MSL self portrait, Sols 84 - 85 Options

[mcaplinger]

I will be sure to hold off in the future...

The self-portrait was kind of a special case. Many of the mosaics being shot (e.g. with Mastcam) are unlikely to get special treatment or even an official release, and those seem like fair game with proper credit. Hopefully the self-portrait will be one of the iconic images of the mission, so we feel a bit proprietary about it (especially since it's been a long road getting the whole sequence designed and then convincing everyone to take it.) The real unsung heroes are the rover planners at JPL for figuring out how to make the arm behave as desired -- they've been great.

I think the official release is just going up now.

[ElkGroveDan]

Very "raw" thumbnails 3D view...

OMG! Thank you Stu!

(and thank you MSSS, JPL, NASA, myself and the rest of the American taxpayers, etc.)

[Astro0]

...and the DSN

[RoverDriver]

...
It's too bad nobody has figured out how to remove the shutter smear off the RTG,
...

I kind of like the streaks, it looks like the rover is moving. Hopefully it is a good omen.

Paolo

[ElkGroveDan]

...and the DSN

... and CSIRO.

[Nocturne]

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11...-portraits?lite

[Paul Fjeld]

Great work mcaplinger and MSSS! Can we assume that this is a best current cut of what the Gale environment near noon would look like with our own eyes, then?

... Maybe the HGA was covered in a different material before launch?

I wonder if the Hi Gain antenna surface isn't somewhat reflective and the angle is giving us a bounce toward the mountain color. The antenna pre-delivery and photos in this technical paper seem to show different colors depending on the environment.

[mcaplinger]

Can we assume that this is a best current cut of what the Gale environment near noon would look like with our own eyes, then?

No way, nor do we represent it as such. This is raw camera color and then whatever the hugin level matching did to it, with a big patch of fake sky. If you look at the raw frames you can see the exposure was all over the place, each frame was autoexposed.

All that said, the rover body came out pretty white so I don't think the color is too far off. I'd have worried more about that if we had more time, but it took a while to get all the tiepoints right.

BTW, the idea for the self-portrait came from my colleague Mike Ravine, who also did all of the hugin driving after I gave him the blemish-removed, desmeared images.

[DeanM]

Splendid imaging (& processing)!

Can anyone shine any light on the rectangular shape to the left of ChemCam's lens, in the centre of the main 'head' housing?

It almost looks like an unused aperture that has been 'taped' over, or perhaps it is a filter of some sort?

Dean

[walfy]

Spectacular image of the rover! And in 3D! It was the right choice by the JPL planners to do this, for public outreach, etc. We'll be seeing this image a lot. I can't think of another shot better than this one of a spacecraft on another world, at ground level, other than Apollo crafts, of course. It's a historical image. Let's hope we get more self portraits in due time, maybe next to the huge sand dunes when we drive past, later at the canyon's entrance, even later way up on the mountain overlooking the blackened landing site far below, a distant smudge on the plains! Congrats to the team putting this together. As already stated, powerful way to outreach.

[Tom Tamlyn]

I think the official release is just going up now.

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16239

Oh my. Thanks Mike, and also to your colleague Mike Ravine, and to everyone on the MSL team who worked on this image. And to Ken Edgett and the rest of the people who conceived of, designed, and built MAHLI. What a camera!

Iconic is an understatement. Nick, you got that barrel installed just in time.

You know, someone like Rob Manning could do an outstanding von Kármán lecture devoted exclusively to panning around this image, explaining what some of these fascinating but enigmatic shapes and pieces are, with comments about the design evolution and engineering challenges. And I _really_ hope that someone does.

We've been working on this particular project since before landing ... [I]t's been a long road getting the whole sequence designed and then convincing everyone to take it. The real unsung heroes are the rover planners at JPL for figuring out how to make the arm behave as desired -- they've been great.

Thanks also for these bits of operational details. Even though I know better, it's easy to start taking this wonderful machine for granted, and to forget how much talent and how many hours of effort go into every single thing it does.

TTT

Edit:

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11...-portraits?lite

And kudos to Alan Boyle for a really good blog post, which gives Mike Caplinger and MSSS appropriate and sympathetic credit for running the camera and creating the images, while also showcasing the work of Joe and Stu. I guess Mr. Boyle is a member here ...

This post has been edited by Tom Tamlyn: Nov 2 2012, 11:08 AM

[Ant103]

Yes, absolutely right with what said above. This is a great work. And there is something we can't see immediately, but what panoramic stitchers like us know, is that there is absoluteluy no paralax between images. This lead me to this conclusion : the robotic arm had to do complex gestures in order to avoid shiftings, rotating itself around the optical center of the MAHLI lens. With that in mind, we can clearly understood the amount of work to have such a perfect self portrait. So, thanks for this !!!

[Jam Butty]

Sol 84 MAHLI self-portrait
Two frame animation of the reflection in the ChemCam mirror...

[djellison]

Can anyone shine any light on the rectangular shape to the left of ChemCam's lens, in the centre of the main 'head' housing?

That's a temperature probe was stuck to the ChemCam housing during thermal-vac testing. After testing it was removed, but a 'scar' was left behind.

[ngunn]

That's excellent Jam Butty! There's such a lot going on there with the turret movement and two very different sets of reflections also moving between frames. It would be fascinating to see that in anaglyph too (beg beg). I'd expect various 'imposible' 3D effects to pop out.