[X] My Assistant

[djellison]

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...E1P2741L1M1.JPG

Odd patch of fuzz in there - any ideas?

694 p2741.05 10 0 0 10 2 22 pancam_nighttime_opacity_L1R1


Doug

[Bill Harris]

find a list of the celestial coördinates that the N and S poles of each of the planets

Here are the details for Mars:Astronomy on Mars

And the North celestial pole is within 10* of Deneb, so Cygnus is the Polar constellation. There are a different set of Equatorial constellations, but the Earth and Martian ecliptic are similar so the Zodiac is the same. There may
be "planetarium" programs that will do this, but I'd like to see N and S hemisphere star maps for Mars.

--Bill

[David]

Here are the details for Mars:Astronomy on Mars

And the North celestial pole is within 10* of Deneb, so Cygnus is the Polar constellation.  There are a different set of Equatorial constellations, but the Earth and Martian ecliptic are similar so the Zodiac is the same. There may
be "planetarium" programs that will do this, but I'd like to see N and S hemisphere star maps for Mars.

--Bill

Thanks. I used Celestia to get very approximate ideas of where the poles of some of the other planets pointed. I was surprised to find that Jupiter and the Sun have almost exactly the same orientation (towards a spot in the middle of the curve of Draco). This is also close to the center of Earth's precessional circle. I wonder if this is a coincidence? Or if it's possible the planets formed out of the planetary disk with the same orientation as the Sun's, and all of them except Jupiter have been subject to some disturbing forces that have caused their poles to move elsewhere?


Edited addendum: Venus' and Luna's north celestial poles are almost in the same spot as the Sun's and Jupiter's; Mercury's is different, but still close by in Draco. The other planets' poles have quite different orientations.

[dilo]

The Magellan Cloud image is so beautiful that is worth to play a little bit with it!
So I first removed the strong, slightly inclined pattern with some "Flat Field" correction, using a method similar to the one already used by Doug/Phil. Then I used Focus Magic to remove trails of stars (motion blur)... All this "magic" improvement is resumed in the gif animation
Original:
FlatField:
Blur correction:

Animation: