Perseverance valley Options

[Julius]

Time for another topic, me thinks.

[atomoid]

figuring this "Perseverance Valley" thread should populate with said content...are we there yet??

Here are some stereo views from sol4786 images of presumably water-carved topography downslope of the spillway
(ICE didn't deal well with the contrast scope so at left is anaglyph of 3 pairs, crosseye of left portion, crosseye of right portion, at right is a parellel of most lumpy section).

[Floyd]

The pancam images for the past several days show a ground texture that looks like it is cemented together and really interesting textures. Maybe some of the image wizards can put these images together for all to see. We won't be getting too much back for a while, but channel already looks very interesting.

[atomoid]

nice to see MI images being taken again sol4787, these look set up to stitch for stereo pairs so heres the stitch and one of its sub-pairs in crosseye/anaglyph

[RoverDriver]

The pancam images for the past several days show a ground texture that looks like it is cemented together and really interesting textures. Maybe some of the image wizards can put these images together for all to see. We won't be getting too much back for a while, but channel already looks very interesting.

I'm not so sure about the terrain being cemented. The RHAZ show quite visible cleat marks indicating the soil can be compressed by the cleats. To my untrained eye, this looks more like gravel. Anyway, parking brake is set, we even turned the RF wheel a bit to keep things according to MDOT (Martian Department of Transportation) regulations. See yoou in a couple of weeks.

Paolo

[Floyd]

OK Maybe not cemented, but some of these slabs look polished--almost like glacial polish. Does this look like polish by running water to any of you?

[PDP8E]

Hi floyd,
we have seen what a couple of million years of low density Mar's wind can do to 'fluted' rocks.
I think the environment there is alien enough that we cant quite appreciate the processes
On Earth you be hard pressed to find a dozen 'craters' due to fast (compared to mars) erosion (rain, winds, quakes, tectonics, oceans)
These could be stream cobbles or wind eroded ...
I am waiting on Grotzinger .et al to weigh in.
But it sure is fascinating! Awesome image!

See you around town, fellow Bostonian!

[monty python]

That surface does look a little different to my untrained eye. There is work to do here!

[atomoid]

Perseverance Valley indeed seems to differ somewhat significantly in the bedrock and consistency of the soils, comparing relatively similar filter#2 views from Marathon sol4122 with its more pillowy bedrock and angular shards versus the more pebbly and sheared surface seen here in Perseverance sol4791.

That observation, at least in this very limited sampling, doesn't completely hold up when perusing a sampling of MI images at Marathon sol4131 vs Perseverance sol4787, but still some interesting differences are apparent and despite the better focus and exposure of the more recently acquired MI, it seems like the muddier fines have been cleaned away here. I'm curious whether any of this owes to winds in each locale, inferring that here in Perseverance we might expect better solar panel cleaning events? since if seasonal patterns are consistent the images linked are just about 1 Mars year apart.

[marsophile]

Different all right. Parallel-eye stereo.

Are there some berries on that grooved fragment? It's hard for me to tell.

[serpens]

Different, but attractive.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[nprev]

Different indeed.

I wonder if we're seeing the effects of a few tens or hundreds of millions of years of wind scouring on harder than usual bedrock.

[fredk]

We're starting to see some clouds as we head towards winter. Here's an navcam animation from 4793:

This is a stretched difference of each frame from the average of the frames.

[jvandriel]

The road ahead.

The Pancam L2 images taken between Sol 4785 and Sol 4793 stitched together.

Jan van Driel

[PDP8E]

We're starting to see some clouds as we head towards winter. Here's an navcam animation from 4793:
This is a stretched difference of each frame from the average of the frames.

Hi Fred,
The originals have that bright 'half moon' in the lower third of the frames (which I think you chopped off)
What is that bright area?

[RoverDriver]

Hi Fred,
The originals have that bright 'half moon' in the lower third of the frames (which I think you chopped off)
What is that bright area?

It is caused by the dust of times. ;-) The small hood we have in front optical element only partly occludes the Sun. Therefore, even when the Sun is outside the field of view it will illuminate the dust which causes diffusion and enters the optical path. Most of the dust was accumulated around Sol 1200+ (2007) but during the years the wide have cleaned up the front elements quite a bit.

Paolo

[marsophile]

https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/mission/status.html#opportunity

Looks like Oppy has insisted on a two-week vacation during Solar Conjunction!

[fredk]

Catching up on some night sky imaging from 4784. Here's a stack of three frames to increase the S/N by sqrt(3):

I don't recognize the field...

[Deimos]

Taurus, just below pointy end of the Hyades. Kinda random. A rare night comm pass allowed free astronomy, but no moons were up. Still useful as practice and will add a night opacity datum..

[marsophile]

http://www.planetary.org/explore/space-top...nce-valley.html

Monthly MER Update from the Planetary Society. Also has a nice star photo.

I'm wondering what all the proper motion streaks are, especially the sideways ones. Meteors in the Mars atmosphere?

[fredk]

Thanks, Deimos.

Marsophile, the steaks directed from 11 o'clock to 5 o'clock are stars trailing during the exposure. Everything else should be cosmic ray hits.

[djellison]

Here's the field as calculated by Astrometry.net
( http://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/1693971#annotated )

[marsophile]

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...Z0P2543L2M1.JPG

Near-perfect layering?

[Phil Stooke]

My guess is that it's an erosional texture as seen in the MI images from the same sol.

Phil

[monty python]

I guess, since oppy moved immediately after conjunction, the auto mode reset she had was no big deal.

[marsophile]

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P1956L0M1.JPG

This image may provide some perspective on the channels and their relationship to the surrounding landscape.

[atomoid]

sol4809 MI stitch, with bonus anaglyph highlighting the obligatory ICE stitching artifacts.

[jvandriel]

The Navcam L0 view on Sol 4816.

Jan van Driel

[jvandriel]

Mi cam view taken on Sol 4809-4810.

Jan van Driel

[Phil Stooke]

This is Jan's 4816 panorama reprojected into a roughly maplike geometry to give a view of the surroundings. The lower right (southeast) corner is still bad in this version. The tracks cross a small crater.

Phil

[jhagen]

My take on the sol 4809 stereo mosaic.

[marsophile]

Parallel-eye stereo.

[atomoid]

pretty good view down the 'cascades' sol4825 cross/anag

[PDP8E]

Oppy is moving down into Perseverance Valley
Cant wait for the explanation about what we are looking at here....

[monty python]

What a "groovy" picture.

[Phil Stooke]

I concur. It IS groovy! Also it seems to contain some grooves. A stereo version will be particularly interesting.

Phil

[atomoid]

a collection of sol4831 pancam crosseye/anaglyphs of groovy view, the 'moguls', plus a wider pano of that from the previous location.

[atomoid]

downslope stereo view for sol4841

[atomoid]

lengthly september edition of the Planetary.org MER update goes into a lot of detail about driving and energy production challenges... plus a huge 15MB "Sprained Ankle Panorama" (why so-named?).
I've never heard much discussion regarding the current state of Oppy's battery charge capacity after all these years, here we are almost 14 years in now using workarounds to so many ageing issues, yet (mercifully) there seem no worries with the batteries!

here's a sol4843 stitch anaglyph and crosseye of one section of the upslope dusk images

[fredk]

(why so-named?).

Maybe because of the LF wheel problem up there?

I've never heard much discussion regarding the current state of Oppy's battery charge capacity after all these years, here we are almost 14 years in now using workarounds to so many ageing issues, yet (mercifully) there seem no worries with the batteries!

Check out some discussion in this post.

[serpens]

Possibly we are becoming blasé about Opportunity's performance, leaving the astounding achievement of the 45 kilometre mark unremarked. Looks like it is going to be a long slow winter for Opportunity with power generation hovering around 280 Watt hours at this time.

[atomoid]

Thanks for reminding us, so Oppy slogs past another kilometerstone with no fanfare, not even in Crumpler's latest post from last friday, i think thats equivalent to traversing about 70% around the entire Endeavor ridge, so i guess we got a while before we hit that one, i am perhaps too complacently confident that will happen! to help celebrate here is a stereo of the latest MI pairs from sol4857.
And thanks fredk, that info about the battery was very illuminating!

[charborob]

Sol 4859 Lpancam panorama:

[fredk]

This new drive back uphill was discussed in the latest PS update:

One option under consideration is to send the rover back uphill to an area near the first way station where the MER scientists have spotted some interesting bedrock.

“It looks like two different colored, bedrock units in direct proximity,” said Golombek. “One area that we’re imaging shows that one side has rocks of a lighter tone and the other has a browner, darker tone and the two units appear to be separated by what could be a fracture zone or something. It’s all dirt, maybe broken up rock that’s been filled in by sand, or who knows?”

[atomoid]

cross/anaglyph/parellel views of the in-place weathering exhibit sol4875

[PDP8E]

Oppy drove back uphill a bit in Perseverance Valley. Here is a stitch from Sol 4879 (10/15/2017?)
I ran it through a slight rinse in my De-Convolution Machine ...

[fredk]

Popping a wheelie with the RR wheel after a short bump on 4883:

[monty python]

Wow! That's radical. Don't think I've seen that before. I only see a trail from the wheel on the right. Was it pivoting?

[fredk]

The 4883 drive looks like a very short bump upslope, towards the direction we're looking in the image I posted. We're sitting almost exactly on our tracks from the downslope drive on 4831 (check Phil's map) and the obvious track is from that drive. It's harder to see the track from the other wheels I guess because of the bigger rocks on that side.

[James Sorenson]

It's been awhile since I have worked on images.

Sol-4884


Full Resolution
https://www.flickr.com/photos/43581439@N08/...285461/sizes/o/

Falsecolor

https://www.flickr.com/photos/43581439@N08/...962043/sizes/o/

[James Sorenson]

Sol-4886

Full Resolution
https://www.flickr.com/photos/43581439@N08/...542750/sizes/o/

Sol-4859

Full Resolution
https://www.flickr.com/photos/43581439@N08/...548390/sizes/o/

Falsocolor

Full Resolution
https://www.flickr.com/photos/43581439@N08/...627742/sizes/o/

[James Sorenson]

Sol's 4878-4880

I used the wonderful already generated ASU falsecolor images for this, just mosaiced them all together.



Full Resolution
https://www.flickr.com/photos/43581439@N08/...744050/sizes/o/

[lyford]

It's been awhile since I have worked on images.

It's been awhile since I posted - thanks for your wonderful work!

[Phil Stooke]

Yes, James, thanks! I have been using your images to assemble a photomap base for more detailed mapping of this area. This is still an ad hoc mosaic, not controlled by HiRISE, but it will be warped to fit HiRISE control later, and then the detailed path can be plotted.

Phil

[fredk]

Looks like what may be a DD on 4916:

[RoverDriver]

Looks like what may be a DD on 4916:

We had quite a few cleaning events for the past few weeks. Paolo

[PaulM]

Looks like what may be a DD on 4916:

Where opportunity is headed downhill there are active sand dunes which would ensure regular cleaning took place. That would be a good location to park opportunity when the wheels pack in. There is an argument for parking opportunity for two years there in any case because of the radio experiment that can be done to investigate the core from a parked lander. There is a plan to launch the insite mission next year to do this radio science experiment, but if this failed then opportunity could perform the radio science experiment whilst filming moving dunes

[RoverDriver]

Where opportunity is headed downhill there are active sand dunes which would ensure regular cleaning took place.

Hmmm... I think that where there's sand accumulation there's a dip in strength of winds. That's why the dunes get bigger and bigger. In the past we have seen cleaning events near clean bedrock.

There is an argument for parking opportunity for two years there in any case because of the radio experiment that can be done to investigate the core from a parked lander.

If there was one I never heard of it. SS never mentioned that. Parking the vehicle for two years would be a major operational nightmare. We have only FIVE rover planners left which would still need to earn a living for those two years, so we would need to find another job for two years. After this forced pause, resuming operations would be quite difficult. It was so when we had to park Spirit for months at a time. I can't imagine what it would be like to resume driving after two years.

I liked doing the radio experiment on Spirit, I found it mind bogglingly cool and was part of the team to support it but I hope we can postpone this to when Oppy's wheels fall off or the motors stop responding to our commands. We have tested driving our testbed with only four active drive actuators...

Paolo

[atomoid]

stitched sequence of lossy pancams from sol4924, ICE only being able to deal with ten of the 27 frames but at least gives a useful uphill view of the channel.


ps.. lots of good stuff in A.J.S. Rayl's latest on Planetary.org

[Phil Stooke]

This is hideously distorted because I am not working from a topographic dataset to reproject the images - later, this will be projected onto HiRISE for control. But it gives an impression of the distribution of features around us in mid-December.

Phil

[atomoid]

crosseye/anaglyph/parallel/parellel of cohesive regolith (pressed edge at lower right) taken from a pair of sol4941 MIs:

[atomoid]

some cross/anag/parallel views of sol4942 floater..

[charborob]

Sols 4937-4943 Lpancam:

[marsophile]

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...IJP2372L2M1.JPG

Possible meteorite?

[nprev]

You mean those vesicular rocks? Doubtful. They look volcanic if anything, maybe scoria.

That said, I don't know if we've seen any igneous rocks around Meridiani before.

[James Sorenson]

Sols 4937-4943 Lpancam

Great work! I have been working on this one as well. I have dibble dabbled with the previous color mosaics alittle bit as well but haven't posted them.
Here is what is down of the current one.


Full resolution:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/43581439@N08/...604484/sizes/o/

Falsecolor:

Full Resolution:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/43581439@N08/...590471/sizes/o/

[James Sorenson]

A fly around screen capture of a 3D model that I'm working on of the "San Miguel" small rock outcrop in the near-field and surrounding area.

https://youtu.be/ArXj4fHkGgM

[atomoid]

Thanks James, those 3D interpolator results are really impressive to see and looks like it must be a pretty involved process.
Here is some comparably lo-tech stereo output (StereoPhotoMaker) of SanMiguel sol4947 (cross/anaglyph/parallel) with its curious vesicles, it's interesting how the apparent 'spattering' of vesicles cover only a portion of the rock that otherwise is of apparently consistent composition throughout..

[James Sorenson]

For me, it isn't that bad but for my computer that I built eight years ago, it sure does take a beating sometimes but it pulls through.

The Navcam mosaic on Sol-4934 and 4936.There was a big honkin lens flare that I had to remove in one of the frames. Spent a couple of hours on this, not sure how I feel about it. But I'll go with it.


Full Resolution
https://www.flickr.com/photos/43581439@N08/...228465/sizes/o/

[atomoid]

nice job removing the lens flare, that must have left very little dynamic range to work with and explains what I at first thought was a field of ripples just above to the left of the low gain antenna post.
here's stereo of the channel sol4952 complete with banding artifacts compliments of ICE and my inability to get better results from Hugin without a lens profile...

[charborob]

Sols 4955-4956 Lpancam view:

[fredk]

Taking the north fork?

http://merpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/oss/merb...J8P1824R0M_.JPG

[serpens]

Latest, most comprehensive update.

http://www.planetary.org/explore/space-top...ats-winter.html

[charborob]

Sol 4950 Lpancam:

[charborob]

Sol 4961 Lpancam views:

[vikingmars]

Sol 4961 Lpancam views:

Thank you very much charborob for this nice work of yours

[marsophile]

http://merpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/oss/merb...00P0124L0M_.JPG
http://merpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/oss/merb...00P0124L0M_.JPG
http://merpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/oss/merb...00P0124L0M_.JPG
http://merpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/oss/merb...00P0124R0M_.JPG

Is there a smudge on the Navcam left eye lens? Not visible in the right eye.

[djellison]

Yes - looks to be a new but of dust picked up on the optics. I'm currently on Paternity leave - but when I'm back on MER in a few weeks, I'll be attempting to acquire a set of NavCam flatfields using a technique already used on MSL that might end up being rather timely to calibrate this out.

[Floyd]

Congratulations Doug and enjoy the family time.

[RoverDriver]

It is not a bug, it is a feature. We got a nice cleaning event, about 100Wh more, so I'm not going to complain about it.

Paolo

[marsophile]

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P1826L0M1.JPG

Sol 4973. Dark spot seems to be gone now. More cleaning?

[MoreInput]

And it is again: Happy Landing Day, Opportunity! It is unbelievable 14 years since landing in Meridiani Planum in the Eagle crater. 14 years, and still roving.
The rover has driven 45000 meters on the surface of mars. Currently it is the 4979th sol for Opportunity, and it is still functioning: hardware, batteries, software. Unbelievable!

And if no one notices: For Spirit it would be tomorrow the Sol 5000! (http://www.greuti.ch/oppy/html/filenames_ltst.htm)

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[Phil Stooke]

Nice! And here is a rough projection of Navcam images of the current location (rough because it is not made using a DEM to remove relief distortions) to show the very interesting features here.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

http://www.nmnaturalhistory.org/space-scie...ld-reports-mars

Thanks to Larry Crumpler, a new Rover Field Report from Mars - with a couple of new feature names.

Phil

[serpens]

This channel seems to have been pretty much swept clear of regolith including large rocks.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[marsophile]

Parallel eye. This rock seems more cavity than substance. Perhaps pumice but is there any volcanic terrain nearby?

Also note the upturned piece of surface in the background. I wonder if these insubstantial fragments are light enough to be blown by the wind? Perhaps in the past if Mars had a denser atmosphere.

(Congrats on that wonderful MI self-portrait, by the way.)

[James Sorenson]

Hopefully more images come down for this over the next couple of sol's.


Full Resolution
https://www.flickr.com/photos/43581439@N08/...633948/sizes/o/

False Color

Full Resolution
https://www.flickr.com/photos/43581439@N08/...099545/sizes/o/

[vikingmars]

Hopefully more images come down for this over the next couple of sol's.

How nice !
Thanks a lot James for those nice processings

[James Sorenson]

Thank you Olivier for the kind words.

I extended the Opportunity color image of the tracks with the single Navcam image that was taken during the "Selfie" for more context.



Full Resolution
https://www.flickr.com/photos/43581439@N08/...171008/sizes/o/

[jamescanvin]

My attempt at the tracks from 5002 (plus 4998 as a bonus). First piece of processing I've done in about a year!

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[marsophile]

False color anaglyph from Sol 5000 pancam.
Perforated rocks and dark sand.

[marsophile]

https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/gallery/all/opportunity.html
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/

From the image download sites, it might appear that Opportunity is taking a vacation to celebrate its Sol 5000 anniversary!
At the time of this post, the JPL site has no new images since Sol 5000 and the Exploratorium site has no update since Feb 28.

On the other hand, although the amazonaws json site has no images for Sols 5007 through 5010, it continues with images from 5011 onwards.
I would guess the gap might be due to the recent MRO safing event.

It may be that the JPL and Exploratorium servers are waiting to get images for Sol 5007.
If so, that wait may be forever unless the servers are manually restarted.

Perhaps the servers could be programmed to probe forward to see if the image dumps continue after a gap.

[James Sorenson]

I use the JSON site all the time these days. It has been updated to sol-5015 and waiting on the downlink of sol-5016 images.
https://merpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/oss/merb...e_manifest.json

[Ant103]

Sol 5017 & 5018 Navcam panoramic. It's been a little time since no Opportunity images processing for me

[vikingmars]

Sol 5017 & 5018 Navcam panoramic. It's been a little time since no Opportunity images processing for me

What a superb work, Ant103
Thanks a lot for sharing it with us

[Phil Stooke]

Very nice panorama! This is a circular projection of it to show the location in a more map-like form.

Phil

[jamescanvin]

Ysleta Del Sur from 5019

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[marsophile]

Parallel eye stereo. The dark (bluish) area on the front side of the rock---not a shadow.



Overturned rock? Or half-eroded from the top down?

[jamescanvin]

Some more frames of Ysleta Del Sur on 5020.

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[marsophile]

X-eye

||-eye

Context