[X] My Assistant

[fredk]

I never thought otherwise, Stu!

On another topic, if you look at Tesheiner's route map, the latest drive (2428) took a bit of a jog to the south. Looking closely, there's an Anatolia-like feature between the 2427 and 2428 locations, and the jog took us around it. I'm a bit surprized they took this diversion, since the feature looks pretty harmless to me along a straight route. But obviously a short diversion is a small price to pay for reduction of any risk. There are several more such features ahead, so it'll be interesting to see how they make their way around them...

[Stu]

One possible route, Fred...

http://twitpic.com/3aegob

(handy for people who don't have / can't use Google Earth/Mars)

Actually most of the Anatolia-like features are in one specific area, and Oppy can skirt around that without too much trouble or time. It's pretty much a straight road to Santa Maria now, unless Oppy spots any beautiful shiny meteorites off to either side -

Oh, alright. Just me then...!

[climber]

Very handy map Stu!
Thanks Fredk for the explanation. I was about to ask is this kind of trajectory was for technical reasons. It makes sense now.

[Stu]

A colourised look back at some of the 'pebbles' imaged on Sol 2419 (Nov 13th)...

[Hungry4info]

Nice, though, a question: why does one have a "UMSF" watermark, and not the other?

[Stu]

Well spotted!

I've got a lot of Outreach talks coming up before Christmas, and am just trying something new for my presentations: I'm showing people I talk to that some images are 'official' NASA images, and others are ones I (and other people here) have "made" using the raws. I'm hoping it will show people just how much good work is being done by people in the space enthusiast community with the data NASA (and other agencies) releases so generously. Not blowing any trumpets, just making the point that anyone and everyone can use the raw data to participate in the exploration, you know? It'll either work or it won't. Worth a try.

[Hungry4info]

Ah that makes sense. It's not too obvious so as to take away from the image. It's well done.

[Stu]

Just messing about... A hint of what we'll see before too long?

[fredk]

One of my favourite bits of Endeavour's rim is the north part (the first part of Endeavour we saw, some 4.5 years ago!). Here's an average of 4 pancam frames, the L7 and R1 frames on sols 2417 and 2424, and magnified 2x:

We're starting to see some nice structure.

Edit: Btw, it looks to me like we're starting to drop in elevation. A month or so ago, we could see the distant plains on the far side of Endeavour to the right of the north rim peaks, eg see this image from 2393:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...IZP2422R1M1.JPG
In my new image above, it looks like the near rim of Endeavour is now blocking the view beyond.

[eoincampbell]

Have all of Endeavour's capes/major features been named? A search for annotated images doesn't show a name for this northerly one...

[ngunn]

Nice image fredk! Stu's pointed out the similarity in size between Endeavour and Thira. I have long thought that the resemblence doesn't stop there - something he may have been hinting at also. Here's the corresponding part of Thira for comparison with your image: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http...=1t:429,r:1,s:0

[Stu]

Some more bloggy thoughts on what we might see when we reach Santa Maria...

http://roadtoendeavour.wordpress.com/2010/...-at-santa-maria

[PDP8E]

This is an image of Santa Maria from HiRise (PSP_004289_1780) that I attempted to clean up a little bit

cheers

[Phil Stooke]

Very nice! This is what it might look like with a lower sun...

Phil

[SFJCody]

That's an excitingly messy looking crater! Oppy will have some fun here.