MSL - Astronomical Observations, Phobos/Deimos, planetary/celestial observations and more Options

[fredk]

Could someone fire up their planetarium software and check exactly where the Moon was at this time?

(This is a stretch of the three noise-subtracted M100 frames, presented at 100%, ie no zoom.)

A very rough back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that the separation is about right, and the second object is roughly in the ecliptic...

[fredk]

Here's a stretched stack of the 2x zoomed, noise-subtracted M100 frames of the Earth:

And a view of Earth and Moon from Mars at the same time (but not the same orientation):

It looks like we may indeed be seeing the Moon! Can't wait to see the raw images...

[Ant103]

Here's a capture from Stellarium, sets on Mars exactly from the landing site, with a FOV roughly the same as the Mastcam100.

The Moon is in the right position.

Something else is bothering me. We should have seen Venus in the sky, just over the Gale Mountains (simulation here of the panoramic) :

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[paraisosdelsiste...]

Using the Fredk stacked version, I think we could agree that with a high degree of confidence, we are seeing our moon too:

[Ant103]

Here is what was I was able to do with the 3 frames showing the Earth. Indeed, the Moon is visible (after enhanced levels and some denoising).

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[vikingmars]

The pictures Curiosity took after sunset (Sol 529 at 18:47 pm local Martian time) showing the Earth as irs "Shepherd's" star are full of speckles, dots and rays, but the good amateur imaging specialists of the UMSF Forum did a good job in poipointing the Earth among all this "noise". This gave me the idea to reconstruct this "Earthset" picture from the panorama I built yesterday from Sol 530 pictures (see herewith a section of it, but much reduced and compressed to fit in the Forum). I carefully calibrated this afternoon panorama, so that it looks like what an astronaut would see from Mars and then fade it and darken it to reflect the luminosity felt after sunset and then match its hues with colouring data extracted from Viking lander and MER sunset pictures. I found the bluish halo above the setting Sun to be real, but the rest of the sky darkens with a pale peach like tint (not purple). Now, here you are on Mars watching our home world before and after sunset with those artistic reconstructions ! Also a tribute to Don Davis... Enjoy !

[Ant103]

Great great GREAT Olivier I love it, especially the daylight panoramic

(And you know where is coming from my obsession for open skies in my postcards ).

[Art Martin]

Ok now here's the challenge. Is there software that would create a video out of those two images where it recreated the transitional frames between them as the sun sinks?

[fredk]

Viking's beautiful mosaics prompted me to squeeze what I could out of the 529 night images to see what of the foreground is visible. Here's a comparison of one 529 noise-subtracted and heavily stretched frame with the corresponding day shot from 530. Indeed you can see that the Gale rim is brighter than the foreground, even this late in the evening:

[vikingmars]

Dear Fredk : you are absolutely right ("Gale rim is brighter than the foreground, even this late in the evening") and this was naturally reflected when i did my processings for the"Earthset" pan.

=> Thanks also a lot Damia for your kind comments.

[Mr Valiant]

I must reply to all the above posts.
Moderate me if you must, but I just want to say Wow!
No way I can contribute to the great science being done here on UMSF
at this time, but I want to say thankyou to our finest poster's.
Thankyou for the journey so far and well done.

[atomoid]

Ok now here's the challenge. Is there software that would create a video out of those two images where it recreated the transitional frames between them as the sun sinks?

I know there is at least one online image generator tool out there that does great interpolations between two images so that for instance, instead of a simple two-frame flicker-GIF, you can create a smooth transition composed of multiple interpolated frames that are intelligently composited for a great smooth (and not muddy) result. I have spent considerable energy trying to locate this but have come up empty handed.

I think someone in this same MSL thread posted one about a month or so ago, so hopefully they can chime in and point us in the right direction.

[fredk]

The official release points out that the moon should be easily visible to the unaided eye, something that hadn't occured to me before (or just forgot). Their maximum angular separation now is around 8', or just over 1/4 the diameter of the moon as seen from Earth. So even with the Earth being far brighter, I could believe that the moon would be discernable.

(Makes me wonder what the history of astronomy would've been like had we not needed to wait for Galileo to discover satellites around other planets with the telescope...)

[AndyG]

... had we not needed to wait for Galileo to discover satellites around other planets with the telescope...)

My late father, whose eyesight was excellent (and considerably better than mine) stated he had seen, as a young man, Galilean satellites without optical aid. More on this rare skill here.

Andy

[scalbers]

Ok now here's the challenge. Is there software that would create a video out of those two images where it recreated the transitional frames between them as the sun sinks?

To partly address this I'm working on a panorama of the whole sky appearance as the sun goes down and a version (updated on Feb 11, 2014) can be seen here:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...mp;#entry206891

If a sequence like this can be fitted to the start and end images shown earlier, then the intermediate appearance of the sky could be visualized.