[X] My Assistant

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

For those who haven't seen it yet, or missed the reference in the other thread, here is the HiRISE image of the Spirit landing site.

EDIT: I accidentally posted this in the wrong thread forum; therefore I moved it here. Thanks to Emily for spotting that.

This post has been edited by AlexBlackwell: Dec 5 2006, 01:58 AM

[Adam]

Is it just my imagination, or has the lander been covered in dust and dirt? Compare it to the opportunity one; perhaps it's different lightning conditions?

http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu//images/PSP/P...1414_1780_c.jpg

http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu//images/PSP/P...1513_1655/b.jpg

[djellison]

Well - it's a lot more muted, and you can't see any tracks to speak of for the first 200 sols of driving at least....and the rover is filthy

Doug

[MahFL]

Yes its very noticable that the tracks get less defined as you go back in sols. I guess eventually they will dissappear from MRO's view ?

[djellison]

I guess eventually they will dissappear from MRO's view ?

I would say those older than about 18 months all but have already.

Doug

[alan]

Here is the track of the dust devil that cleared of Spirit's solar panels

[Marz]

Here is the track of the dust devil that cleared of Spirit's solar panels

Alan sure likes to live on the edge! Doncha know Santa's watching?

Nice work James! Could I beg for someone to crop out the section around "Pitcher's Mound"; is that a crater next to it, or a vent? I'm guessing a crater, since it shows the same layer that presumably makes up Home Plate.

The Chaos terrain just looks like a jumble to me, with no clear bedrock exposers except near the "chevrons" on some of the hillocks. So maybe it's just as well Spirit has a lame wheel and is taking time to check out Home.

[MaxSt]

Area around sols 60-70, before and now:

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[MarkL]

Wow, just like getting my first pair of glasses! Did MOC see something that HiRISE didn't? Could the tracks have disappeared so fast?

[Bill Harris]

Incredible detail!
While preparing the following picture I was just comparing the MOC image used on my route map with this new HiRISE release and, wow!

Indeed, Tesheiner. This is a tribute to those who made interpretations and route maps using the fuzzy MOC imagery. Whereas the Rovers provide 'ground truth' for the MRO imagery, these new HiRISE provide a ground truth of a different sort for the MOC imagery.

Too bad we couldn't have had the MRO imagery from onset of the MER mission.

Again, thanks for the installment plan, Emily.

--Bill

[Pertinax]

Looking at the side by side comparison of the MOC and HiRISE image subframe brought to mind a couple of somewhat off-topic thoughts / questions:

Is my memory correct in that the MOC-NA images were roughly equivalent to the MER's L1 (clear) filter (~500-1000 nm)?

Was the comparison image from MRO from the red (~700nm (~L/R2 or ~L3)) or Blue/Green (~535nm (~L5)) filter? My assumption was red though that was rather groundless though.

The dust devil activity through the summer seems to do quite a good job at fairly evenly redistributing at least a fine layer of "fresh" dust across the surface. No big surprise here I know, but it I find the case of the disappearing rover tracks a nice and intersting measure of the dust accumulation. Sadly, with my brain being mostly mush thanks to the fog of life due to a newborn I don't have any hope of figuring out just how much dust that would be! I imagine between the L0, L2/3, and L5, MOCNA, and HiRISE red and blue images some estimate could be made?

Hoping I made at least a little sense -- Cheers,


Pertinax

[jamescanvin]

Nice work James! Could I beg for someone to crop out the section around "Pitcher's Mound";

The Pitcher's Mound is in the original crop d released by the HiRISE folks, but since you asked so nicely here is a crop of just the mound.

Is my memory correct in that the MOC-NA images were roughly equivalent to the MER's L1 (clear) filter (~500-1000 nm)?

Yep.

Was the comparison image from MRO from the red (~700nm (~L/R2 or ~L3)) or Blue/Green (~535nm (~L5)) filter? My assumption was red though that was rather groundless though.

Yes the red, look at the filename. I think all the greyscale images have been 'red'

James

[djellison]

so fast?

30 months really isn't that fast

Doug

[jamescanvin]

The rover tracks are, with more or less accuracy, contained within that contour lines.

And for people looking for them: Just off the summit you need to look slightly outside the box. The tracks are visible almost all the way from the summit to Haskin Ridge just below the lower contour.

[dilo]

Enhanced version of actual Spirit region... could be useful to decide next route!

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[climber]

The Pitcher's Mound is in the original crop d released by the HiRISE folks


James

I find shapes amazingly rounded. For exemple, the depression on the right (East) of Pitcher mound show a very regular white line on its right side : it looks like a giant half cockle egg of a dinosaur buried there. Even PM is regularly rounded. Could it means spreading material from a center od each of these features ?