Jim Bell Q'n'a 3, Feb. 15, 2006, Your questions answered! Options

[elakdawalla]

Rover Audio Update, February 15, 2006
Pancam Update with Jim Bell
MP3 format (running time 25:14)
Doug Ellison, the host of the online forum unmannedspaceflight.com, interviews Pancam Payload Element Lead Jim Bell about the decision to publish imagery as it arrives from Mars; "Super-Res" imaging; what is a panorama? Home Plate and the Gibson panorama; and a long drive planned for Opportunity.

http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/ma...vers/audio.html

[djellison]

(running time 25:14)

Yeah - we could do little 10 minute Q'n'A things

DOH!

Thanks for giving them a home Emily, very much appreciated, and kudos to Jim for being so patient, keen, and informative. If anyone wants to transcribe - then do it in here. If you have new questions, you can post them http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=2089 <there

Doug

(PS - sorry about the occasionally crappy audio, not sure what happened, but I'm doing a complete system re-install before the next one anyway and will have a thorough shake down beforehand - this one was a bit rushed )

[elakdawalla]

DOH!

Thanks for giving them a home Emily, very much appreciated.

Actually, this one's even longer, 26:18, I forgot to edit the time earlier...

--Emily

[Nix]

Another part!

I've enjoyed the Q'n A a lot so far, great work guys -and Emily..

Nico

[Guest_RGClark_*]

I didn't catch what he said about "super-res". Anybody know links for these images?

- Bob Clark

[Redstone]

(PS - sorry about the occasionally crappy audio, not sure what happened, but I'm doing a complete system re-install before the next one anyway and will have a thorough shake down beforehand - this one was a bit rushed )

Sounds like a simultaneous translation into Martian to me...

Once again, many thanks Doug, Jim, and TPS for doing this.

[ElkGroveDan]

I didn't catch what he said about "super-res". Anybody know links for these images?

- Bob Clark

http://www.planetary.org/image/spirit_0085A_superres1.jpg

[helvick]

Doug,

Excellent QnA yet again. This may sound odd but I found it quite hard to find the location of the audio files on The Planetary Society site a few days ago. I hadn't bokmarked the link, couldn't find any of the messages here via the Search options, couldn't find them on the TPS site using it's search and couldn't find any links to them in what I thought was the obvious place here (Mars->MER->Imagery and Tech).

I'm wondering if other folks might be having similar problems and if so it might be worth putting a Sticky topic into the MER section linking to the TPS repository.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Thanks for giving them a home Emily, very much appreciated, and kudos to Jim for being so patient, keen, and informative.

I know I've said it privately to Doug, but I'd also like to express publicly (to both Doug and Emily) my appreciation for making available the audio of MER team member interviews. A couple of the interviews have been a little more informative than I thought they'd be, so that was a pleasant surprise. And the typical length (about 30 minutes or so), combined with a half-hour selection of my other music, is just about perfect for my iPod during my afternoon jogs

Although I know he's been really tied up with Pancam ops and science analysis, it's a shame we haven't heard more from Jim Bell. He's erudite, polished, well-read, and has an obvious enthusiasm to communicate the results of the mission.

Frankly, I think it's apparent Bell is as effective a communicator as Squyres. Interestingly, I find their styles a little different, though complementary. In fact, and forgive the hyperbole, I think both of them add up to one Carl Sagan. Squyres seems to embody the Saganesque quality of the scientist who connects to the public without dumbing things down and/or insulting the layperson's intelligence. Bell, who also has those qualities, resembles the more intellectual, soft-spoken side of Sagan, the scientist who, for example, offers a bit more introspective analysis, perhaps sprinkled with a few historical or literary allusions. Having said that, neither seems to have (or publicly display) any of the arrogance that you find in some scientists (viz., "I'll give out the data when I feel like, and only after I complete my unique, brilliant analysis. You (the public) should be grateful to spend your tax dollars on a scientist of my caliber.").

And, of course, all three (Sagan, Squyres, and Bell) have the Cornell connection. Must be something in the water in Ithaca.

[elakdawalla]

Excellent QnA yet again. This may sound odd but I found it quite hard to find the location of the audio files on The Planetary Society site a few days ago. I hadn't bokmarked the link, couldn't find any of the messages here via the Search options, couldn't find them on the TPS site using it's search and couldn't find any links to them in what I thought was the obvious place here (Mars->MER->Imagery and Tech).

That was my bad. I'm still feeling my way through how to organize stuff on the new site, and there's so much work to be done on it that I forget, once I post pages, that I still have to think about how to make those pages findable (by both visitors and Google, which is what drives our search function). I'd forgotten until yesterday to make a link to these updates. I've now added a permanent link to the Rover Audio Updates page in the left-side navigation of our MER pages. All of the Mars missions and facts pages are something I'm working on right now but it's taking me a while to update everything that's happened in the two-plus years since I put together the Mars pages on our old site! Thanks for the comment -- I definitely need the help and suggestions to make our site more user-friendly.

Also, I agree with some of Alex's sentiments about Jim. I am psyched to have him as a new member of the TPS board.

--Emily

[Guest_RGClark_*]

I know I've said it privately to Doug, but I'd also like to express publicly (to both Doug and Emily) my appreciation for making available the audio of MER team member interviews. A couple of the interviews have been a little more informative than I thought they'd be, so that was a pleasant surprise. And the typical length (about 30 minutes or so), combined with a half-hour selection of my other music, is just about perfect for my iPod during my afternoon jogs

Although I know he's been really tied up with Pancam ops and science analysis, it's a shame we haven't heard more from Jim Bell. He's erudite, polished, well-read, and has an obvious enthusiasm to communicate the results of the mission.

Frankly, I think it's apparent Bell is as effective a communicator as Squyres. Interestingly, I find their styles a little different, though complementary. In fact, and forgive the hyperbole, I think both of them add up to one Carl Sagan. Squyres seems to embody the Saganesque quality of the scientist who connects to the public without dumbing things down and/or insulting the layperson's intelligence. Bell, who also has those qualities, resembles the more intellectual, soft-spoken side of Sagan, the scientist who, for example, offers a bit more introspective analysis, perhaps sprinkled with a few historical or literary allusions. Having said that, neither seems to have (or publicly display) any of the arrogance that you find in some scientists (viz., "I'll give out the data when I feel like, and only after I complete my unique, brilliant analysis. You (the public) should be grateful to spend your tax dollars on a scientist of my caliber.").

And, of course, all three (Sagan, Squyres, and Bell) have the Cornell connection. Must be something in the water in Ithaca.

Thanks for that. It's nice to hear from a scientist who actually has something nice to say about Sagan.


- Bob

[Guest_RGClark_*]

http://www.planetary.org/image/spirit_0085A_superres1.jpg

Thanks. That's quite an improvement. I've read that the resolution can be improved by a factor of n^(1/2) where n is the number of images. For 31 images this would be by a factor of about 5.5. Anyone know what is the level of improvement in this case?


- Bob

[ElkGroveDan]

Thanks. That's quite an improvement. I've read that the resolution can be improved by a factor of n^(1/2) where n is the number of images. For 31 images this would be by a factor of about 5.5. Anyone know what is the level of improvement in this case?
- Bob

Bell didn't seem to think so. He said about 10% improvement is about the best we could expect. My guess is that there is a diminishing rate of improvement with each additional image.

[djellison]

Yup - it's not as if taking 100,000 images would give you anything more than the 30 or so they did of the heatshield, and the 10-15 or so they did around the festoon targets.

I'm not sure how one might make a quantitative estimate on the improvement of resolution in that attempt I made on the Heatshield - it's not a lot though, certainly less than 50% improvement, probably more like 25 or less.

It takes features that are 'sort of' there, and brings them out just enough to be believable - I think that's the take Jim had on it.


Doug

[mhoward]

I didn't catch what he said about "super-res". Anybody know links for these images?

- Bob Clark

http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_...t/superres.html

Edit: BTW, I also am enjoying these Pancam Updates.