[X] My Assistant

[Guest_John Flushing_*]

Rosetta beams back Earth photos after flyby.

[jamescanvin]

A composite of the OSIRIS crescent and night lights image has been posted.

http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37994



Click image for full size version.

[ugordan]

The Moon and Europe - Rosetta OSIRIS images

[edstrick]

I played with the Earth-crescent image to see how much detail is present in it... Here's a before and after some bandpass filtering.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Stu]

Nice one Ed!

For anyone interested there's a new poem up here, inspired by the fly-past...

[nprev]

"Mars’ shifting cinnamon sands shone

lantern-bright in the endless empty night

that has become my life

and through my outstretched solar wings

I caught a fleeting glimpse of proud Olympus,

a cloudy scarf of cirrus wrapped around its lofty peak."



VERY nice, Stu; one of your best works in my estimation, FWIW. The voyage is real, epic...properly documented in terms of its nobility and vast traverses by you.

[Stu]

Thanks for the great review! Glad you like it, I was quite pleased with how it turned out. Looks like ESA were too, they've very kindly put it up on the Rosetta blog which I'm v chuffed about.

[Stu]

Rosetta sees Earth...




Beautiful, just beautiful...

[djellison]

I don't know if the ESOC team and the OSIRIS guys heard what we were saying after the Mars flyby - but they have just turned things around in 9 months. The blog, the kodak moment images - I'm proud of my space agency right now, and that's a fairly unique thing for a European.

Maybe Uwe heard us Stu?

Doug

[volcanopele]

Here is the image with north up and east to the right:

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Stu]

I don't know if the ESOC team and the OSIRIS guys heard what we were saying after the Mars flyby - but they have just turned things around in 9 months. The blog, the kodak moment images - I'm proud of my space agency right now, and that's a fairly unique thing for a European.

Maybe Uwe heard us Stu?

Doug

Well, maybe he heard you! I think I was just a fly buzzing "Where's that Mars crescent image you promised us?!?!" annoyingly in his ear!

But seriously, yes, I know what you mean, it's a remarkable and wonderful turnaround as far as Outreach and image release is concerned. The blog was nothing short of superb, a textbook example of how to keep enthusiasts informed about and involved in a mission as something exciting happened. The enthusiasm of all the people involved really shone through in the blog entries, you could tell they were genuinely excited about the fly-past themselves, and took time to answer questions as they came in. The day afterthe fly-past I exchanged emails with Daniel Scuka and he was delighted with how things had gone, and said they intend to repeat the blogging for other missions and ESA activities (he mentioned the delivery of Columbus), which has to be a good thing.

I still think that ESA has some way to go. There's been so little data released from it that VENUS EXPRESS is a forgotten or invisible spaceprobe as far as the public are concerned, and I still feel like we're being handed MARS EXPRESS images as treats now and again, and yes, the continuing absence of that "crescent Mars" image still bugs the hell out of me personally because of the principle of the thing, but that's my problem, I know. But last week's ROSETTA fly-past has shown there's a real potential for ESA to "work" when it comes to Outreach and PR, and yes, I'm very proud of them too right now. More than that, when I give my talks in the run-up to Christmas I'll be able to show people breathtaking images of the Earth as seen by a European spaceprobe, and look them in the eye and say "You helped pay for those images to be taken", which is very, very cool

[mchan]

From the other side of the pond, I give ESA "two thumbs up" for its Outreach shown in the Earth fly-by blog.

[ugordan]

Very cool image, but I get the feeling they forgot to account for nonlinearity of the computer screens. While CCD-based scientific cameras typically produce linear digital numbers, CRT screens have a nonlinear curve (gamma). This has the combined result of enhancing contrast when viewing space images on computer (or TV screens). This effect is also present in MESSENGER Earth flyby imagery. I've applied a (CRT display correct) 2.2 gamma to the image in an attempt to make the displayed brightness better resemble what was actually seen by the camera:



This brings the overall contrast to a similar level of the Kaguya Earth-set imagery, which, being an HDTV camera probably accounts for this nonlinearity by default. A bit of Asia also shows up better with 2.2 gamma.

EDIT: A slight tweak to the blue channel because the gamma increased the brightness of the background in blue channel.

[Pertinax]

What what was the time and date for the full earth image? I am having a harder time than I expected in finding that little bit of trivia!

Also, isn't that TC SIDR moving into Bangladesh? I don't remember any previous full earth (non-geostationary) images containing a fully developed tropical cyclone, particularly not one that was as significant as Sidr, nor essentially at what looks to be very near the time of landfall.


-- Pertinax

[helvick]

Good catch - I'm pretty sure that you are correct that should be Sidr in the upper right of the image but I think this was a day or two before landfall. It's still a very significant image and ugordan's tuning has substantially improved the detail in my opinion.