraid of that.

My version.

As mentioned before, we need something as a sort of scale to give an idea of the size / distance: Liberty Statue, Eiffel Tower, Burj Dubai.

[James Sorenson]

Ladies and Gentlemen....Mount Sharp from Navcam!



Ahh drats...Was already beatin to it.

[Stu]

Ladies and Gentlemen....Mount Sharp from Navcam!

Where have you been? We got here hours ago!

Lovely image James.

[elakdawalla]

Ladies and Gentlemen....Mount Sharp from Navcam!
Ahh drats...Was already beatin to it.

Your sky is better than mine. I tried to remove vignetting with the filter in Photoshop but it was still imperfect, and the sky had a periodic darkening that I attempted to remove (with some but not complete success) with the dodge tool. How do you de-vignette the images?

[James Sorenson]

Where have you been? We got here hours ago!

Lovely image James.

Obviously not on this planet...
Thank you Stu

How do you de-vignette the images?

PTgui has an option for Vignetting Correction.

[djellison]

It's been a long way, but we're here.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[elakdawalla]

OK, that's terrific. Since this is obviously so easy for you, can you please do it in stereo?

[djellison]

Filling in the sky's not worth it - but I think this works.

(You were not expecting that were you One thing they probably didn't think of was the MER heritage for Navcam...carries over to experience of us amateurs stitching those Navcam images for 8 years )

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Ant103]

First, thank you Emily for publishing on your blog Visits on my blog has rizing very fast

Second, I've updated my full panoramic with the Sol 12 Navcam pics. So now, Mount Sharp is not blur

[dilo]

Excellent job, Damien... charmant!

[antipode]

OK, there's NO rigor on this, but I did want to raise the idea of comparing the scene of Mt Sharp with a terrestrial scene of similar vertical scale.

Here's a stock shot of Kilimanjaro, taken at I believe a roughly similar distance, side by side with a hasty colorised crop from Doug's post.

The scales here aren't identical, but I think comparing portions of the Mastcams when they arrive with terrestrial scenes of similar scale will be very useful. The scale of Mt Hadley was really hard to process with Apollo 15 (no trees, streams, buildings, haze, normal signs of erosion etc to compare it with), here we have an atmosphere, but its still hard to really get a feel from the scale of the scene.



P