[X] My Assistant

[stewjack]

Now that we know where we are going, I thought we could use a topic about our future route. I hope that a few images will get the rover rolling - downhill.

READY START

BACKGROUND
------
From Steve Squyres Misson Update
Octoberber 4, 2005

Extending eastward from the summit of Husband Hill is a broad ridge that we've named Haskin Ridge. It trends ENE from the summit, does a little dog-leg to the right, and then trends ESE for a bit. Right at the dog-leg there's a pretty steep step, which we're not certain we can get down. So we're going to descend the upper portion of the ridge, right to where the step is, and assess the situation. If we can see a safe route, then we'll continue down onto the lower portion of Haskin Ridge.
------

My Image of Haskin Ridge
I tried to get the best image of Haskin ridge that was available, and this is a crop from a true color TIFF summit panorama, located on the the Cornell Pancam web site. I converted the tif file to a gif file to save some download time.

Warning : File Size : 1.7 MB
Cornell True Color Pan of Haskin Ridge

Reference
WEB page of Husband Hill Summit Panorama
Warning: File Size : 80 MB !!!!
Preliminary Spirit Pancam of "Husband Hill Summit" Panorama

Jack

PS If you can't see the "steep step" that Squyres mentions - try this orbital image. I believe that the "steep step" is the dark shadow cutting across the ridge that is located directly under the word CRATER. I think that it is also visible in the true color pancam image, but it is less obvious.

Orbital View of Husband Hill and Basin

[jvandriel]

Is this the place to cross the steep step to Haskin Ridge ?

Taken with the L7 Pancam on Sol 642.

jvandriel

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[fredk]

Is this the place to cross the steep step to Haskin Ridge ?

Nope - that view is farther back on Haskin. You can see part of it in the upper left corner of this pancam shot.

[jvandriel]

A 360 degree panoramic view down Husband Hill.

Taken on Sol 642 with the R0 Navcam.

jvandriel

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[jvandriel]

A pancam panoramic view looking down at Haskin Ridge.

Taken on Sol 642 with the L7 pancam.

jvandriel

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[abalone]

Latest anaglyph looking ahead. Looks like you can almost see over the top at the left.

Complete with DD in background

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[RNeuhaus]

A pancam panoramic view looking down at Haskin Ridge.

Taken on Sol 642 with the L7 pancam.

Now, this last panaromic picture gives me an observation, the dropoff line is not covered by any kind of rocks, cliff but a continuation of the same kind of land from the rover. This deduct me that the land after the dropoff is of the same kind of terrain as the previous.

Now let me see if my supposition is right

Rodolfo

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Anyone else unable to access the exploratorium websites?

[odave]

I can't get them either - gateway timeouts on the rover folders and an internal server error on the main exploratorium page.

[Guest_Myran_*]

Exploratorium is down for me also, should be working hours in the US now but no - well lets wait and see.

[jvandriel]

Bedrock on the way down.

A panoramic view of that place.

Taken on Sol 643 with the L5 pancam.

jvandriel

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[aldo12xu]

Jvandriel, your latest panoramas and mosaics have been exceptional. It looks like you have perfected the process!

The one thing that stood out for me in the above mosaic is the difference in the morphology of the outcrops near the upper portion of the photo versus that of the outcrops making up most of the photo. Could we have a geological contact running along the upper part of the mosaic? If so, any idea what the trend/direction of that contact is?

[jvandriel]

Aldo12xu,

when you look at post#153 of this thread, the 2 center images, you can see that whole area.
I am not a geologist to draw any conclusion about that.

Regarding the panoramas.
I use MichaelT's anti-vignetting program and IDL Virtual machine before stitching.
As you can see from the results, it works great and the results are much better than before.
Almost no more vignetting.Especially the Navcam images.

jvandriel.

[Tesheiner]

Jvandriel,

I suppose you are still using autostitch. Have you seen or not an improvement on the images matching (better horizon with less discontinuity) after using anti-vignetting?

[jvandriel]

Tesheiner,

I still use Autostitch voor stitching and indeed it looks like that there is more matching of the horizon.
Maybe the result of MichaelT's anti-vignetting program because there is more contrast between the dark Mars soil and lighter sky above it. Especially at the seams. With more contrast difference it's easyer for better matching and stitching.

But you can also force Autostitch for better matching by changing the RANSAC parameters.

I have made a lot of panoramas and gained more experience with Autostitch, maybe that will help to.

But in general I must say that the anti-vignetting program of MichaelT is a great help for making better panoramas. Special in the Navcam panoramas you can see much better results.
In the pancam images it is less, because they have less vignetting as explained earlier in another thread.

jvandriel

[jvandriel]

A panoramic view of Kansas.

Taken with the Microscopic Imager on Sol 646.

jvandriel

Attached thumbnail(s)