Cape York - Northern Havens, Sol 2780 - 2947 Options

[Stu]

Oppy seems to have stopped to catch her breath at Turkey Haven, and the latest Hazcams show she is preparing to spend some time studying the rocks there, so this seems like a good time to start a new topic.

If you have any images/observations to share relating to Oppy's approach to Turkey Haven, please post them in the previous thread.

To start us going, here's my take on Oppy's view of Turkey Haven - not suggesting the colours are particularly realistic, but they do show, I think, the great variety of tones and hues visible on the rocks at this intriguing place...

[fredk]

This image shows perfectly that we've made it to the ridge of CY:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2781
It also shows nicely that CY is basically a "shelf" jutting out into Endeavour, as we'd said a long time ago. We've been travelling north up the flat part of the shelf. I think this is the first time we can clearly see the full relief of CY - it does jut out quite a ways from the average slope into Endeavour.

[Tesheiner]

That's part of a 3x1 navcam mosaic (navcam_3x1_az_126_3_bpp) shot yestersol. Expect another 7x1 mosaic shot today so we will finally (probably) have a whole 360deg. view.

[mhoward]

Opportunity's position on sol 2781. This view is cobbled together from two locations over three sols.

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[Stu]

UnbeLEEvable timing!!! I was just about to post a sharpened-up anaglyph I've made of part of Turkey Haven, about to invite everyone to look at the beautiful, fragile-looking rock sculptures at the bottom left... then you go and show that Oppy has driven right over them!!!

[Bill Harris]

It appears that our "holiday" science stop will be at site T2_Haven, so here is an L257 of that site.

The mind clicks and whirrs and theorizes and this area will prove to be unimaginably complex.

--Bill

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[Stu]

Best colour view I can manage...



You're right Bill... fascinating place... Love how lots of the rocks appear to have a dark coating on them on their tops and sides, yet the bases look cleaner...

[walfy]

Wow, I thought this new outcrop was much larger in size! Got fooled again. Nothing like having Oppy in the picture to put things into perspective.

[fredk]

lots of the rocks appear to have a dark coating on them on their tops and sides, yet the bases look cleaner...

I'm thinking it's the other way around - usually the lighter areas are dust, which piles up around the bases of the rocks, while the parts more exposed to the wind stay cleaner.

[nprev]

Remarkable. Looks a bit like a minaturized version of the Belt formation in Montana.

[Stu]

I'm thinking it's the other way around - usually the lighter areas are dust, which piles up around the bases of the rocks, while the parts more exposed to the wind stay cleaner.

Yeah, makes sense. I should have known that.

[mhoward]

I thought this new outcrop was much larger in size!

I was mostly trying to capture the scenic view with that last one. Here's a more basic view showing the relative size of the outcrop. This view faces south and somewhat down (-17 degrees elevation), and you can see the area Pancam has covered so far.

P.S. I'm not sure what the northward tilt is right now, but I'm pretty sure it's over 10 degrees, maybe quite a bit over that I'm seeing something between 9.9 and 12 degrees, maybe.

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[mhoward]

Just one more. Facing south. The rover position is probably off just a little bit.

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[jamescanvin]

Here is the Turkey Haven parking spot in colour.



James

[Ant103]

Sol 2781 navcam pan. Full view on Endeavour !

[walfy]

A fun little gif-movie in which the other side of the ridge comes into view somewhat. Oppy steams right up to the edge! Fantastic little rover.

[CosmicRocker]

Look at her climb right up there!
.............Nice driving.

[Tesheiner]

Some additional navcam images hit the exploratorium during the last update. There're two pictures still missing and autostitch has some trouble to correctly match the available ones, but in any case the view worth posting this crude mosaic.

[jvandriel]

Here is the complete view from Sol 2781 taken with the
L0 Navcam.

Jan van Driel

[Bill Harris]

A little side-trip here: one thing that the MERB Project is doing lately is that duplicated images are getting posted to Exploratorium when the images are absolutely identical with no noise or data dropouts (ie, the "-M1" and "-M2" images). For example,

1P374984334EFFBQPHP2433L2M1.jpg
1P374984334EFFBQPHP2433L2M2.jpg

are identical but with a different filename.

Does anyone have a clue as to what is happening here?

--Bill

[Tesheiner]

Just let me remark that the same happens at the MER website so it may be something at the "feeder" common to both sites.

[paxdan]

Info on decoding MER filenames here.

The difference is the "Product version number" a "Version identifier providing uniqueness for book keeping".

Of course this does not answer the 'why'.

[Ant103]

Sols 2779 & 2780 color pan updated. Just love this colourfull place .



And Sols 2781 & 2782 full 360 pan :

[eoincampbell]

A Thanksgiving Thank You Round-up is in order to everyone supplying these wonderful Haven views: Thank You.
Here's hoping for a feast of science from these upcoming measurements!

[Phil Stooke]

Fourmidable!

Here's a polar view of the full panorama. If there are dust devils - rare, but we know they are possible here - this would be a good place to do a survey looking for them, maybe in the spring.

Phil

[Stu]

Gorgeous polar view, Phil, and The Dagger stands out really clearly on there...

...speaking of which, take one of the new navcams, stretch and contort it untyil it begs for mercy, and The Dagger really jumps out...

[marswiggle]

Thanks to everyone for the great images. Being not as skilled myself, I only could take advantage of Ant103's full panorama to produce this sideways compressed version of the view. Cropped sky and part of the foreground. Gives some idea of the relative heights and contours at this location.

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[Bill Harris]

And here, in a glorious x-eyed, lens-corrected, stereo FHazcam view, is the IDD toolkit about to *thwack T2 Haven on Sol-2781:

--Bill

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[Matt Lenda]

Fantastic images so far...

Huge amounts of data will be coming down soon. Yesterday we planned a whole slew of Pancams for a science "experiment" that one of our science folks wanted to do, and today we've got a few MI stacks in the queue and a continuation of the Pancam observations. Load it up, load it up...

But, the data won't all be down until Monday or so. We're very "restricted" in our planning because of the holiday weekend -- I think we're planning sols 2787-2789 today but we only have downlink from sol 2783 -- so we have to load up on a bunch of sols. Which means less IDD or drive work. Booooo.

-m

[ngunn]

If there are dust devils - rare, but we know they are possible here - this would be a good place to do a survey looking for them

Yesterday we planned a whole slew of Pancams for a science "experiment" that one of our science folks wanted to do

I hope you called it right, Phil. I like the idea of a whole slew of crater vistas. (There again it could be sixty pictures of the same rock - or the sundial.)

[Bill Harris]

Don't get your hopes up for imagery this Holiday weekend. All we have today are a bunch of Homestake MI images and some boring OtherScience PanCams.

I wouldn't be suprised if things get a bit spotty for the next few weeks. The launch of Curiosity will take up resources. And there is limited bandwidth on the DSN downlink and a whole sackload of science they want to get started on working restricted workdays before/at the Holidays. The proverbial quart in a pint pot, they are prioritizing and doing the age-old Task Juggle.

In a way, we become like spoilt children. We want it, and we want it All. Now. We need to be patient and realize that it'll happen when it happens.

[/philosophization OFF]

--Bill

[Stu]

All true, Bill. We'll get what we get, when we get it, when it's possible to get it to us. End of story. If anyone starts to suffer withdrawl symptoms from images, there's a new release of Oppy images to the PDS on the 28th - sols 2521-2610, the section ofher trek which included those small craters named after historical NASA manned spacecraft, etc - to trawl through and make pretty pictures out of.

( And if anyone dares to moan this year about the MER team having the Thanksgiving holidays off, or doing less during this period, or accuses them of slacking, I will personally go round to their house and give them a Benny Hill-style slap on the head whilst shouting "Shut up!!!!" They deserve and need a break from their jobs now and again, just like the rest of us. )

[ronatu]

All true, Bill. We'll get what we get, when we get it, when it's possible to get it to us. End of story. If anyone starts to suffer withdrawl symptoms from images, there's a new release of Oppy images to the PDS on the 28th - sols 2521-2610, the section ofher trek which included those small craters named after historical NASA manned spacecraft, etc - to trawl through and make pretty pictures out of.

( And if anyone dares to moan this year about the MER team having the Thanksgiving holidays off, or doing less during this period, or accuses them of slacking, I will personally go round to their house and give them a Benny Hill-style slap on the head whilst shouting "Shut up!!!!" They deserve and need a break from their jobs now and again, just like the rest of us. )

Do you know if Opportunity will drive a little more before winter? And if not - when driving will resume?

[centsworth_II]

Do you know if Opportunity will drive a little more before winter? And if not - when driving will resume?

From Stu's interview with James Wray:
"...mainly we’re just hoping to survive the winter! If we find a good north-facing slope, we might be able to make brief 'sorties' throughout the winter to nearby targets of geologic interest..."

And from Matt Lenda's blog:
"We still have some trekking to do to find all the best slopes, and to see what slopes also have good science targets.... I expect activity to dwindle down throughout December, with January-April being 'hunker down' months with occasional science activities."

I'm sure no one knows the actual driving plans for the winter/spring. A cleaning event would certainly change things, as would an unfortunate dusting event.

[stevesliva]

Also, the official status update mentioned that this was one of two havens being considered.
http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/mission/status_...rtunityAll.html

There are two candidate sites for winter havens that indicate sufficient northerly tilt. Opportunity is investigating one of those two sites with the plan to spend the Thanksgiving holiday there. Because of the coming holiday, the project implemented multi-sol plans for the last three planning days before Thanksgiving.

If watt-hours decrease precipitously, no doubt they'll stay put. If not...

[Bill Harris]

And most of the data this morning dealt with two superres Pancam sequences of Endeavour Rim, which don't have much to do with the current science targets at The Havens

--Bill

[Ant103]

Sol 2785 color view of Cape Tribulation.

[Phil Stooke]

Fantastic view!

Phil

[ElkGroveDan]

Wow. If that were covered in snow it would make for a five or six mile toboggan ride.

[Matt Lenda]

All true, Bill. We'll get what we get, when we get it, when it's possible to get it to us. End of story. If anyone starts to suffer withdrawl symptoms from images, there's a new release of Oppy images to the PDS on the 28th - sols 2521-2610, the section ofher trek which included those small craters named after historical NASA manned spacecraft, etc - to trawl through and make pretty pictures out of.

( And if anyone dares to moan this year about the MER team having the Thanksgiving holidays off, or doing less during this period, or accuses them of slacking, I will personally go round to their house and give them a Benny Hill-style slap on the head whilst shouting "Shut up!!!!" They deserve and need a break from their jobs now and again, just like the rest of us. )

Honestly, part of me wants to fly back to Pasadena (I'm home in CO for vacay!) right now and sweat out that high-calorie Thanksgiving meal with a good tactical planning day!

I'm sure no one knows the actual driving plans for the winter/spring. A cleaning event would certainly change things, as would an unfortunate dusting event.

Pretty much -- it's still a week-to-week assessment. It's just flat-out impossible to predict dust factor or Tau with anything less than completely unreasonable error bars. Historically we see many Tau and DF trends, none of which are useful on a tactical basis. They are what they are, we deal with it as it comes along.

-m

[Tesheiner]

Fantastic view!

We are seeing two shots taken on L256R21 but for each of those two there are 15 (fifteen, yes) additional images on L6 filter at the same pointing. That would make for an incredibly detailed mosaic; someone should have a go on it.

[ngunn]

And no doubt fredk will let us know if any dust-raising wind gusts (or cloud shadows) were traversing the area as the fifteen successive images were captured.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Would the winter plans be reconsidered if there were a major solar panel cleaning event?

[ElkGroveDan]

I would say yes. Every new sol is borrowed time. When they park the rovers to do nothing there is the constant tug and pull of; do we get more life/science out of this machine sitting still vs. moving on.? There's always the chance that one of the critical circuits will simply fail due to old age. So if they had abundant power, they'd probably head straight back over to Homestake and all the other enticing targets left behind over the last month

[SFJCody]

Sol 2785 color view of Cape Tribulation.

Looking at this makes me think that cleaning events are more likely to occur if Oppy is on the inner part of the crater rim. Of course, settling on a north facing slope takes precedence.

[Bill Harris]

Be on the lookout this weekend-- there are a couple of nice sequences in the pipeline.

The sequence P2577 with the b o r i n g name "photometry east" is a neat example of differential erosion-- the relatively resistant dark and blocky beds adjacent to the soft and weathering light and sandy beds. Example attached.

And "Mpangeni", struggling to get thru the pipeline, is enough to get a geologist all aquiver...

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...QEP2582L2M2.JPG

'Nuff said.

--Bill

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[Matt Lenda]

Would the winter plans be reconsidered if there were a major solar panel cleaning event?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeehawwwwwwwwwwww!

-m

[brellis]

Looking at the peak in Ant103's gorgeous color pic from Sol 2785 -- after all these years and all this distance, it's so fun to think why the heck not? Put that one on the to-do list!

[Stu]

Rather nice new MI images... fascinating rocklets down at Oppy's wheels now...

[atomoid]

fascinating MI indeed..
what's do you suppose the 'hair-like' thing at upper right is?
I remember seeing these early in the mission but not in many years..

[Guest_Oersted_*]

Looks like a vein in the rock to me.

Early in the missions we had a few strands of airbag material that blew into the microscope images...

[Bill Harris]

Agreed. This simply looks like a healed fracture in the rock. Too early to call it anything else-- we'll have more images in a few days.

The adjacent site "Mpangeni" has a very intriguing texture and shows both rounded and angular clasts in the matrix. Even down to the microscopic scale, this initial set of MI's at "T2_Haven" show this difference in particle angularity and a distressing lack of sorting.

This will prove to be an exciting area.

--Bill

[nprev]

Agreed...a vein or a fracture.

[Stu]

"Mpangeni"...

[nprev]

...gesundheit!

Lovely work, Stu. THAT is an interesting-looking little beast...a wind-eroded breccia?

[Matt Lenda]

I'm travel-weary and cranky. Someone fill me in on what's down from the weekend plan so I don't have to read my 76 (and counting) unread emails from today alone! (Read: "Do my work for me.")



-m

[Bill Harris]

Main items down are an initial set of MI's from the current IDD target "T2_Haven" and some interesting shots of an adjacent site "Mpangeni" and a couple more nearby sites "photometry east and west" and "brightsoil east and west". and a couple of Superres sequences on Tribulation and Dunes.

All in all, a busy weekend.

--Bill

[brellis]

Superres on Tribulation -- for the far-sighted among us!

[walfy]

Mpangeni (is the name right?!) renders very nicely in 3D, from a fresh batch of images, Sol 2788.

[walfy]

The martian rocks remind me of geological formations near Bariloche, Argentina:

[Stu]

My 3D take on "Mpangeni"...

[marsophile]

My 3D take on "Mpangeni"...

The cleft area seems to have a fibrous inclusion.

[ElkGroveDan]

Whoa! Look at that crumbling v-notch. If it was a little larger and a thing like that could become a serious wheel trap.

[Stu]

Whoa! Look at that crumbling v-notch. If it was a little larger and a thing like that could become a serious wheel trap.

Yep... full resolution version here: http://twitpic.com/7l6252/full

[Phil Stooke]

A mini-Dagger! Very nice.

Phil

[PDP8E]

Here is a quick comparison of the sundial from Sol 55 to Sol 2718 (7+ yrs)
Both are from raw images and were identically processed.
The differences are sun angle (brightness), dust on the target, and probably the camera.
(L4,5,6 filters only)

[remcook]

How did that VIMS composite of Titan (e.g. http://www.uidaho.edu/sci/physics/news/topfeatures/titan ) get there?!

[Bill Harris]

Here is an x-eyed stereo view of site Mpangeni, an L346 and R721 image.

Note the cleft in the lower left of the site apparently with active precipitation within the fracture.

--Bill

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[fredk]

Another drive and another incredible view on 2790:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2790

[Matt Lenda]

Heck yeah!

We're perched about 5 meters away from a very nice batch of northerly tilts. I spy a Winter Haven!

Unfortunately we're squeezed by late morning/early afternoon comm passes -- tighter than usual this week. Very little drive time, even though the energy is plenty high for it. Might take a few sols.

-m

[Bill Harris]

And still a dusty LowGain antenna. Cf: this post: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...&pid=180403

They weren't kidding about travelling. Even with the smattering of Navcam views the comm passes allow these are tantalizing glimpses of CY morphology. Even the FHazcam images are great boot-scuffs of the surface.

Or, as The Great One said, "How sweet it is..."

--Bill

[Tesheiner]

Here's the 3x1 navcam mosaic. Today's imaging plan includes the remaining 7 pictures so a whole 360º panorama should be available soon.

[Bill Harris]

And a wonderful Pancam sequence of a new site, "Transvaal". Such great tonal range with fine gradation between colors, and such a texture of the surface.

--Bill

[ElkGroveDan]

Wow. We can now see the Cyclops crater from the navcam.

[Zeke4ther]

So, does that mean the tau has become better?

[Guest_Oersted_*]

Another drive and another incredible view on 2790:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2790

I'd have to wait for a three-d view to be sure, but it certainly looks like a good perch for rolling the wheels up on it and get a great tilt.

[Stu]

"Transvaal"

[climber]

Wondering why they choose names referring to South Africa while looking for Northern tilt

[fredk]

We can now see the Cyclops crater from the navcam.

It's been visible in navcam for quite a while - here's a shot from 2668:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...N5P1944R0M1.JPG
But it is easier to see now, since tau is gradually dropping. You can follow the tau here.

[fredk]

I love the way that the summit of CY blends in with the other (much bigger) peaks around the rim of Endeavour in this shot:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2790

[climber]

Yep! Kinda Everest-like pan is coming up.

[Stu]

Imagine striding up that slope, standing on the ridge and, shielding your eyes from the Sun with your gloved hand, looking over the other side, down onto the floor of Endeavour and across to the other side...





(Wanted to make my 5,000th post something special )

[marsophile]

Rather nice new MI images...

Anyone know the location of this with respect to the pancam images?

[climber]

Imagine striding up that slope, standing on the ridge and, shielding your eyes from the Sun with your gloved hand, looking over the other side, down onto the floor of Endeavour and across to the other side...

Yes, I can imagine that...since you posted this 3D view. THANKS!

[walfy]

My apologies for this unorthodox way of presenting this Sol 2790 shot, but it was the only way I could do it so parts of the image wouldn't be so headache inducing in 3D, had to chop it up! Anyway, more superb, freaky rocks, loaded with features:

[Bill Harris]

Site "Transvaal", Sol-2790 , R721-L346 x-eyed stereo pair.

Compare with "Mpangeni" inpost #68 on 11/29.

--Bill

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[fredk]

Here's my attempt at de-headaching that view:

[walfy]

Here's my attempt at de-headaching that view...

Does the trick for me! Very good.

[PDP8E]

Here is an L456 of Transvaal. No sharping, just the barest of color cranking.
Notice the green in the top left corner, which always exhibits a vignette (... probably causing it)

[CosmicRocker]

Here's Bill's X-eyed, false colored pair of Transvaal (sol 2790) in anaglyph form.

[Bill Harris]

Thankee, Tom! Stereo for the masses. I don't bother with anaglyphs because I'm one of that type that can do x-eyed stero with my bare eyes. It's good to see other presentation types open up.

Not much more data for Sol-2790, but for tosol (hitting in about an hour) we'll have a set of L257 rear track "boot scuffs" (p2434), some L257Rall of "North Haven" (p2435), Finally: a pancam_foreground_quarter_L234567Rall (p2587) and a Navcam sequence to the NE (Az330). Nothing spectacular, but some nice puzzlepieces.

--Bill

[marsophile]

Anyone know the location of this with respect to the pancam images?

According to the Nov 30 TPS update, it was somewhere on Transvaal.

[fredk]

Speaking of that update:

Squyres and Arvidson... are scheduled to announce the details of the Homestake discovery at the AGU fall meeting in San Francisco next Wednesday, December 7. An update will be posted once the embargo is lifted.

[Stu]

Continuing our series of "Not suggesting for a moment that it's accurate, but it is pretty" Fanciful Images that Oppy Never Took, I give you, "Endeavour Sunrise..."

[fredk]

There are lots of juicy tidbits in the latest Planetary update. Here are the highlights:

"The other cool thing we did... was what I call a triple crunch over Homestake," said Arvidson. "...We crunched it, removed the dust cover to the extent it existed, and exposed some bright sparkly bits."

OOhhh, sparkly bits. I wonder if that's a clue. Either way, the sparkles don't seem to have survived the jpegging/stretching of the released images.

When the data... on Transvaal arrived on Earth, the scientists basically shrugged. "It looks like Chester Lake, nothing special," as Arvidson summed it up.

Planning for winter:

"There's a southern candidate for a winter haven and a northern candidate... within about 20 meters of one another, and they both have slopes of 10 to 20 degrees north," said Arvidson... "...we will have to assess the science at both [sites] before deciding where the vehicle will spend the winter," added Squyres.

Callas: "...we need to be above a 5-degree slope by January. That means we don't have to hunker down now, and that we could spend December doing science, just as long as we're always never more than a short step away from getting into that winter haven."

Arvidson: "Then, sometime in January, we'll put the vehicle in either the northern site or the southern site and begin the winter science campaign there"

And some very interesting discussion about the possibility of cleaning events:

"It turns out in all the wind modeling and the observations that people see of streaks, if the vehicle is exposed to winds coming from the southeast, [from which] the winds blow during the Martian winters, there's a possibility for a dust clearing," said Arvidson.

At the place currently known as Turkey Haven, "we can actually see to the southeast into the crater Endeavour, so that would be a good place in terms of maximizing the chance that we'll get some dust removal," Arvidson pointed out. "We need to evaluate possible locations like that at the northern site."

"If we got 10-degree slope, we would have power levels comparable to the last Martian winter for Opportunity," Callas informed. "It would really be desirous to have as much tilt as possible this winter, but also as much mobility as possible. In all previous Martian years, we've always had a cleaning event sometime before the winter solstice and we haven't had one yet, and we can't plan on it. This could be the year we don't get a cleaning event, in which case we'd want to get as much tilt as possible," he rationalized.

[marsophile]

If the wind is coming from the southeast, and the rover deck is tilted towards the north (actually more like northwest), wouldn't any wind just clean the underside of the deck, not the solar panels? (Unless we got a down-draft.)

While there is still sufficient power, it might be worth briefly going over the ridge and facing the southeast.

[Ant103]

Sol 2790 navcam pan

[Matt Lenda]

If the wind is coming from the southeast, and the rover deck is tilted towards the north (actually more like northwest), wouldn't any wind just clean the underside of the deck, not the solar panels? (Unless we got a down-draft.)

While there is still sufficient power, it might be worth briefly going over the ridge and facing the southeast.

We'd have to be tilted away at a pretty big angle to not get anything on the topside. Basic aerodynamics -- air's still flowing up there!

I think we discussed turning towards the crater at one meeting a while back. Given that we have no idea (...at all) when a cleaning gust could come, the errors bars are simply too big to risk it. Doing that even for a short time would likely be a significant waste. We'd be gambling the rover for something we think might happen once a year... That's a hard sell point!

Better go where we know we can survive: North-facing places!

-m

[Bill Harris]

My take, FWIW, is that this region is in the calm-wind part of the year and the lack of cleaning Zephyrs is seasonal. After the Solstice and Aphelion hemispheric heating will pick up and so will seasonal winds. Make the best of it for now.

Oh yes, and make more Foreground Quarters. It's all happening at our feet...

--Bill

[ngunn]

Isn't this ridge top a place where dust accumulates rather than getting blown away? I'm thinking of the 'brightsoil', both east and west. Is it the same material that produces the icing sugar effect on top of the dunes in Victoria and Santa Maria? If so, it seems to be much more abundant here. On the other hand there is none of the stuff on the 'inboard' slopes so I have to agree with the idea of parking a little bit more 'inboard' than an analysis based purely on insolation would dictate, especially if the number of northerly degrees available provides some leeway.