[X] My Assistant

[Stu]

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

[Nirgal]

Nice big outcrop. Looks like a an easy taget to test the 'go and touch' after they reboot to the new software.

no further delays pleaaaase sure there are enough other nice outcrops at the big hole in front of us

[Nirgal]

It's very easy to match even the tiniest details between todays navcams and the orbital images. Look at this comparison, for example, centred on the largest "bay" feature on the far rim:
[attachment=7522:attachment]
You can identify many small features on the slope of the "bay".

In fact, we can now do a very firm measurement of the slope of that "bay". I've identified a feature at the top of the bay on both images (green arrow) and a feature some distance down (red arrow). The orbital map gives about 46 metres horizontal separation between the two, and today's navcam gives 13.6 metres vertical separation. Highschool trig gives an average slope of just 16.5 degrees!

Again, this is an average slope - there could be steeper and less steep portions of the bay. But, gall darn it, 16.5 degrees sounds totally doable!

Edit: forgot to mention that navcam crop is 2x vertical stretched. The calculated result was correct, though.

very good work, fredk !

so does this mean that the cliffs on the south rim are "only" about 13 meters high ?
with the total crater depth only about 20-30 meters ?

[fredk]

Nirgal, the vertical extent of the cliffs that's visible now is somewhere in the 10 - 13 metre range. But it's hard to say exactly where the top of the cliffs is (we need pancams!) and we don't clearly see the bottoms yet, though based on the orbital images they don't go much lower than we can now see.

Also this is just part of the far rim. Things may be different below us on the near rim...

As far as the total depth goes, it's guesswork as to the slopes in the main bowl, but I think we're certainly consistent with 50 or even 70 metres total depth. Actually it depends which rim you measure from - the near rim is roughly 10 metres higher than the far rim, so add 10 or so to the depth measured from the near rim.

[Pando]

Damnit, I missed the party by about 2 hours....

The party has only just begun, don't worry

Hehe, I meant to say that I missed the *start* of the party...

NICE views and panoramas everyone, the views are already quite stunning. What's funny is that traveling only some x-number of meters opened up this scenery which all of a sudden makes perfect sense now!

[Nix]

Some more PTgui-Photoshop Mambo-Jambo





I wish we could share these first views in person guys, we're in for a good time -'been a long ride..

Nico

[Pando]

Nico's post above reminds me of something I posted two weeks ago here. Compare the top frame of the attached image to Nico's panorama. As we get closer, notice how the ground will open up at the bottom while the far rim stays comparatively the same, since we're already very close and the crater is huge. So, with navcams we're not really going to see much more detail at the far rim, but pancams will be nice

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[BrianL]

Regarding the raised rim on the left that some of us thought was "something" sitting on the plain/apron. Is this that Tesheiner and others (?) said it could be beacon ?

No, I think this high section is blocking our view of the gap just beyond it, through which we viewed the array of beacons along the far...

Oh, I give up. It must be the cursed beacon.

Brian

[Nix]

Another try at the anaglyph..



Nico

[Astro0]

SENSATIONAL VC!

There's more coming down soon. Just took a quick walk down the road to photograph DSS-45 which is locked up on Opportunity at the moment. Here's a photo I took a few minutes ago. NB: Note the shadow on the dish surface from the subreflector. We are just a few degrees off the Sun at the moment.


If you think that we are all having fun at UMSF, imagine how Steve and the rest of the MER teams are feeling.

Enjoy
Astro0

[Guest_Myran_*]

Thank you Astro0 - im pulling one all nighter here with the hope for more images and perhaps even additional info when the US guys do their job in my nighttime. So I stay tuned.

[jamescanvin]

PS: Here's a link to a useful page to know what the DSN is tracking. http://rmdc.jpl.nasa.gov/nsp/watn.html

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /nsp/watn.html on this server.

[Pando]

NB: Note the shadow on the dish surface from the subreflector. We are just a few degrees off the Sun at the moment.

If you can climb up there to the focal point of that dish, you could fry some hot dogs there also...

[MarkL]

SENSATIONAL VC!

There's more coming down soon. Just took a quick walk down the road to photograph DSS-45 which is locked up on Opportunity at the moment.

Great and timely pic! Thanks.

[jamescanvin]

I'm surprised that there is a downlink now, there is nothing in the relay schedule for about 8 hours. (although I sometimes struggle to understand that data so I could be wrong).

EDIT: Oh I guess you mean we're in DTE - that makes more sense. I wonder if we'll get more images or if it'll just be checkout data after the reboot into the new software.

[Astro0]

Oh I guess you mean we're in DTE - that makes more sense.

You're right James. DTE (Digital Tone Extractor) for anyone wondering.

Astro0