Reprocessing Historical Images, Looking for REALLY big challenges? Options

[tedstryk]

I have in the past, although I haven't had much contact along those lines recently.

[4th rock from th...]

Ted, your new page is coming along very nice! I like your new processings, very consistent!

[tedstryk]

Thanks!

I have added some new stuff. It can be accessed via this link, which is my moon page (there is also an Asteroid page, but the Stardust page is the only entry, and it is already linked to from the moon page.

Ted

[tedstryk]

I have updated my site with a new Mariner 7 page, although it is still very much a work in progress.

http://www.strykfoto.org/mariner69/mariner7.htm

[elakdawalla]

Wow! I don't know if I have ever seen any of those. Thank you, Ted.

Why do they look so...impressionistic?

--Emily

[MizarKey]

Great images Ted, though I'm a little disappointed you didn't create an animation of the images in sequence. If you want me to make the animation, zip up the individual frames and I'll have a go at it... send them to mizarkey@sbcglobal.net

[edstrick]

Note on frame RBL021013, one of the closest-in frames with Syrtis Major's tip cut off near the bottom center of the frame...

To the left of the tip of Syrtis Major is a small somewhat oval dot a few pixels across.

Photos. In transit. The first resolved image of a Martian moon.

[tedstryk]

Phobos. In transit. The first resolved image of a Martian moon.

Yes....the original version I did of that image lost it when I removed the vidicon marks. Fortunately, I noticed. The reason the images look a bit odd is that the far encounter images were sent back as analogue images, processed through a circuit that enhanced detail. As a result, the grayscale is shot to hell. I tried to bring it back. The near encounter images are also analogue, but also include digital images with only one in every seven pixels transmitted. The images I used for the Meridiani mosaic and the polar cap mosaics were created by the Mariner-7 team by calibrating the analogue images using the limited digital data, restoring the photometric data. The SPC color is an overlay created from far encounter data (there is also a lot of gap-fill from far-encounter data). While the wide angle cameras had color filters, in 1969, the primary thing they wanted was coverage, so very few frames overlap.

The analogue approach set I posted is complete. I reallly don't think it would make a great animation. There are a lot of gaps, due to the spacecraft periodically playing back images from the tape recorder so that new ones could be recorded.

To make the effect of the approach more "organic" in the more distant shots, I took the central 400 pixels, rather than centering them on Mars.

One image that really intrigues me is this one of the edge of the polar cap...seems to show gullies.

[elakdawalla]

Is there metadata available on those images for when they were taken? One way to make an animation less stuttery is to select only a subset of the frames with more even spacing. It's not as detailed but it's better for the Web to have fewer frames anyway...

--Emily

[peter59]

Phobos. In transit. The first resolved image of a Martian moon.
Phobos

[Phil Stooke]

Brilliant as usual.

Ted Stryks again!

Phil

[tedstryk]

Yes, there is metadata, but I only have it in hardcopy. Another odd thing, which leads to the impressionistic quality, is that because of the nature of how the data was recorded and transmitted, it has pretty good spacial resolution, but the dynamic range and stepping is horrid. One solution many have done is to do 2x2 binning. The problem is that the spacial quality of some (though not all) of the images is such that they would lose some detail in that. The image below is an example. It is amazing how much quality variation there is from image to image.

[DDAVIS]

I am working on a planetarium show about Mars exploration. While working on the Viking sequences I am creating a detailed Viking lander digital model as well as texture maps of the surroundings. Here is a reduced version of the color coverage of the surroundings of Viking 1, from camera 2, mosaiced from numerous images.

Don

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Hey, that's really nice work, Don.

[djellison]

There's something to be said for the Viking cameras - sure, low bit depth, low res in colour - but they produced some beautiful, seamless images Great work Don.

Doug