MEX VMC - Back on, and online! |
MEX VMC - Back on, and online! |
Aug 22 2008, 01:58 PM
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#1
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14448 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
I heard about this 24 hours ago, and couldn't believe it - this is EXACTLY what has been missing from ESA. MASSIVE kudos to the ESOC MEX flight ops team for doing it
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/VMC/index.html The last time I wrote a post and hit 'submit' at UMSF with a smile this big on my face, was when Oppy successfully got out of Purgatory. |
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Aug 22 2008, 02:57 PM
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#2
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14448 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
FWIW - I've attempted to debayer a tiny piece of image, by hand (using a 90x1 pixel selection again and again, to select alternate rows to cut them to a new layer - then again on columns, to split it into 4 layers. Then, I figured out which were the blue ones ( the darkest ) and from that established the red and the green. I then duplicated those layers to fill out the 2x2 pattern, and then copied into channels on a new image.
Hopefully someone will figure out a better method of doing this |
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Aug 22 2008, 03:20 PM
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#3
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14448 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
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Aug 22 2008, 03:23 PM
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#4
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The Poet Dude Group: Moderator Posts: 5551 Joined: 15-March 04 From: Kendal, Cumbria, UK Member No.: 60 |
ESA often get a hard time here for what they do - or don't do - but this is a BIG step in the right direction, and shows that ESA really are trying to do more with the wealth of data and material they have. As Doug said, congratulations to everyone involved, and here's hoping the site attracts a lot of attention, not just from dyed-in-the-wool spaceflight enthusiasts like ourselves, but from the public too. Will definitely be worth keeping an eye on, looking out for great images. I can hear my hard drive groaning already...
And yaaay! An ESA crescent Mars image at last!!! Great job! -------------------- |
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Aug 22 2008, 03:24 PM
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#5
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Member Group: Members Posts: 808 Joined: 10-October 06 From: Maynard Mass USA Member No.: 1241 |
I always though that the Lunar Prospector team was absolutely CRAZY by not taking any type of camera to the Moon. They did manage to bring an Alpha Spectrometer, Electron Reflectometer, Magnetometer, Neutron Spectrometer, and a Doppler Gravity thing-a-ma-jig. Lunar Prospector was in a low polar orbit! and not a single image. Then they decided to crash it into the Moon's south pole! Any snapshot from a couple hundred meters would have been iconic. And now, if you are not a Lunar scientist or a UMSF'er, the impact of Lunar Prosepector (pun intended) is ZERO Note to spacecraft all designers: this non-science type of camera (MEX-VMC) is worth putting on all future space craft. This is outreach at its best. This is how to capture the imagination of that next person. This camera represents how we all pack for any trip ...DONT FOR GET THE CAMERA....and unmanned space craft take the most amazing trips! Bravo to ESA and the MEXMARS Webcam! (...tons of images in the VMC archive...!) -------------------- CLA CLL
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Aug 22 2008, 03:25 PM
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#6
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3652 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
Wow, great work, Doug. My method of making a Bayer mask in Photoshop doesn't exactly work as I'd hoped. A new approach is in order.
Here's a messed-around crescent view, with an ad-hoc color balance. Might be completely wrong. -------------------- |
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Aug 22 2008, 03:32 PM
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#7
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14448 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
I always though that the Lunar Prospector team was absolutely CRAZY by not taking any type of camera to the Moon. Spinning at 12rpm does kind of making taking pictures a bit hard - and if you do some research on the long term history of LP...it had NO money - none at all. Doug |
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Aug 22 2008, 03:46 PM
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#8
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Member Group: Members Posts: 877 Joined: 7-March 05 From: Switzerland Member No.: 186 |
Here's a messed-around crescent view, with an ad-hoc color balance. Might be completely wrong. But absolutely a gorgeous perspective! -------------------- |
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Aug 22 2008, 04:06 PM
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#9
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14448 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
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Aug 22 2008, 04:10 PM
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#10
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3652 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
I'm gonna give it a go at writing an app for automatically converting the raw files into RGB. Doug, have you figured out what the exact Bayer matrix looks like, starting from top left - I'd rather not try reinventing the wheel?
EDIT: Nevermind, I think I have it figured out. -------------------- |
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Aug 22 2008, 04:37 PM
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#11
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 2785 Joined: 10-November 06 From: Pasadena, CA Member No.: 1345 |
Even better, it looks like they'd like submissions of your best images!
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/VMC/SEMANKXIPIF_0.html BTW, here is the syntax for the filenames of the individual jpeg images: QUOTE YY_DOY_hh_mm_ss_image-sequence-number.extension For example: 08_213_14_25_16_vmc_img_no_8.jpg was: * Taken in 2008 * On Day of the Year 213 (31 July) * At 14:25:16 (hr:min:sec) UTC * And is the eighth image taken in a series Go ESA! [Could they please do this for Venus too?] -------------------- Some higher resolution images available at my photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31678681@N07/
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Aug 22 2008, 04:42 PM
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#12
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Member Group: Members Posts: 109 Joined: 20-January 07 From: Milano, ITALY Member No.: 1633 |
Does the Picasa logo on VMC images imply that they are hosted at the popular photo sharing site? If so, double kudos to ESA.
Paolo Amoroso -------------------- Avventure Planetarie - Blog sulla comunicazione e divulgazione scientifica
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Aug 22 2008, 06:00 PM
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#13
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3652 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
I've got a basic app going, it performs a rudimentary interpolation (if someone knows of a good de-Bayer algorithm, I'm open for suggestions) of the RGB data. When I clean it up a bit and sort out a command line interface I'll release it. Any requests in the meantime?
In the meantime, two gif animations: A crescent (2.3 MB) and a partially overexposed north->south flyover (3 MB). Looks like the camera could benefit from a flatfield frame, if one were to be made. For some reason the RAW frames appear to be truncated in the ZIP archives, the last frame the most. -------------------- |
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Aug 22 2008, 06:27 PM
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#14
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Member Group: Members Posts: 877 Joined: 7-March 05 From: Switzerland Member No.: 186 |
Very nice Gordan!
What could that illuminated be behind the terminator http://esamultimedia.esa.int/multimedia/vm...20/target7.html Something atmospherical or even one of the volcanos that get also already sunshine? -------------------- |
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Aug 22 2008, 06:33 PM
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#15
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Member Group: Members Posts: 109 Joined: 20-January 07 From: Milano, ITALY Member No.: 1633 |
Does the Picasa logo on VMC images imply that they are hosted at the popular photo sharing site? Or maybe it's just a gallery generated with Picasa. Paolo Amoroso -------------------- Avventure Planetarie - Blog sulla comunicazione e divulgazione scientifica
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