800Whrs+ Staying Up Late ideas Options

[Fran Ontanaya]

Is there any chance of detecting triboluminescence (see Nature video) under the wheels if she attempts to move at night?

[akuo]

Would it be technically possible to track the Martian sky with the motors in the mast? This would allow long exposures of star fields :-)

[tasp]

The triboluminesence idea got me thinking, with the low humidity, does the wind, when it moves the dust around, create static charges ?? And if there is a wind gust in the night would it release enough visible light in the dust to show in a long exposure ?? {I assume we know for sure there are no dust devils at night, but how about wind gusts ?}

[Fran Ontanaya]

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/14jul_dustdevils.htm

What intrigues Farrell from having chased dust devils in the Arizona desert, however, is the strange fact that terrestrial dust devils are electrically charged--and Martian dust devils might be, too.

[Guest_Oersted_*]

How fast can they take consecutive images? Would be nice to have a max. speed sequence, an *almost* movie, hopefully with a dust devil in it...

[CosmicRocker]

... In terms of UV aurora, L7/R1 transmit almost nothing below 400 nm, so those auroras would have to extend into the visible. ...

The L7 and R1 filters are high-pass filters, which I thought, should pass all wavelengths shorter than the nominal cutoff. The L1 slot, which contains no filter, should also allow UV wavelengths through to the detector.

[climber]

Please check this and tell me if you can see "stars" in the upper left of the pictures: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/navcam/2009-06-08/
Actually, I can see 3 "stars" about the same position on different pictures and another 2 more on the right on two other pictures.
May be I'm seeing what I want to see and they are artifacts.

[djellison]

We've mentioned this many times before. Check the right and left eye. Compare them. If you think you've seen a 'star' or 'meteor' or something else....find the matching eye. For it to be a REAL object, it must be in BOTH images.

In this case - there are no similar star like features in both the right and left eye.

[Astro0]

I'd be more interested in something that appears in this image...
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...DQP0853R0M1.JPG
Just above HP to the lower left of image.
Haven't noticed an effect like that before.... ideas?

[djellison]

A hot pixel with added pixel bleed?

[ElkGroveDan]

I don't believe that hot pixels "bleed" the way overexposed ones do. Perhaps a cosmic ray particle.

[Stu]

If I was Spirit I'd be keeping a close eye on the top of Homeplate too...

[Deimos]

How fast can they take consecutive images? Would be nice to have a max. speed sequence, an *almost* movie, hopefully with a dust devil in it...

The "fast" dust devil movie gets 3 sec per frame at first, before slowing down. Less optimized imaging can be done at 10, or more normally 20 second spacing. Going faster requires other tradeoffs.

The L7 and R1 filters are high-pass filters, which I thought, should pass all wavelengths shorter than the nominal cutoff. The L1 slot, which contains no filter, should also allow UV wavelengths through to the detector.

These CCDs have little UV response. L1 in particular would emphasize longer wavelengths even if there were UV sensitivity (ie, you might know you 'discovered' something but not know if it is zodiacal light, a dust riung, IR airglow, UV aurora, etc.).

Would it be technically possible to track the Martian sky with the motors in the mast?

No, the mast precision is large compared to the typical star-trails.

just wondering why Earth should be iffy..? It's not going to be an awful lot fainter than Venus..?

Earth is 1.6 magnitudes fainter in a clear sky. With current dust levels, I'd guess we won't see much until the Sun approaches 10-15 deg below the horizon. At those angles (E+V 15 deg up) the few extra deg up for Venus translates into another magnitude or two. My hunch is there is a narrow window about 50-75 minutes after sunset for Venus, with the best chance for Earth on the early side of that window. We'll see. (A couple years ago I could have been quite precise; my notes aren't that good.)

[Deimos]

I don't believe that hot pixels "bleed" the way overexposed ones do. Perhaps a cosmic ray particle.

Hot pixels will bleed when they accumulate enough DN, leaving what looks like a small blob with impossibly narrow tails. The pixels in question do indeed look like a cosmic ray, though.

[CosmicRocker]

... These CCDs have little UV response. ...

Thanks, Mark. I was wondering if that was the reason you declared the UV experiment a "no go."