Now we have a (relatively) firm timetable for arrival at Victoria - a month, I think it was - I thought the time was right to open a new thread on what will greet us when we get there. So, I've been playing about (cue groans from the more experienced image processors! ) with the best Victoria image I could find, and have brought out some interesting features and details I'd appreciate people's comments on, preferably not in Klingon, as I'm still just dipping in and out of my geological dictionary...

I've got three "areas of interest" for you, labelled here... Victoria Crater

1. Spills of boulders and slumping along the northern crater rim and detail on the "Boat Ramp"?

2. Pronounced gully-like feature on western slope?

3. Large shelf on south-western edge?

I hope no-one will criticise the very amateurish effort here, or think I'm putting these images forward as anything special. I'm just trying to get some discussion and debate going. I know this is a less than scientific exercise - I leave the science to you guys, I just like to throw a pebble in the discussion pool and watch the pretty ripples spread out...

Thanks for the new thread and the orbiter images Stu
(especially image 2 is amazing: I wasn't aware that we actually have such a high resoloution
view of Victoria at all... which MOC image did you extract this from ? )

Yes, this final spurt to Victoria is the moment I have been waiting for over a year now !

As important and scientifically very necessary all the long intermediate stops at outcrops and small carters
are (and of course we also still have a couple of days of important work do be done here at Beagle !)
it has nevertheless been clear (and stated repeatedly by Steve S.) that the one most important goal
and Oppy's real and actual destination is Victoria.

This final approach with the steady stream of new rim images becoming clearer and better every day
and culminating in the "Great Victoria Pan"
will sure be the highlight of the whole mission, I'm sure ....

Gentlemen, prepare to warm up your image processing engines

Thanks Nirgal!

Original Victoria NASA image

Hi Stu!

Having seen these pictures I've attempted to humanize Victoria and have played the "scale" game by trying to relate it to something on Earth that I know. How big is it, how would it feel to be standing on the rim? All the usual questions!

And the thing that's just hit me? The phrase "boat ramp". I was born in Cumbria, where you now live, and I learned to sail on Talkin Tarn - perhaps you know it, about half an hour east of Carlisle? It's almost exactly the same size as Victoria. Say about half an hour to walk around it. If drained, you could walk across it in 8 to 10 minutes. On one side there's a ridge of trees not far off the height of a crater rim...I now know what it would feel like to roll gingerly up to the edge and peer across and in! Awesome!

Andy

Hey Andy,

I know that area well... gorgeous... nice to have a more familiar sense of scale for Victoria!

A couple more interesting features, identified on v2 of my map...

4. More gullies or dust slips..?

5. Mini crater on inner slope..?

Think you should hold off on this thread for a while lol

Hmmm, maybe... but I have faith in Oppy, and besides, we can still look forward to images of it taken by MRO...

A bit OT, but did we ever find an "unannotated" version of this hi-res Victoria image, PIA08447?

--Bill

At this point I'm rather intrigued by a feature which is sort of on the way to Victoria, the big dark region that I've labeled Zeta, just north of the crater Epsilon, which you can see here (sharp pictures, slow load, and the typo "hummock" should be "hillock"),

http://www.clarkandersen.com/Jpeg2000/Jpeg2000.htm

It also lies under the '6' in 156 in this image posted by Stu:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA08447.jpg

In the vertical view, Zeta looks a lot like an old crater, yet with no significant rim features visible. In the horizontal view it has a substantial vertical component. Stu's image shows some interesting "ringing" details which I hadn't seen previously. I'm led to wonder whether Zeta is a mound rather than a crater, which brings-up interesting questions as to the geological process which might have created a mound in that particular location.

Nope. I asked around, but we'll have to wait for that MOC image to hit the PDS.

Doug

I didn't recall hearing about a "clean" hi-res image. Too bad, but we can work with what we've got.

Stu, there is a cornucopia of fine detail on this image. Not only can you see several areas of broad, low relief (which I imagine are pre-impact topography and buried craters) under the ejecta apron you can also see many muted and eroded impact craters on the ejecta blanket, presumably post-victoria impact. Can crater-counts be used as a accurate clock on Mars? I don't recall. Of equal or greater interest is the detail in the "bowl" between the rim bluffs and the dune complex. I can spot a couple of craters as well as a hint hummocky terrain expressed on the bowl surface. This area is clearly fresh and new but is showing active erosional-depositional processes.

I'm looking forward to this next leg of the Traverse. These ripples aren't dead and the winds are not still.

--Bill

As I recall, this question opened up a real can of worms a few months back. I understood little of the debate, but I get the impression that crater counts to determine age work best (or only) with large, unambiguously primary impacts, and over large areas. I expect that the relatively small craters around Victoria are caused mostly or entirely by secondary impacts.

A little more info on the Zeta feature I mentioned a few posts back. It is about 40 meters in diameter, a bit larger than Beagle. As viewed from the Sol 883 position its edge stood about 1 meter above the surrounding annulus. In the PIA08447 image, which is illuminated from below (west), Zeta shows a distinct shadow to the top (east), and hilighting to the bottom (west), but no corresponding illumination effects in the interior (no internal shadow of a crater rim). No other crater on or near the annulus shows these effects, including Beagle. Anyway, here's a zoomed-in and contrast enhanced image.

Click to view attachment

Maybe Zeta's an old dust-covered crater ("ghost crater"?)? There seem to be a few of them in these here parts...

Ghost crater?

To me Zeta appears to be just a very shallow sand filled "ghost crater". Any hint of shading on one side or the other in the orbital image could easily be due to intrinsic albedo variations.

From the point of view of Oppy on sol 883, the west rim of Victoria is directly behind Zeta, and I think all we're seeing in the pancam images is the rim of Victoria behind Zeta.

One metre of vertical relief is a great deal in this flat territory! Had Zeta been a 1 metre high mound, it would've been much more obvious on the orbital map.

Thats a flippin' sweet hi res image Stu, i feel like were already there!
VC is looking much more like Endurance here...
i cant believe this image was released back on May 8th, 2006.. ..i've been straining at the dark old plucky images all this time thinking it was the best ever, hah!


Iva also wondered about the Zeta anomalie, its dark (especially in the old dark orbital image) probably because there a lot fo dark stuff streaming out of Victoria and its probably the same stuff, caught in the Zeta trap, although Zeta doesnt look deep enough to be a trap, perhaps its proximity to the edge of Victoria creates a differnt wind variation that helps trap it even though it may only be deep as a kitchen sink, this doesnt explain why the other crater on the edge of Victoria (what i once thought was the source of the Beacon) is not darker, since its much deeper, unless the wind differences are that extreme between these two points, as it is on the leading edge of the crater wind-wise, whereas Zeta is closer to the wind-shadow side.

Yes indeed, it most likely is a ghost crater. At the same time, it is one of the more anomalous things in the vicinity, and it's more-or-less on the way to Victoria. Even if Oppy doesn't manage to drive over it, it ought to get close enough to look down on it a bit and resolve the mystery. Near as I can tell it's the most interesting target between here and Victoria itself (ignoring the apron material).

With the new sol 904 L257 pancam imagery, we have our best look yet at Victoria's rim, and the apron in between.

This view is our best yet of our old friend the beacon: compare this L2 view with this L7 view which shows better the relief.

Farther to the right we have what we've been calling the "entry point features" after the putative entry point on Tesheiner's map: L2 infrared view and L7 blue light view. Just below the horizon near the right side of this frame you can see the "black rock" that someone here called Hawking rock. We now have plenty of parallax to locate it - my guess is it's associated with the crater Epsilon.

I see no sign of significant ripples on most of the apron towards VC - this is good news!

Edit: on second thought, I think Epsilon is the dark features just below centre horizon in the second L7 frame above. That would put Hawking somewhat closer to us than Epsilon.

Hopefully we'll settle at this point for a while and get a full series of filtered images. Here are two L257 images in the direction of The Beacon and "Epsilon".

For some reason this current series of L257 images is coming in weak in the blue (L7) channel and juggling to get a (relatively) balanced image tone leaves that surreal blue sky.

--Bill

Well - all of the Beagle Pan was taken in L257 and R2 - but the L2 R2 was sent down more quickly....so there's full colour for the whole 360 degrees two frames high, and 3 frames high centered on Beagle itself.

Doug

This stretched stitch from Sol904 is far from perfection but is the best view of VC up to now, with a lot of features.
My impression is that way for Oppy is very clean (less than a month trip perhaps?) and, on the left, the far twin peak (35km away).
Click to view attachment
Horizontal view angle is 80deg. Let's start to identify these features!

Excellent view, dilo! It does look relatvely smooth and easy ahead.

Phil

I really do hope we get some good long drives!


This crater should be a popular image in the media when she arrives.

Here's my stitch-and-philovisioned view toward Victoria....and to take it to the next step, I've tried to interpret and cross-ref with the orbital imagery....were I at the wheel - I'd head for the red terrain, avoiding as much as possible the yellow terrain. I think once on the red - we might have some of those big big drives we used to enjoy around James Caird

Doug

What are those bits sticking up above the red terrain? Far rim?

In addition to those great views of Victoria, there was a new sol 900 L7 view of Delta crater to our south.

You can see the surprizing effect of our climb onto the rim of Beagle if you compare this view with our previous L7 view from sol 894. From our new height we can now see well past Delta.

Have you asked Tim Parker? His name in the upper right hand corner. When that C-PROTO image first appeared on the MER site with the "Promontory on far rim" caption I asked one of our "insiders" and he became strangely quiet for a while.

At least we now know it's called S1100471 MOC C-PROTO.

I tried merging the two images this morning (rotate 90% and rescale) in order to remove the captions. Unfortunately there are points common to both images with obscuring captions, so I gave up. Here's a quarter scale version of my wasted time.

I tried asking around without any luck....who knows, maybe MC might be able to sneak it out as a MOC image of the day once we leave Beagle and head toward Victoria.... pretty please

Doug

I played a bit with the sol 904 images; I really like the views we're getting now



100% res





Nico

That's beautiful Nix... one of your best so far IMHO...

That pic gives me a whole Wish List. I wish I knew more about geology so I could make sense out of what I'm seeing... all those sharp-edged rock shards, fragments and plates... jeez, what a mess!!! I wish I could go there in person, stand on that very same spot and look out towards Victoria - seeing, of course, wheeltracks leading right to it, Oppy having reached it safely I wish NASA's PR office would make more use of images like this, done by "outsiders", so the achievements of Oppy and Spirit and the men and women behind them would get the acknowledgement and praise they deserve. ..

... but most of all I wish I could make images even a tenth as good as that, but I know I never will...

(looks at feet and scuffs the ground with them, fed up... )

Awsome image, Nico

This one really makes appetite for all the coming VPPs .. "Victoria Panorama Parties"

am I still dreaming this morning or

do the

new pics at exploratorium

mean that the Victoria Trek has already begun ???

OK, not so fast I should check the time stamps first ... coudl be only older images getting in now after the re-boot ...

Bye Bye Beagle !

Yes it seems so, and yes I welcome it too. Victoria are a far more interesting target with lower and older sediments or layers to be studied that if.... Opportunity can enter the crater.

Here's a spherical projection of the Sol 907 Navcam pan (what there is of it). Again this is equirectangular, so you can display it panorama mode in a spherical viewer like FSPViewer.



It's oriented with North at center, by the way - that's why it isn't lined up in an eye-pleasing way.

And here's the Pancam drive-direction mosaic:

I have really been looking forward to this final leg of the journey! The race has been long and at times rough. Ever since leaving Endurance in December of 2004 the ultimate goal for this rover has been to get to the grand victory price of the mission, Victoria Crater! An exhausting race is now headed for the final sprint across the smooth pavement towards the finnish line.

Hail the little rover that could! (More than anyone ever dreamt of)

Enjoy the final push!

Amen to that. Godspeed, little rover.

Marked with a blue cross across a white background, no doubt.

Personally, I would have been content to see them investigate Beagle a little more thoroughly, but ... oh, well.

Anyway, here's to a safe journey across the apron, and a swift wind in her sails.

I, too, would have expected a little more time spent at Beagle, but they did a quick scratch-and-sniff, did they not? I think perhaps they're able to look at things in given wavelengths and with the mini-TES and can generalize to rock types we've seen and analyzed in detail elsewhere. And how close in do you have to get to be able to spend time later, leisurely going through your mini-TES and pancam mosaics, analyzing the way various layers seem to be jumbled around?

I think maybe they got enough to fill in most of the pieces -- and that maybe some of what they'd look for wouldn't be evident until after they get to Victoria anyway.

Besides, once we get done spending a couple of Martian years inside Victoria, we'll be able to study the other edge of the Victoria ejecta blanket as we cross it, heading towards the distant Big Crater...

-the other Doug

And, to semi-celebrate this new leg of the traverse, is a re-post of an image I did some time ago showing Barringer Crater and Victoria Crater at the same scale.

If you have ever visited Barringer, this comparison will add to the depth of what we will see at Victoria.

--Bill

Oppy started to leave as the predicted time by the JPL one week ago.

On time! Then when I looked East - East South ahead, I started to feel somewhat uncomfortable. Not yet there is a easy driving. So the rover driver must drive carefully in crossing the ripples. It seems that the ripples will lose in few decens meters ahead.

Maybe, the best way is going in zipzap way in order to maintain the desired direction in whenever shortest path possible.

Go on nice day! clear sky and nothing clouds!

Rodolfo

About the picture, http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=214057969&size=l
, I have the inquiry about why the crest of ripples show white color in spite of the fact that the sand over that might be of the same as the others places. Is that highly infared picture.

Rodolfo

Been there once. I highly recommend it to anyone making a trip to the general vicinity. My first impressions getting close to it was a slight rise in the landscape with these weird piles of debris eveywhere. Similar to the point we're at on Mars now. Then you park your car and walk to the lip, and look down in.

The spine tingling, gut freezing moment came for me after a couple of minutes there, when I saw that the rock strata surrounding the crater was everywhere bent back away from the center. Not something easily noticed in photographs, it brought home a little bit the power of the impact event, and the fact that it was an explosion, a very big one, that created this hole in the ground.

This photo below may help readers to picture the scene. There are definite similarities to Oppy's current view of Victoria. If only Oppy had that paved road ahead of it!

Click to view attachment

On entering the site, they ask at the ticket booth where you heard of Meteor Crater. I guess it's all geared towards identifying the most effective advertising locations (they are a business, after all). I think the answer "Exploring Space - Ladybird books. I think I was about 6." didn't really help them.

It was an amazing, peaceful experience to be sitting on the rim of the crater. Only slightly spoilt by the strangely odd baking smell coming from the site museum's branch of Subway. Definitely worth a visit though. I mean the crater, not that branch of Subway (though the food was OK as Subway goes).

The picture of Meteor Crater reminds me that, even in desert Arizona, so much of Earth's geology is shaped by water. The gullies on the crater walls are clear evidence of that. Victoria crater, by comparison, shows (on this scale) shaping by nothing but sand and wind. Dry Mars remains an alient world.

Here's a polar of mhoward's big pan from 907.

Phil

Click to view attachment

That is really nice. Phil, did you know that PTGui has a menu option labelled "Create a PhiloSphere"? I'm wondering if this is what it does and if it's named after you. (I haven't installed PanoTools yet, which I would need to be able to try it).

Ynyralmaen, I have been seeking out and studying pictures of the Barrington crater for 48 years, and I had never before seen a picture of the approach to it, much less the amazing picture which you present. Good stuff, man. And yes, I think it does give us a sense of what to expect in approaching Victoria, though Victoria clearly has less vertical development.

Yeah. Barringer Crater has long been kind of a Mecca to me. I've always wanted to visit it, but so far have only managed to fly over it. That approach to Barringer image surprised me as well. I wasn't expecting it to have so much vertical expression. Thanks for the picture, ynyralmaen.

...and yes, let's hope we find that paved road...