Lyford, thank U so much, you're a true DJ (Not Doug Jellison, eh )
Your music is perfectly timed and mixed. Nothing to impROVE

Thanks for everyone's kind words - I don't aspire to be the poor man's Gustav Holst, though perhaps the poor man's Tomita doing Gustav Holst.

I may have a few more musical ideas lying around somewhere.... and perhaps some that volcanopele would find more appropriate for inspiration- but that would be another thread.

My theory is that during conjunction we were image starved and forced to draw upon inner talents to get by.... the UMSF Cultural Renaissance! (Not to be confused with Mars Renaissance Orbiter...)

Now - Back to the Rovers!

EDIT - ps - thanks for the link, james!

Well, it is difficult for some of us to get "back to the rovers" with the dearth of images. I did grab your mp3 today, and I must say, it is amazing. Totally unexpected on this end... The remote communication sounds you used at the beginning and the SS quotes you used throughout the piece were so perfect. I have been playing it over and over again all night in the background. That was a genius piece. It definitely made me feel better after checking the usual sources, and finding nothing new tonight. Thank you, so much.

Well, that wasn't actual telemetry... probably just an AOL dial up connection from one of my sample sets.

Hmmmm.... actual telemetry.... I wonder.....

Ok where do I sign up? I'm certainly there in Spirit.

Another move tomorrosol

Bit late, Lyford, but like wow...that was both inspiring and hella cool!

The amount of sheer talent amongst the members here is astonishing...thanks for allowing a crusty old Air Force sergeant with few relevant skills to experience it all!

MI Stitch Sol 1017


Click to view attachment


Context
http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/f...07P1110L0M1.JPG

Another turn to the right, now in position to examine the fine layers.
Click to view attachment
Spirit also caught a cloud above McCool Hill.

Sol 1022

Click to view attachment

vertical 1cm /pix

Click to view attachment

Pull up a bit and break me off some of that, Spirit.

Anyone notice that after the sol 1022 move, we appear to be at a greater tilt than before?
Click to view attachment
Of course we need to know the orientation of the tilt as well.

I always thought it was a bit odd the way they arrived at Low Ridge Haven way back when - they didn't spend much time trying to wiggle into a position with greater tilt. I guess they had enough.

[quote name='fredk' date='Nov 19 2006, 06:27 PM' post='75608'I guess they had enough. [/quote]
It was barely enough but I think they were very sure that it actually was enough and there was no point in risking making a mistake that would have put her into a potentially "power negative" situation.

Yup, according to the rover quaternians on the tracking site (which I'm more confident about, after getting the tilt change right last time ) we are now at 12.55 degrees tilt and angled only 8.5 degrees from north.

James

Animation of last 3 Sols front hazcam (right):

Sol 1022:

Good one ! Very nice "movie feeling"
... even with clouds(?) on the clear late winter sky ...

For the last time

here is the complete navcam panorama taken on

Sol 1010 and 1016 with the R0 navcam.

jvandriel

Here is my version of the polar view of the Solar Deck.

Taken on Sol 1016 with the R0 navcam.

jvandriel

Here is the complete panoramic view taken

by Spirit on Sol 1022 and Sol 1024 with the L0 Navcam.

jvandriel

A QTVR of this latest pan by jvandriel

Nico

Here is a self-portrait of Spirit.

Taken on Sol 1024 with the L0 Navcam.

jvandriel

Great movie Nix.

Thanks

jvandriel

You're welcome..I found your pan to be a nice candidate for qtvr. Since I haven't been able to create much myself lately, I can at least have some fun with other people's work

Nico

If anyone hasn't done it yet, scroll down to the bottom then just make Spirit spin around and around! You really get the feeling you're hanging in the air above it!

Oh. Okay, just me then...

Great work Nix, as usual.

spirit self-portrait ... sol 1024

Click to view attachment

You do the spin too Stu...

It's very easy to do though, I use pano2QTVR gui regularly with contributors' navcam pans and it does the job in a couple of minutes.

Nico

A great 'end of day' shot from Spirit.
A quick anaglyph.
Enjoy.
Astro0
Click to view attachmentFile:161k

Very Nice !
from which Sol is this from ? (I couldn't find it among the latest exploratorium images)

Sol 1025

They are there:

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...20P2578L6M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...20P2578R1M1.JPG

Spirit Pancam image that arrived Nov.22.

BTW - Can't find that handy Timestamp software anymore. Anyone know where it went?

Astro0

EDIT: Just as I post, James comes up with the answer.

A great shot it is, Astro - only I think you got the left and right channels switched!

Sol 1022-1026 Navcam:

Here's the above pan in polar form.

Phil

Click to view attachment

Stunning! I plugged it into FSPViewer and almost fell out of my chair!

fredk,
You're right.
Here's the anaglyph again.
Thanks
Astro0
Click to view attachmentFile:136k

Here is a mosaic of Mi images taken on Sol 1027.

jvandriel

and an older one from Sol 1017.

jvandriel

Blueberries?

I just discovered there is a tool for web-viewing equirectangular projections that are hosted on Flickr... somebody on my Flickr page actually pointed it out to me a few weeks ago on my Flickr page but I didn't read it until now. Check it out.

Spirit Sol 1022-1026 panorama

Pity it doesn't allow zooming in a bit further, but otherwise it looks pretty sharp.

Wow, you talk about well-rounded! Click to view attachment
These basalt grains must have been reworked for ages to get so perfect.
Even the sands of El Dorado were not so big and beautiful: Click to view attachment

Are you sure those are just grains? They look like something else to me...more like the Merdiani blueberries, they're encased in another material.

Kowabunga! If those are blueberries, Sunny, you've got a major scoop, and should sit right down and write a paper!
Personally I'm sceptical. They're much smaller than Meridiani concretions and are held together with a minimum of matrix (sulfates?). I think blueberries need a resonable amount of matrix volume around each one to allow room for growth. Also the RAT brush has revealed them as very smooth, shiny and dark. They look more like obsidian than gray hematite - Dam' I wonder if they could be glass spherules from some lava fountain? Nah! Then we would see some irregular droplet or dumbell shapes as well as spheres. Only massive reworking would get them all so round and uniform in size.

Still, they look interesting to me and probably should get a full IDD analysis. Pity we can't grind into them.

I'll also point out that a somewhat similar strata over by Home Plate read out to be quite basaltic, in keeping with the chemistry of the plains basalts. I'd like to think otherwise, but I betcha these "berries" turn out to be basaltic in content, as well.

-the other Doug

I also thought they might be obsidian beads, especially considering the idea that homeplate is a relic from explosive volcanism. But it's strange they'd be so concentrated in one layer, and as you mentioned, shouldn't flying through the air shape them more like drops? Could thin martian air not provide enough friction to make them look like earth's analogues?

Good stuff!

I'm not ready to jump on the berry bandwagon but... if berries, we are not necessarily seeing them in the matrix in which they formed. They could be free berries cemented together. Also, I remember seeing smooth, shiny berries in a trench dug by Opportunity in Eagle crater.

Thanks, james.

of course I couldn't resist this one:



Click to view attachment

If you are talking about the lower, coarser-grained unit at Home Plate, I completely agree with you. Spirit observed this unit with the MI on sols 747 and 750.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit_m747.html
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit_m750.html

This new layer seems to show more of the spherules, but I would have to guess this rock is closely related to the unit at the base of HP. The geologic context here is very different from that at Meridiani. The resemblance of these spherules to the berry concretions is only superficial. Coincidentally, SS mentioned the spherules in that lower unit recently in the CEPSAR lecture that DeChengst so kindly made available as an avi file. Shortly after 26:20 he said: "...you can sort of convince yourself that they're reminiscent of lapilli, perhaps." Be sure to note that he said "sort of," and "perhaps." Lapilli, or some lapilli-like clasts would fit better into the geologic context of this environment, which is thought to be energetic...explosive volcanism or explosive impacts, or such.

I was waiting for this, Bernhard!