Spirit cleaner? Options

[hortonheardawho]

Giving another talk later this week and would appreciate advice on this pic I've made for it...


Sky too blue? Not blue enough? Not going for 1000% scientific accuracy this time, just wanting to try and put across the beauty of Mars...

Stu, I would make the sky bluer around the sun. It is, after all, a Martian sunset.

I noticed that the sundial shadows are most distinct in the L6 image when the base image was taken - which means the direct light was bluer than the indirect light.

[Stu]

Thanks hort, bluer it shall be I was just unsure about the optical effect of all the "storm dust" in the atmosphere, you know?

Wish I could see that for real... how cool would it be to see that Sun sinking behind those hills and then see Earth shining in the twilight...

Hey, just noticed this is my 1000th post!

[Ant103]

New pics on the exploratorium for Spirit

Look at the panel :
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...CMP1665L0M1.JPG
It seem to be cleaned, isn't it?

[alan]

Yep, another cleaning event for Spirit's solar panels.

Spirit's forward hazcams weren't so lucky

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/fo...CMP1214R0M1.JPG

[monty python]

Yikes! Thats a spectacular and unique amount of dust accumulation. I wonder what percentage of total erosion and deposition occurs during these periods of near global dust storms?

Brian

[slinted]

Looks like the winds picked up sometime between 1247 and 1248, which might have also been the event that dusted up both front hazcams.

Here's the capture magnet, in L4:

[alan]

good eyes slinted

A comparison between 1238 and 1250



By examining the circled areas you can tell that the latest cleaning event the wind blew the dust in the opposite direction as before.

[djellison]

The Silica Valley tracks have been virtually wiped out in the last couple of weeks. Amazing stuff.

Doug

[Stephen]

Yep, another cleaning event for Spirit's solar panels.

Spirit's forward hazcams weren't so lucky

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/fo...CMP1214R0M1.JPG

That raises the question of whether there would be any useful advantage in having dust covers (or some equivalent) for cameras in future (long-lived) Mars landers like MSL. Or would such things be more trouble than they were worth? (Eg one more thing to break down on an aging lander.)

======
Stephen

[djellison]

1200 sols without significant dust deposition on lenses - and workarounds for when there are anyway (new flatfields onboard etc). For a 600ish sol Primary mission for MSL - such a thing isn't going to be necessary or required. Yes - I know it will likely last MUCH longer, but the primary mission is what you design for.

Doug

[Ant103]

I don't know where put this : here or on the Storm topic?

But, I've updated my following of sky opacity from Spirit site. Here is the picture :


The rising dust quantity is particulary clear on the Sol 1248 (see Grissom Hill).

[climber]

The rising dust quantity is particulary clear on the Sol 1248 (see Grissom Hill).

Clear is actualy not the right word !

[climber]

... but the primary mission is what you design for.
Doug

May be OT but do you know the margin engineers actualy take? Is it 2x? 10x?

[djellison]

I'm sure I heard 3x (i.e. 270 sols for MER )

Doug

[fredk]

I've updated my following of sky opacity from Spirit site. Here is the picture :

Thanks for that, Ant. Do you know how consistent the local times of day are for the individual frames? Ie, are they all taken at near 12:00, for example?

These images are autostretched, of course. Once the calibrated data are in, I'd love to see a version of your montage using absolute illumination levels, so you could directly see how much darker it got during the storm.