Now that we're coming through another Martian winter at Gusev, anyone want to wager a Mars Bar on what sol we will be seeing our first dust devil this season?

May be we have to set up a panel

Speaking of dust devils at Gusev, Greeley et al. just had a paper on the subject published in JGR-Planets. Figure 2 of the paper is a cool image (2N181053592EFFAEOTP0607L0M1) that I'd never noticed before, though I'm sure the resident Pancam hounds saw it.

Link to that image...

Great another pool.

So the first DD was seen on sol 421, add one M-year gets us to 1089/1090.

Now on one hand DD's are going to be much harder to see this year, we can't see much of the plains and being back at 'plain level' they will not have the ground as a backdrop making them harder to see. On the other hand though, the team knows when to start looking and at what time of day this year.

Hmm, difficult, I think I'm going to go with 1094.

JAmes

1054, the year of the Crab Nebulae formation.
Would be nice to have a picture of one from MRO.
I know that MGS capture some but MRO's will be something.

Mmm, as you said James, Spirit is not located at the best location for DD hunting so I will place my bet about one (earth) month later.

Sol 1120.

Latitudinal dependency in dust devil activity on Mars had an interesting analysis of Gusev dust devils. Inside the search box which included Gusev, Whelley and Greeley found dust devils tracks all year, although there was a substantial increase during what we know to be the 'season'. I also think a good case could be made that the El Dorado streaks are from dust devils, although spotting one in the act could be a challenge.

That being said, I'm going to put my optimistic bet down for sol 1065, in the hope that the new dust devil detection software is used soon. I think the first one will be imaged not long after they begin looking.

Can't remember the approx. time of the Sol the DD start. We need some heating for sure.
The meaning of my question is because we need Spirit to be awake to catch one and I'm not sure she'll have enough power in one month from now.

Minus one:
1119

1100 for me.

Just a thought: I wonder if HiRISE could be programmed to take many repeat images of a smaller area instead of one big image? Could dust devil movies be constructed this way?

Hmm,

That is a good question -- our viewing location is worse, but our detection ability is better.... again, hmmmm....

let's say sol 1111 for fun.


-- Pertinax

I definitely have to side with the optimistic minority this time, and guess sol 1070. I think the team's experience plus the new software will outweigh any disadvantage the viewing angle might present. Of course, my optimism depends on them using the new software very soon.

IIRC, during most of the last DD season we didn't have a good view into the inner basin. However, quite a number of plains DDs were observed heading in that general direction. We are largely surrounded by hills here, so being down near the plain level is probably not as much of a disadvantage here, as it would be out on the plains.

I'm betting on a late season sighting of Sol 1177

Spirit need to move out of this low spot first. A couple of weeks after she returns to homplate: sol 1082

I vote for a Christmas present dd, let's say sol 1060.

I'll go for Sol 1066 -- and will be looking carefully for any Normans who may be storming up behind it...

-the other Doug

Let's not be too... Hastings ... about it.

Somewhere out there, Ed, Bob Shaw is smiling proudly.

Of course, it could be Storming Norman, but black-head stormed up another gulf.

Is tosol soon enough?

Just deliver it to us! Deliver it!

That is excellent news. We optimists really needed that software to run soon, or we'd be dead in the water, or perhaps the dust. So, how do we read that code (navcam_fast_DustDevil_SF_LEYE_lvlaz_295)? It seems that the navcam left eye will be searching toward an azimuth of 295 (or -65, in +/- from North). I think this should be its approximate view, though I am sure they will aim the camera somewhat higher than I have.
Click to view attachment
Does anyone have any guesses as to what the other descriptors mean...fast, SF, and lvl?

SF = subframe

fast may be some parameter for the auto dd search.

Oh darn. SubFrame...duh! I guess that was so obvious that I totally missed it. Regarding "fast," that was my best guess, too.

Fine by me
The images are down, but it doesn't look like they captured anything.

I think the 'fast' part refers to a type of movie (same command sequence number even) used back on sols 684 through 715 (the last time a dd movie was attempted). I'm not sure we are seeing the new detection software being used yet, at least not in this particular sequence.

from the Sol 682 SOWG Documentarian report

Apparently they did not run the "DD detection part of the program, as you suggested. Since they say they will "rerun" the test on sol 1058, I assume that means that the DDD part of the program will again not be run. I guess we will not get an early Christmas present.

I bid ten Quatlos for Feb 1st.

Bob Shaw

Mmmm...twenty quatloos on 23 Jan....

Hey, look who showed up for Christmas
Welcome back.

No, either late for the Solstice or early for Hogswatch Night (the 33rd of December).

Good to be back, though...

Bob Shaw

Good for us too, dear Bob

Great to see you back Bob ! Did you finally slay the NTL dragon or just move to a different provider?

NTL must have fixed whatever bit of DNS thuggery was doing me in! I claim no responsibility - they just did it...


Bob Shaw

Given their beneficial effect on Rover power levels and survivability....

Shouldn't we call them DUST ANGELS?

I think not - see Phil Plaits BA entry on someone who shares this opinion. I thnk I'll stick with Dust Devils for now.

Sorry to continue this Off Topic thread but in my real life I read medieval texts, including biblical commentaries, and compared to them this stuff is really odd. In the Middle Ages the commentators were conscious when they were were being allegorical and when they were making a literal interpretation. This guy seems to take his allegories literally.

Decidedly wierd.

Steve

^^^ Gee, just seeing faces in the rocks on Mars seems pretty tame by comparison, doesn't it?! Of course, they probably are the hideous grimaces of the damned frozen forever in the rock of Satan's wrath.

Major dust storm at Gusev!

O_o

It's clearly visible on these two images of the FHC :

Sol 1041

Sol 1062

Observe the sky brightness and the shadows...

The shadows look very dark again in this latest haz cam image:

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/fo...CGP1131R0M1.JPG

As for dust devils, perhaps this years dust devil season will be like last years Atlantic Hurricane season.

There's a short update on Mark Lemmon's page :

If you look at dilo's animation in this thread :

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...3199&st=105

Then you'll see that the first dust devil has already been recorded.
Just look at the upper right in this animation.

Good eye, Mizar! I was just staring at the obvious foreground thing. So it looks like the software caught first the real devil in 3 frames, then was fooled in the last 2 frames by the foreground reflection if that's what it is.

According to James, tosol's sighting (1086) is only a few sols before the 1 Martian year aniversary of the first dd spotted.

Ditto, good eyes.

I was coming over to note the gust / dust devil found after posting finally in the 'Changes' thread only to see that Mizar had noted the same.

I doubt little will beat climatology in any forecasting contests on mars!

-- Pertinax

Thanks fredk and Pertinax.

Let's hope they grow, ready to do some cleaning tasks to poor dusty Spirit.

Looks like nprev wins the pool.

New Dust Devil on spirit pancam


Edit: Too excited about DD to know my pancam from my navcam--but I linked to the correct image.

cough navcam ahem.

Cool DD though