[X] My Assistant

[Stu]

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

[jamescanvin]

Oh the fun of confilicting abbreviations! I meant Oppy's communicating Direct To Earth (DTE) through her high gain antenna, as opposed to using the UHF relay through Odyssey that isn't scheduled till later.

Thinking about it more, isn't this morning link more likely to be for the sols commands to be uplinked rather than for data to be downlinked? I wouldn't expect anymore images till much later today (7+ hours) (Assuming that the data pipeline is working again!)

[Floyd]

JPL Opportunity update "Oppotunity's First Glimpse into 'Victoria Crater'"

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre.../20060919a.html

[jamescanvin]

Thanks Floyd - a *very* quick update by JPL there!

There image contains a bit more detail (no surprise!) particularly in areas that are very bright. It is a spectacular match to the MOC image, so many features that look almost exactly the same!

Here is a 3x stretch of the rim in JPL's image



James

[odave]

Oh the fun of confilicting abbreviations! I meant Oppy's communicating Direct To Earth (DTE)

...and when I read DTE quickly I get "Data Terminal Equipment"

[jamescanvin]

Here is the far rim in JPL's navcam image compared with a 'straightened' far rim from orbit.




James

EDIT: Replaced with a slightly modified version

[CosmicRocker]

James: That is strictly top-shelf work...a very useful comparison between the rover's view and the MOC view. Thank you, very much. I'm sure we'll find it very useful in future discussions.

[jamescanvin]

Cheers Tom.

Here is the whole rim straightened out (kind of reverse polar). Could be quite handy in the coming weeks/months.



The point Oppy is approaching is at the edge, so the far rim is in the middle. Emma Dean can be seen at the top left.

James

[Phil Stooke]

Brilliant, James!

Phil

[Burmese]

So are we confirmed to be on restricted Sols now or not? Perhaps even if they are they could scramble to upload a simple 'bump 40 more meters and take a boatload of pics' to Oppy for tomorrow?

[jamescanvin]

Well the upload for tosol (944) has already gone, it's the middle of the sol already. I'm pretty sure the lack of activity tosol is due to the reboot into the new software - because of that I wouldn't expect any driving for a sol or two.

Hopefully we should get the drive direction pancams down later this sol, which would be keep me happy for now.

[jamescanvin]

Press Release - http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2006-111

"Opportunity has been heading toward Victoria for more than 20 months, with no guarantee it would ever get there, so we are elated to see this view," said Justin Maki of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., an imaging scientist on the rover team. "However, we still have another two or three short drives before Opportunity is really right at the rim, looking down into the crater."

[Marz]

Press Release - http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2006-111

Yowza! What a neat perspective....

Not to flog a dead horse, but looking at that image made my wonder where the Beacon was? I didn't see any near rim feature that stood out with a bright contrast.

[fredk]

Crikey, James, I was just thinking earlier today "now if only I knew how to take the orbital VC image and unwrap it straight..."

I didn't even have to ask!

[climber]

Here is the far rim in JPL's navcam image with a 'straightened' far rim from orbit.




James

EDIT: Replaced with a slightly modified version

Thanks James, we can easily see Sofi from the ground now.

Fredk wrote : "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!"

When you look the far rim, one can think that it's vertical. That can be true for the cliff, but it's nice to see your mesurment confirm that it'll be drivable in between. Be ALL care of what you see. A Mountain, a cliff, a glaciar appears to be much more vertical from a distance than they realy are.
Here is (another) Earth exemple :
See the little glacier on the right above the shed that look vertical :

The same from a side view is visible in the centrer of the picture :


Could be too steep for Oppy, but it's for the demonstration

[fredk]

You can see the beacon at the far left of James's pan in post 78 above. It's pretty much at the highest part of the rim. We're now so close to the rim that we're looking at it quite forshortened. Still the pancam views should be great if they point that way.