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Unmanned Spaceflight.com > Mars & Missions > Past and Future > MER > Opportunity
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Stu
Oppy seems to have stopped to catch her breath at Turkey Haven, and the latest Hazcams show she is preparing to spend some time studying the rocks there, so this seems like a good time to start a new topic.

If you have any images/observations to share relating to Oppy's approach to Turkey Haven, please post them in the previous thread.

To start us going, here's my take on Oppy's view of Turkey Haven - not suggesting the colours are particularly realistic, but they do show, I think, the great variety of tones and hues visible on the rocks at this intriguing place...

Click to view attachment
fredk
This image shows perfectly that we've made it to the ridge of CY:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2781
It also shows nicely that CY is basically a "shelf" jutting out into Endeavour, as we'd said a long time ago. We've been travelling north up the flat part of the shelf. I think this is the first time we can clearly see the full relief of CY - it does jut out quite a ways from the average slope into Endeavour.
Tesheiner
That's part of a 3x1 navcam mosaic (navcam_3x1_az_126_3_bpp) shot yestersol. Expect another 7x1 mosaic shot today so we will finally (probably) have a whole 360deg. view. cool.gif
mhoward
Opportunity's position on sol 2781. This view is cobbled together from two locations over three sols.
Stu
UnbeLEEvable timing!!! I was just about to post a sharpened-up anaglyph I've made of part of Turkey Haven, about to invite everyone to look at the beautiful, fragile-looking rock sculptures at the bottom left... then you go and show that Oppy has driven right over them!!!

Click to view attachment
Bill Harris
It appears that our "holiday" science stop will be at site T2_Haven, so here is an L257 of that site.

The mind clicks and whirrs and theorizes and this area will prove to be unimaginably complex.

--Bill
Stu
Best colour view I can manage...

Click to view attachment

You're right Bill... fascinating place... Love how lots of the rocks appear to have a dark coating on them on their tops and sides, yet the bases look cleaner...
walfy
Wow, I thought this new outcrop was much larger in size! Got fooled again. Nothing like having Oppy in the picture to put things into perspective.
fredk
QUOTE (Stu @ Nov 21 2011, 07:48 PM) *
lots of the rocks appear to have a dark coating on them on their tops and sides, yet the bases look cleaner...
I'm thinking it's the other way around - usually the lighter areas are dust, which piles up around the bases of the rocks, while the parts more exposed to the wind stay cleaner.
nprev
Remarkable. Looks a bit like a minaturized version of the Belt formation in Montana.
Stu
QUOTE (fredk @ Nov 21 2011, 08:08 PM) *
I'm thinking it's the other way around - usually the lighter areas are dust, which piles up around the bases of the rocks, while the parts more exposed to the wind stay cleaner.


Yeah, makes sense. I should have known that. rolleyes.gif
mhoward
QUOTE (walfy @ Nov 21 2011, 01:03 PM) *
I thought this new outcrop was much larger in size!


I was mostly trying to capture the scenic view with that last one. Here's a more basic view showing the relative size of the outcrop. This view faces south and somewhat down (-17 degrees elevation), and you can see the area Pancam has covered so far.

P.S. I'm not sure what the northward tilt is right now, but I'm pretty sure it's over 10 degrees, maybe quite a bit over that I'm seeing something between 9.9 and 12 degrees, maybe.
mhoward
Just one more. Facing south. The rover position is probably off just a little bit.
jamescanvin
Here is the Turkey Haven parking spot in colour.



James
Ant103
Sol 2781 navcam pan. Full view on Endeavour !
walfy
A fun little gif-movie in which the other side of the ridge comes into view somewhat. Oppy steams right up to the edge! Fantastic little rover.

Click to view attachment
CosmicRocker
smile.gif Look at her climb right up there!
.............Nice driving. wheel.gif
Tesheiner
Some additional navcam images hit the exploratorium during the last update. There're two pictures still missing and autostitch has some trouble to correctly match the available ones, but in any case the view worth posting this crude mosaic.
Click to view attachment
jvandriel
Here is the complete view from Sol 2781 taken with the
L0 Navcam.

Jan van Driel

Click to view attachment
Bill Harris
A little side-trip here: one thing that the MERB Project is doing lately is that duplicated images are getting posted to Exploratorium when the images are absolutely identical with no noise or data dropouts (ie, the "-M1" and "-M2" images). For example,

1P374984334EFFBQPHP2433L2M1.jpg
1P374984334EFFBQPHP2433L2M2.jpg

are identical but with a different filename.

Does anyone have a clue as to what is happening here?

--Bill
Tesheiner
Just let me remark that the same happens at the MER website so it may be something at the "feeder" common to both sites.
paxdan
Info on decoding MER filenames here.

The difference is the "Product version number" a "Version identifier providing uniqueness for book keeping".

Of course this does not answer the 'why'.
Ant103
Sols 2779 & 2780 color pan updated. Just love this colourfull place smile.gif.



And Sols 2781 & 2782 full 360 pan :

eoincampbell
A Thanksgiving Thank You Round-up is in order to everyone supplying these wonderful Haven views: Thank You.
Here's hoping for a feast of science from these upcoming measurements!
Phil Stooke
Fourmidable!

Here's a polar view of the full panorama. If there are dust devils - rare, but we know they are possible here - this would be a good place to do a survey looking for them, maybe in the spring.

Phil

Click to view attachment
Stu
Gorgeous polar view, Phil, and The Dagger stands out really clearly on there...

...speaking of which, take one of the new navcams, stretch and contort it untyil it begs for mercy, and The Dagger really jumps out...

Click to view attachment
marswiggle
Thanks to everyone for the great images. Being not as skilled myself, I only could take advantage of Ant103's full panorama to produce this sideways compressed version of the view. Cropped sky and part of the foreground. Gives some idea of the relative heights and contours at this location.
Bill Harris
And here, in a glorious x-eyed, lens-corrected, stereo FHazcam view, is the IDD toolkit about to *thwack T2 Haven on Sol-2781:

--Bill
Matt Lenda
Fantastic images so far...

Huge amounts of data will be coming down soon. Yesterday we planned a whole slew of Pancams for a science "experiment" that one of our science folks wanted to do, and today we've got a few MI stacks in the queue and a continuation of the Pancam observations. Load it up, load it up...

But, the data won't all be down until Monday or so. We're very "restricted" in our planning because of the holiday weekend -- I think we're planning sols 2787-2789 today but we only have downlink from sol 2783 -- so we have to load up on a bunch of sols. Which means less IDD or drive work. Booooo.

-m
ngunn
QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Nov 22 2011, 04:55 PM) *
If there are dust devils - rare, but we know they are possible here - this would be a good place to do a survey looking for them


QUOTE (Matt Lenda @ Nov 23 2011, 07:37 PM) *
Yesterday we planned a whole slew of Pancams for a science "experiment" that one of our science folks wanted to do


I hope you called it right, Phil. I like the idea of a whole slew of crater vistas. smile.gif (There again it could be sixty pictures of the same rock - or the sundial.)
Bill Harris
Don't get your hopes up for imagery this Holiday weekend. All we have today are a bunch of Homestake MI images and some boring OtherScience PanCams.

I wouldn't be suprised if things get a bit spotty for the next few weeks. The launch of Curiosity will take up resources. And there is limited bandwidth on the DSN downlink and a whole sackload of science they want to get started on working restricted workdays before/at the Holidays. The proverbial quart in a pint pot, they are prioritizing and doing the age-old Task Juggle.

In a way, we become like spoilt children. We want it, and we want it All. Now. We need to be patient and realize that it'll happen when it happens.

[/philosophization OFF]

--Bill
Stu
All true, Bill. We'll get what we get, when we get it, when it's possible to get it to us. End of story. If anyone starts to suffer withdrawl symptoms from images, there's a new release of Oppy images to the PDS on the 28th - sols 2521-2610, the section ofher trek which included those small craters named after historical NASA manned spacecraft, etc - to trawl through and make pretty pictures out of. smile.gif

( And if anyone dares to moan this year about the MER team having the Thanksgiving holidays off, or doing less during this period, or accuses them of slacking, I will personally go round to their house and give them a Benny Hill-style slap on the head whilst shouting "Shut up!!!!" They deserve and need a break from their jobs now and again, just like the rest of us. )
ronatu
QUOTE (Stu @ Nov 24 2011, 12:00 PM) *
All true, Bill. We'll get what we get, when we get it, when it's possible to get it to us. End of story. If anyone starts to suffer withdrawl symptoms from images, there's a new release of Oppy images to the PDS on the 28th - sols 2521-2610, the section ofher trek which included those small craters named after historical NASA manned spacecraft, etc - to trawl through and make pretty pictures out of. smile.gif

( And if anyone dares to moan this year about the MER team having the Thanksgiving holidays off, or doing less during this period, or accuses them of slacking, I will personally go round to their house and give them a Benny Hill-style slap on the head whilst shouting "Shut up!!!!" They deserve and need a break from their jobs now and again, just like the rest of us. )


Do you know if Opportunity will drive a little more before winter? And if not - when driving will resume?
centsworth_II
QUOTE (ronatu @ Nov 24 2011, 10:32 PM) *
Do you know if Opportunity will drive a little more before winter? And if not - when driving will resume?

From Stu's interview with James Wray:
"...mainly we’re just hoping to survive the winter! If we find a good north-facing slope, we might be able to make brief 'sorties' throughout the winter to nearby targets of geologic interest..."

And from Matt Lenda's blog:
"We still have some trekking to do to find all the best slopes, and to see what slopes also have good science targets.... I expect activity to dwindle down throughout December, with January-April being 'hunker down' months with occasional science activities."

I'm sure no one knows the actual driving plans for the winter/spring. A cleaning event would certainly change things, as would an unfortunate dusting event.
stevesliva
Also, the official status update mentioned that this was one of two havens being considered.
http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/mission/status_...rtunityAll.html
QUOTE
There are two candidate sites for winter havens that indicate sufficient northerly tilt. Opportunity is investigating one of those two sites with the plan to spend the Thanksgiving holiday there. Because of the coming holiday, the project implemented multi-sol plans for the last three planning days before Thanksgiving.


If watt-hours decrease precipitously, no doubt they'll stay put. If not...
Bill Harris
And most of the data this morning dealt with two superres Pancam sequences of Endeavour Rim, which don't have much to do with the current science targets at The Havens

--Bill
Ant103
Sol 2785 color view of Cape Tribulation.

Phil Stooke
Fantastic view!

Phil

ElkGroveDan
Wow. If that were covered in snow it would make for a five or six mile toboggan ride.
Matt Lenda
QUOTE (Stu @ Nov 24 2011, 09:00 AM) *
All true, Bill. We'll get what we get, when we get it, when it's possible to get it to us. End of story. If anyone starts to suffer withdrawl symptoms from images, there's a new release of Oppy images to the PDS on the 28th - sols 2521-2610, the section ofher trek which included those small craters named after historical NASA manned spacecraft, etc - to trawl through and make pretty pictures out of. smile.gif

( And if anyone dares to moan this year about the MER team having the Thanksgiving holidays off, or doing less during this period, or accuses them of slacking, I will personally go round to their house and give them a Benny Hill-style slap on the head whilst shouting "Shut up!!!!" They deserve and need a break from their jobs now and again, just like the rest of us. )

Honestly, part of me wants to fly back to Pasadena (I'm home in CO for vacay!) right now and sweat out that high-calorie Thanksgiving meal with a good tactical planning day!

QUOTE (centsworth_II @ Nov 24 2011, 08:58 PM) *
I'm sure no one knows the actual driving plans for the winter/spring. A cleaning event would certainly change things, as would an unfortunate dusting event.

Pretty much -- it's still a week-to-week assessment. It's just flat-out impossible to predict dust factor or Tau with anything less than completely unreasonable error bars. Historically we see many Tau and DF trends, none of which are useful on a tactical basis. They are what they are, we deal with it as it comes along.

-m
Tesheiner
QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Nov 25 2011, 06:13 PM) *
Fantastic view!

We are seeing two shots taken on L256R21 but for each of those two there are 15 (fifteen, yes) additional images on L6 filter at the same pointing. That would make for an incredibly detailed mosaic; someone should have a go on it.
ngunn
And no doubt fredk will let us know if any dust-raising wind gusts (or cloud shadows) were traversing the area as the fifteen successive images were captured.
Sunspot
Would the winter plans be reconsidered if there were a major solar panel cleaning event?
ElkGroveDan
I would say yes. Every new sol is borrowed time. When they park the rovers to do nothing there is the constant tug and pull of; do we get more life/science out of this machine sitting still vs. moving on.? There's always the chance that one of the critical circuits will simply fail due to old age. So if they had abundant power, they'd probably head straight back over to Homestake and all the other enticing targets left behind over the last month
SFJCody
QUOTE (Ant103 @ Nov 26 2011, 12:46 AM) *
Sol 2785 color view of Cape Tribulation.


Looking at this makes me think that cleaning events are more likely to occur if Oppy is on the inner part of the crater rim. Of course, settling on a north facing slope takes precedence.
Bill Harris
Be on the lookout this weekend-- there are a couple of nice sequences in the pipeline.

The sequence P2577 with the b o r i n g name "photometry east" is a neat example of differential erosion-- the relatively resistant dark and blocky beds adjacent to the soft and weathering light and sandy beds. Example attached.

And "Mpangeni", struggling to get thru the pipeline, is enough to get a geologist all aquiver...

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...QEP2582L2M2.JPG

'Nuff said.

--Bill
Matt Lenda
QUOTE (Sunspot @ Nov 25 2011, 02:59 PM) *
Would the winter plans be reconsidered if there were a major solar panel cleaning event?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeehawwwwwwwwwwww!

-m
brellis
Looking at the peak in Ant103's gorgeous color pic from Sol 2785 -- after all these years and all this distance, it's so fun to think why the heck not? Put that one on the to-do list! wheel.gif smile.gif
Stu
Rather nice new MI images... fascinating rocklets down at Oppy's wheels now...

Click to view attachment
atomoid
fascinating MI indeed..
what's do you suppose the 'hair-like' thing at upper right is?
I remember seeing these early in the mission but not in many years..
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