Victoria's Wish List Options

[Stu]

Okay gang... it looks like our brave gal will be heading into Victoria at some point - once she's proven that the dark streaks are caused by dark dust belching out of the crater! - but things are a little quiet for now so here's a question for all to ponder...

As Oppy heads into Victoria, what's the ONE thing you really, really want to see in there? Something purely scientific, like a specific geological feature..? Something aesthetic, like a sunset seen from within the crater, or the rover's shadow on the dunes?

What's the one pancam or navcam image you have in your mind that you want to find when you go online, that will make you lean towards the screen and go "Oh my...."?

[djellison]

FHAZ sequence, one frame every hour - for 12 hours

Doug

[J.J.]

I'd like to see some strata with fine, horizontal bedding planes, like some of the better shale exposures on Earth. Don't think it'll happen, but a guy can dream...

[mhoward]

Sunrise on the western cliffs... as seen from below. Purely for aesthetics.

[helvick]

If I could be willfully extravagant (ie insane) with resources and stealing from both Doug and Michael:

1 fixed Pancam view (the Western cliffs would be perfect) taken in three filters\ lossless compression every few minutes from slightly before dawn to dusk, preferably often enough so that you can make a movie sequence that condenses an entire day into 10-15 seconds at 15+ fps.

That's 585Megabytes for the days shooting (at least) and there are other parameter constraints (power, the time it takes to point and take the shots) that almost certainly mean that this simply cannot be done.

A slightly less extravagant approach as detailed below would allow us to make a 15 second clip that would look gorgeous on those 1080p HD TV's that are doing the rounds.

2x1 Pancam three filter shot (2048x1024 is close match to the 1920x1080 of 1080p). 1 sequence per hour from 1 hour pefore dawn (5AM) to about 9:AM then 1 every 2 hours from then until the 3:00PM local and back to 1 per hour to capture the light\tone changes for sunset. 12 pans in total costing you 75Megabytes with ~8bpp for lossless or nearly lossless compression.
The second part of the sequence are Navcam's taken at a rate of 1 every 4 minutes (15 per hour) for the entire day to get lighting levels for every 1 degree change in sun position across the scene. You can probably afford to bring these back fairly highly compressed - say 2bpp - without seriously degrading the final product. Final cost of these would be ~55Megabytes.
With (quite) a bit of work you could build a very dramatic and smooth (15fps) 14 second full HD resolution clip "1 Day in Victoria".

Yeah I know - completely flagrant waste of a good rover. I'd love it though and it would make for a great title scene for the 2nd MER iMAX movie.

[djellison]

55 megaBYTES.



That's about 4 days of downlink. An average pass is 50-100 MegaBITS

10 runs of a 2 pointing L456 mosaic at 12:1 would be 40 Mbits (5 Megabytes) - that's not too bad. It would be a sequence of complete imaging excess and glutony...I love it

DOug

[antoniseb]

Like J.J., I'm interested in seeing the layers with all the analytic measurements Oppy can muster, as it slowly descends along side a cliff, as far down as it can safely go. I would like to know as much about the geologic history of this area of Mars as I can.

If travel is possible from there. I'd like to get a closer look at the curtains of dark material below Tierra del Fuego.

[algorimancer]

How about the final image of Victoria fading over the horizon as Oppy heads east towards Big Crater?

[Juramike]

As Oppy heads into Victoria, what's the ONE thing you really, really want to see in there?

A fossil.

[MarsIsImportant]

Yes, a fossil would be nice; but I'm thinking of two other different things that are much more likely than that, yet still unlikely in of themselves.

1) a sequence of photos of a rock fall within Victoria (it's possible because of the software set up to identify movement of the dust devils--just unlikely because of the rarity of such an event).

2) evidence that would confirm recent water activity somewhere within Victoria (it's possible because of the pipes along the NE side of the crater). Perhaps a close up image of one of those pipes.

[Stu]

Didn't they already see that..?

[MarsIsImportant]

Didn't they already see that..?

Very Funny!!! But take a look at this. This is real...although I'm using a little imagination.



It looks like somebody kicked the bucket!

What is the old saying? "Keep litter in its place!"

[MahFL]

Tell you what......, I would NOT like to see a tennisball sized rock on the solar panels.......eek.

[Guest_Edward Schmitz_*]

A pancam shot looking straight up that isn't just sky...

A man can dream...

[As old as Voyage...]

A long exposure image taken at night showing the layered bedrock lit by starlight and Phobos/Deimos-light. The image would capture the bedrock and show the night sky crossed by the streaks of one or more of Opportunity's now sadly departed orbital ancestors such as MGS and the Viking orbiters.

Just for sentiments sake.