Perseverance Imagery, technical discussion of processing, cameras, etc. Options

[lingyuk]

Great question. JPL ws able to get video footage very quickly and there are still a lot of individual frames to be published so these must have been videos created by the cameras and uplinked on Sol 1.

Where are the raw video files do you suppose?

Can we get our hands on them?

I found this file:

https://mars.nasa.gov/system/downloadable_i..._deployment.mp4

It looks like it's the original MP4 file. I couldn't find any others though.

[fredk]

That video is slowed down and has duplicated frames, so must've been re-encoded from the original.

[Osvold]

Hello guys, I am new here and I have no expirience with pictures from Mars, so could be, this is obvious to you, but I struggle to find out how this works. I would like to know, if there is any way how to find out direction the rover is looking from a picture. As an example, i would love to know, if the hill on the attached photo is the red encircled hill on the map . How is possible to figure this out, apart form guessing from the map, please? Thanks a lot for any help.

[john_s]

One easy way to get oriented is to look for Phil Stooke's circular projections which he posts regularly to support his mapping efforts. These always have north at the top, and show vertically-exaggerated images of features in the distance. The one linked here confirms your hunch about the identity of that mesa.

[Pando]

i would love to know, if the hill on the attached photo is the red encircled hill on the map

Yes, it is.

[Floyd]

The Raw page has several types of images and cameras. I did not see listed the SuperCam (Perseverence ChemCam). Will these images eventually find their way to the raw page?

[MahFL]

The Raw page has several types of images and cameras. I did not see listed the SuperCam (Perseverence ChemCam). Will these images eventually find their way to the raw page?

I would assume so, as the list has grown as images come down from the different cameras.

[Osvold]

@john_s @Pando thanks a lot guys

[MarkL]

I found this file:

https://mars.nasa.gov/system/downloadable_i..._deployment.mp4

It looks like it's the original MP4 file. I couldn't find any others though.

Thanks for finding it. I hope they release all the raw videos that were uplinked from the rover on Sols 0-1. Please JPL. This is historic stuff being first use of a legendary open source utility on another planet. Ffmpeg rocks the (solar) system.

[Explorer1]

A silly clickbait video where someone zooms in on empty sky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQHYA0-Tfrk) got me thinking; how good would the Mastcam-Z be at astronomy? It would presumably be able to catch both moons if pointed at the right place and time (either during the day or at night, if power allows)?
I remember the Phobos-rise image taken early in Curiosity's mission ( http://www.midnightplanets.com/web/MSL/ima...58E01_DXXX.html ); Maztcam-Z could do a much better job now.

[fredk]

The MCZ specs are pretty similar to MSL mastcam, apart from the ability to zoom. The long end is 110mm at f/9.5 vs 100mm at f/10 for MR, and the sensor resolutions are very similar. So moon imaging should be very similar.

I thought the main advantages of MCZ were the ability to do stereo imaging with the same FOV in L and R cameras, as well as the intermediate zoom focal lengths.

[mcaplinger]

So moon imaging should be very similar.

Fred is correct, MCZ will not improve significantly on images like https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA17350

[tolis]

For astronomical imaging, there is also SkyCam.

[djellison]

The MEDA SkyCam is a repurposed MER/MSL heritage Hazcam. They are INCREDIBLY optically dark. We're tried ( and failed ) to image night time features with MSL NavCams - even Earth and Venus were not visible. You're not going to get much, if anything, astronomical, through the MEDA SkyCam

[tolis]

Pity. It would have been a great edu resource.