Winter Quarters, at Low Ridge Haven Options

[alan]

No, thats Thira.
View of Sunset hill from sol 221 (on the right)
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...00P2284L6M1.JPG

[aldo12xu]

Astro, man, oh, man! That is perfection! All it needs is the cherry on top (of Home Plate)

[mhoward]

No, thats Thira.

But Thira is to the east, and quite, quite hidden by McCool Hill at the moment. The only thing that makes sense to me is White Hill or Grissom Hill - I'm out of my reckoning enough that I'm not even sure which one makes more sense, but I'm guessing White Hill.

Anybody have a big map of this part of Gusev? This is driving me nuts.

Here is an Odyssey image showing where Thira is. It wasn't even visible until we got to the summit of Husband Hill, as I recall, or at least up to Larry's Lookout.

Edit: If you're looking for the hill on the Navcams, by the way, you won't find it - I would guess because it's so far away that's it's normally obscured by haze. The sunset makes it visible. I think that's kind of cool.

[Nix]

Ooh -I've let my Thira-obsession fool me again

So it's either the distant western rim of Gusev or the big crater visible to the west seen in this Odyssey image;

http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-20040103a.html

I've wondered earlier on in the mission (from the Cahokia pan I believe) wether this feature is that crater or not.

Astro0, awesome! Thanks a bunch for the improvement -I'd be very happy with the fullres

Note; Bob Shaw is if I'm not mistaken also working on improving the scene, looking forward to his work too.

Nico

[Bob Shaw]

Astro0:

Great image - and yes, those vignetting improvements were exactly what I had in mind! How do you fancy extending the sky so that it's in the correct proportions for a standard Windows desktop? Yes, I *know* it'd be big, but Mars needs desktops!

Bob Shaw

[Nix]

an aid in identifying the feature maybe;

http://www.awalkonmars.com/1Loc_USGS-Geodesy-256img.HR.jpg

Nico

[RNeuhaus]

Spirit will try to dig the land with its rock abrasion tool!!! The RAT is useless so it will be used for digging!

For the first time this mission, Spirit will try to look at the Martian soil at various depths, utilising the rock abrasion tool on its robotic arm as a digger. The rover will first try to determine the uppermost soil's composition, before brushing away a layer of soil – from a millimetre to a centimetre – so that the experiment can be repeated on the next layer, and so forth.

This week, teams at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US, will simulate the soil experiment with an Earth-based test rover before Spirit tackles the real soil.


Around the HRL has many stones with holes.
The dark grey rocks with small holes in them may have come from volcanic sources. Light, thin jagged rocks are jutting out from the sand. And on the top of a drift sits a smooth light grey rock.

Additional info from newscientist Web

Rodolfo

P.D.Astr0, Super appealing picture only for the please visual but in the reality, it would be alike to a very good and nice yellowish sun afternoon.

[Nix]

Interesting, there's also this thread started on the subject ;

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=2648

[Tom Tamlyn]

An article posted today by veteran reporter Leonard David is the first that I've seen to disclose that "Low Ridge Haven" was named for one of the quiet giants of space exploration, George Low.

TTT

[ElkGroveDan]

Spirit will try to dig the land with its rock abrasion tool!!! The RAT is useless so it will be used for digging!

[i]For the first time this mission, Spirit will try to look at the Martian soil at various depths, utilising the rock abrasion tool on its robotic arm as a digger.

I am forced to wonder how much dust this process will stir up and where that dust will land. Keep in mind we are in a 1/3g environment and some of that stuff has a very fine texture.

They should probably wait for Spring and the resumption of "cleaning events" before they start tossing dust around.

[Stu]

astro...

Two questions:

#1: can I use your panorama in a talk I'm giving to a group of schoolkids next week? I'd love to show the little gremlins cherubs what Mars really looks like... And

#2: how do we get the full resolution version? Is it going to be on your website?

[Astro0]

Stu, Please go ahead and use the image for your school talk. Anything we can do to encourage the next generation of UMSF'ers is fine with me!

On the high-res version...there have been a few requests for it already (Chris, Pertinax and others).
So rather than killing my email at home (I'm still only on a 56k modem), I think that I will post it to my website and kill the bandwidth there instead. I hope to finish the SFX version with the Rover added to the image in the next day or so, but I will post the sans-rover version later tonight (in about 12 hours - local time). I'll put a link on UMSF.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.
Astro0

[Bob Shaw]

I hope to finish the SFX version with the Rover added to the image in the next day or so, but I will post the sans-rover version later tonight (in about 12 hours - local time). I'll put a link on UMSF.

AstroO:

Thanks!

Bob Shaw

[Astro0]

Astro0:
Great image - and yes, those vignetting improvements were exactly what I had in mind! How do you fancy extending the sky so that it's in the correct proportions for a standard Windows desktop? Yes, I *know* it'd be big, but Mars needs desktops!
Bob Shaw

Bob, I think I can manage that. I think that to fit a screen I'd need to crop the right-hand side a bit so that Husband Hill, ElDorado and Sol become the focus. Another small project for tonight
Cheers
Astro0

PS: If I'm interpretting RNeuhaus correctly...you're suggesting that the Sun is either too yellow or not yellow enough?! I took my lighting cue here from an earlier sunset image taken by Spirit

[Astro0]

Hi All,
As per requests, the higher resolution version of the Solset image is now online at my website.
I've reduced the file size a bit, so it's only 3.8mb. Enjoy

As per Bob Shaw's request, please see the image below ready made as a desktop wallpaper.

File: 430k

Enjoy
Astro0