[X] My Assistant

[fredk]

Spirit shot the night sky again on sol 632, but this time no sign of Phobos or Deimos.

This shot shows Orion. It's upside-down, for northern-hemisphere earthlings at least, but more fascinating is that the star trail direction differs markedly from what you see (anywhere!) on Earth, since Earth's and Mars' axes are well from parallel. It really is jarring to see, if you've ever shot star trails of Orion before!

This shot shows a patch of Gemini, though it's harder to recognize. That's Castor, brightest star along the bottom edge, halfway from centre to right edge. Pollux is just out of frame.

Any ideas what the goal is here, if not just to drain off some excess power?

Would it be feasible to do a real circumpolar-style star shot, showing arcs around an alien celestial pole? For spirit, it'd be Mars' south celestial pole, 15 or so degrees above the southern horizon. A navcam shot could be quite dramatic, with the ghostly outline of McCool/Ramon hills and the south rim of Gusev underneath the alien startrails.

I guess time is the problem - you'd need several minutes exposure at least to show arcs. But perhaps a series of 30 second shots, which could easily be combined digitally? Wishful thinking, perhaps, but then again if there's extra power to drain...