[X] My Assistant

[Phil Stooke]

I don't mean you! But I encounter so many scientists who use maps all the time and don't understand them at all... Some terrible things are done in the name of cartography, even in the best journals. Perhaps the most common is referring to any cylindrical projection as Mercator.

Phil

[lyford]

Some terrible things are done in the name of cartography

Would this be the cynical projection?

One of the things I truly love about this forum (among many others) is how much I learn and how much threads like this inspire me to educate myself even more. I stole my one of my wife's GIS manuals for a little light night reading and what do you know, it's online as well:

ESRI's Understanding Map Projections (2 MB PDF file)

Beginner level, but I found it helpful.... I trust that the system works for Mars as well as Earth, though Eros, Itokawa et al might require different coordinate systems? Phil?

This page has a good set of references for the cartographically challenged:

Harvard GIS Resources

And of course, what enthusiast autodidact post would be complete without mentioning the golden oldies:

Remote Sensing Tutorial

and

JPL's Basics of Spaceflight

[tedstryk]

All this is well and good, Phil, but let me ask you a more sophisticated question. When you get a map out, whether it be cylindrical, mercator, or whatever, can you fold it back up properly?

[Phil Stooke]

Yes, Ted, I use them to make cootie-catchers... or like this:

http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/geography/spacemap/psg.jpg

and

http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/geography/spacemap/png.jpg

which really do fold up!

Phil

[JRehling]

[...]

[PhilHorzempa]

The significance of all of this effort to squeeze out interpretations of Mercury's
surface from fuzzy Radar or Earth-based telescopes lies in our future efforts
to image Extra-Solar Terrestrial Planets. When the Planet Imager flies (someday)
after TPF, the images of those worlds will be astonishing, but they will still be only
fuzzy views, much as we see Mercury today from Earth-based telescopes.
However, by then, we will have had additional experience in interpreting those
images because of this present effort. It will be very revealing to see what
Messenger tells us, within a few months, about these present estimates of
what Mercury's "Far Side" will look like.

Another Phil

[Phil Stooke]

I will go on record saying that I don't believe in Skinakas.

Phil

[JRehling]

[...]

[tedstryk]

I will go on record saying that I don't believe in Skinakas.

Phil

Whatever Phil. Next thing you know, you'll be telling us the Spagetti Monster isn't real.

[volcanopele]

Why do people see vague, dark, circular albedo markings and immediately jump to large impact basin...

[tfisher]

Yes, Ted, I use them to make cootie-catchers...

After this discussion I couldn't resist trying my hand at making a fold-up version of Phil's nice composite -- my first attempt at such, using a perl script from here...

In case anyone is interested, the results look like this:

[tedstryk]

So that, should they get lucky, they can claim the discovery.

[t_oner]

As the first encounter is getting near, I plan to make a 4K map of Mariner 10 mosaics available so that we can make a better map together as above, what do you say?

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Phil Stooke]

Yes, this is a good idea. It will be interesting to see the maps evolve from just Mariner 10 through each of the Messenger flybys, to the final orbital phase.

Phil

[JRehling]

[...]