Distant vistas, Endeavour, Iazu, and beyond Options

[ngunn]

Today we have (I think) a full pancam horizon scan. I immediately took a look at the south-to-southwest views to see if I could spot the 'Mule Ears' or indeed anything else in that direction that might recently have come into view. The images are small and there aren't many pixels to work with. I'm not sure if the filter is optimised for distant views - The Endeavour far rim looks pretty faint in them. I don't even know how to fit compass bearings to the images. So I didn't hold out much hope of finding anything.

Nevertheless there is one faint possibility that I'd like checked out - a couple of blips amongst the noise on the far right horizon here: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P2281L1M1.JPG
The rightmost one is directly above a small but prominent bright spot in the foreground. Unfortunately that part of the horizon is cut off in the next image. Most probably nothing, but it would be interesting at least to check out the bearing.

[fredk]

I think the problem is the season - we're now well into southern summer, and the sky is pretty hazy. You can see how hazy by comparing the Endeavour far rim with views from around an Earth year ago. At their best those very distant southern features (Mule Ears from Miyamoto and Bopolu) weren't easy, and I think all of our sightings were from the last local Martian winter, when the skies are normally much clearer.

But these full 360 L1 albedo pans are done fairly regularly - the last one was 2636, so it might be worth comparing the south views from other such pans.

What I'd love to see is a climb up Cape Tribulation and a 360 degree pan, during the depth of winter, with crystal-clear skies...

[ngunn]

Good idea to check previous, but holidays are about to intervene for me. Don't go spotting anything exciting till I get back.

[Stu]

JUST FOR FUN, wondering if we might see something like this when Oppy eventually goes "Over the top"...

[nprev]

Ooo. Here's hopin'!

[kenny]

I'd say that's about right....

[jamescanvin]

Here is an attempt to match the distant features in the sol 2664/5 navcams with a reprojected orbital image, similar to those I did way back.

A point of trivia: Those hills on the far left (the north rim, twin peaks as we called them way back when) are at a similar distance to Victoria crater. That's how far we've come!

James

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