[X] My Assistant

[Stu]

Well, what does everyone think of our long-awaited first view..?

[Stu]

I know we mustn't rush this, and I know the new software has to be checked out fully, and I know that this is probably the must crucial phase of Oppy's explorations so far, and I know that caution is paramount, and I know that there's good science to be done here, and I know that we should never really have got this far...

But Oppy, sweetheart, dearest, for the love of god, will you move! Just a little bit! The same view for two days!! Two days of constantly checking Exploratorium for new images (earlier today: after yet another F5 press two ****** thumbnail images of the Sun appear! The sun!!! ) and not seeing an inch further over the edge! This is just cruel...!!!

[Nix]

Relax Stu, I've just cleaned up the hard-disks here to cope with all the new data about to arrive...some of us will have lots of work once Oppy starts sending all those pancam frames over!

Nico

[Stu]

some of us will have lots of work once Oppy starts sending all those pancam frames over!

Hey, I will too... just starting (I think!) to get the hang of colourising the raws... not in your league, I know, but I'm itching to get stuck into some new material!

[Ant103]

Yes Stu, I'm absolutely agree with you!
It's so loooooonnnng to waiiiit!
Also, I will go to the DSN antenna at Madrid and take the control of Oppy This would be a hold-up.
"Let's move Oppy toward Victoria or I send a killing message to the rover that will shut down the system! I'm crazy me!! Move to Victoria or Oppy will die!!"


Okay, I know the out -_-
Oppy, follw me! "Dzzzzzziiii

[djellison]

Wow - Conjunction is going to SUCK for you guys

Doug

[Nix]

well join the club then, there's actually not much to it as long as you're working with raws and something like photoshop.. more a subjective way of 'getting it right'.

I'm working on some real 'true color' the way Cornell does it, using interpolation of wavelengths and all that, just starting to get the hang of that and it ain't simple..

Nico

[diane]

Of course, we're leaving aside the fact that the air is far too thin to support Oppy's mass...

However, I have these seriously cringing moments when I imagine her first attempt at *landing* after such a flight!

To quote Douglas Adams, "The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Wow - Conjunction is going to SUCK for you guys

Never mind solar conjunction. What happens after mission termination? Some of these guys may need therapy sessions or withdrawal counseling

[RNeuhaus]

Does that mean that aside cleaning DDs, Opportunity will benefit of tranportation OUT of Victoria?...
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/ustrax3/ddfly.jpg
What will they invent next?...

Original image by Nico

Oh, what surprise! How well does Oppy fly?

Rodolfo

[Stu]

Never mind solar conjunction. What happens after mission termination? Some of these guys may need therapy sessions or withdrawal counseling

Well, I'll let you into a secret - there'll be no "mission termination"... right now a swarm of ET nanobots is heading for Mars and will descend on Meridiani in the dead of night soon, infiltrate Oppy's systems and effectively make her immortal. She'll be there to greet the first humans to land on Mars, and will still be trekking around the red planet when the first martians leave for Alpha Centauri...

Seriously tho, I'm just having a laugh ok? I know the importance of this "down time", and am fully prepared for the dark conjunction... but we're so close to those killer images now, so close...

( And Alex and Doug, don't you try and pretend you won't be lost without Oppy and Spirit too when their electronic eyes fade and darken for the final time; you'll suffer withdrawl symptoms as badly as the rest of us... )

[Mizar]

A guesstimate of what we really see in many panoramas on this board.

http://static.flickr.com/79/249864537_e8df57f5dc_o.jpg

[Nirgal]

Never mind solar conjunction. What happens after mission termination? Some of these guys may need therapy sessions or withdrawal counseling

Oh yes, oh yes ... this will become very hard: a life without constantly checking the epxloratorium-refresh button

Hmmm what about setting up a dummy "exploratorium" web page that occasional shows
randomly selected sky-thumbnails and a mission-update text generator that spits out sentences like this:

"Sol 104778: Opportunity used the morning to examine certain points in the sky with its panoramic camera and miniature thermal emission spectrometer. The miniature thermal emission spectrometer took measurements of the sky and ground, and the instrument's calibration targets were examined.
Long term goal remains to finish the current Moessbaur Integration on the rock target dubbed "Godot37"
during the next 150 Sols ..."

SCNR

[djellison]

I must admit - the concept of some sort of 'fan fiction' for long after the rovers end is more than a little tempting

Doug

[mhoward]

But Oppy, sweetheart, dearest, for the love of god, will you move! Just a little bit! The same view for two days!! Two days of constantly checking Exploratorium for new images (earlier today: after yet another F5 press two ****** thumbnail images of the Sun appear! The sun!!! ) and not seeing an inch further over the edge! This is just cruel...!!!

A little practical advice: When Exploratorium updates it usually happens at 35 minutes after the hour. Also, I've heard tell that there may be some sort of software program that automatically checks both JPL and Exploratorium and downloads any new images for you. (I know you probably already know that. Just sayin')

I understand, though.

P.S.: What we *need* is some sort of program to automatically download UMSF updates.

[ngunn]

Good point, I've been thinking something along those lines as well. Awhile back (Post #136), climber jokingly mentioned what looked like caves on the far side of Victoria. From a distance, they do indeed look a lot like remnant sea caves, very similar to some I've seen in the Callahan Divide of the Edwards Plateau in West Texas (the Callahan Divide was apparently once an island when the sea level was higher). Then there's that nice horizontal line visible near the base of the evaporite layer; I know it sounds hokey, but could that perhaps be a remant shoreline? Considering that we know that the ground in Meridiani was once wet, mightn't that suggest that ground water would translate into surface water in a depression such as Victoria? Realistically, any open water would have almost certainly been topped by a layer of ice, so the apparent "sea caves" would have to form by some process other than wave action (perhaps sapping?). Sheer speculation, but the first good view over the rim could be interesting.

Algorimancer we seem to be on the same tack here. Tall vertical cliffs strongly indicate that a large volume of debris has just disappeared from the scene as the cliffs formed. Dvandorn I see that you think this could have been done simply by wind sucking dust out of the crater - Victoria doing her own housekeeping, as it were. This seems highly implausible to me as it would be easier for dust to blow in than out, given the topography. I (tentatively) predict that the profile of Victoria will turn out to be significantly different from a scaled-up Endurance and that we'll have to resort to some kind of different (sapping-like) explanation for the cliffs.

The scalloped shape of Victoria is distinctive too, and probably not unrelated.