[X] My Assistant

[Stu]

Now we have a (relatively) firm timetable for arrival at Victoria - a month, I think it was - I thought the time was right to open a new thread on what will greet us when we get there. So, I've been playing about (cue groans from the more experienced image processors! ) with the best Victoria image I could find, and have brought out some interesting features and details I'd appreciate people's comments on, preferably not in Klingon, as I'm still just dipping in and out of my geological dictionary...

I've got three "areas of interest" for you, labelled here... Victoria Crater

1. Spills of boulders and slumping along the northern crater rim and detail on the "Boat Ramp"?

2. Pronounced gully-like feature on western slope?

3. Large shelf on south-western edge?

I hope no-one will criticise the very amateurish effort here, or think I'm putting these images forward as anything special. I'm just trying to get some discussion and debate going. I know this is a less than scientific exercise - I leave the science to you guys, I just like to throw a pebble in the discussion pool and watch the pretty ripples spread out...

[dot.dk]

I have really been looking forward to this final leg of the journey! The race has been long and at times rough. Ever since leaving Endurance in December of 2004 the ultimate goal for this rover has been to get to the grand victory price of the mission, Victoria Crater! An exhausting race is now headed for the final sprint across the smooth pavement towards the finnish line.

Hail the little rover that could! (More than anyone ever dreamt of)

Enjoy the final push!

[Holder of the Tw...]

An exhausting race is now headed for the final sprint across the smooth pavement towards the finnish line.

Marked with a blue cross across a white background, no doubt.

Personally, I would have been content to see them investigate Beagle a little more thoroughly, but ... oh, well.

Anyway, here's to a safe journey across the apron, and a swift wind in her sails.

[Nirgal]

Marked with a blue cross across a white background, no doubt.

Personally, I would have been content to see them investigate Beagle a little more thoroughly,

I've always seen it this way: Oppy's remaining life-time is, unfortunately, limited. Therefore each Sol we spent less at Beagle etc. is one Sol more to spend at Victoria !

[Stu]

I've always seen it this way: Oppy's remaining life-time is, unfortunately, limited.

My thoughts exactly. Every day I looked at the new pictures of Beagle there was a voice at the back of my mind sighing "Yes, yes, all very interesting, precious rocks, precious rocks, but the clock is ticking here Oppy...look, over there, on the horizon, that's where you want to be..."

I don't know about anyone else, but I know that sometimes I've been guilty of kidding myself that our two little rover buddies are both invincible and immortal, but the truth is they are both running out of time. We don't know when The Day will be, for either rover, and hopefully it is a long way off yet... but in my heart I can feel they're both on borrowed time here, and am grateful for every new image that I click on. As for the future, well, I just can't see Oppy leaving Victoria for anywhere else, not just because there's nowhere else within driving range but because there'll be so much to see and do at Victoria that Oppy will end her days there in a rosy glow of scientific satisfaction...

So, now the long - possibly final - trek begins. Along the way I hope to see some more meteorites, maybe even fragments of the Victoria impactor (tho I reckon they're probably buried deep beneath all the dust and ejecta by now... booo....) and look forward to see the walls of Victoria looming up on the horizon, taller and more striking each day. I'm again reminded of the approach to Endurance, all those months ago, when we all "ooh"d and "aah"d as the far walls appeared before our eyes...

The only thing I'm worried about now - from my purely aesthetic, non-scientific point of view - is that Victoria is so big that we won't be able to take it all in properlywhen we get there. Single frames will only be able to image small portions of the far rim, with its outcrops and ledges etc, and it will take stitched panoramas to do it justice. But I'm sure the talents on this board are up to that challenge.

I have this gut feeling that as good as the landscapes we've seen so far have been, we ain't seen nothin yet...

[Nirgal]

I have this gut feeling that as good as the landscapes we've seen so far have been, we ain't seen nothin yet...

True ... but I have the gut feeling that sight/vista-wise, Victoria could turn out to look not *quite* that
dramatic than expected ... This is because the orbiter images are kind of misleading wrt. to
the vertical scale which probably looks more dramatic on the MOC images than it is from the ground.

From the vertical profile data (MOLA) so far one can infer that Victoria as a whole is a rather "shallow"
bowl, so the impression of "steepness" and "hole-likeness" could be even less dramatic than at Endurance
with it's steeper depth-to-diameter ratio.

On the other hand I'm sure there will be many very dramatic single-frame, detail shots of the cliffs and
also, like Stu said, the stitched Panoramas showing a sense of dramatic "vastness" insted of "steeepness"
will be very, very interesting for sure

[djellison]

From the vertical profile data (MOLA) so far one can infer....

Very little when one considers the size of any MOLA sample footprint and the distance between them on the ground when compared to the size of Victoria crater

Now, MOC NA Stereo is a nother matter

Doug