Today's Images (Sol 88) show new navcam and pancam images of Endurance crater. Due to the different exposure settings and filters, the wallrocks look better in Navcam than pancam!

I've tried to "improve" the pancam by stitching a couple of frames together and then drastically boosting the contrast to bring detail out of the shadows. The result is OK, but is stretched to the limit of the data (some of the "layering" is damaged by compression artefacts).

Nonetheless, it looks interesting, with hints of large-scale layering and some massive detached blocks in the crater wall.

http://www.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/mars/NH..._Crater_Pan.jpg

http://www.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/mars/NH...or_enhanced.jpg

I reccomend you to download the unenhanced image and play with your own enhancement methods - you see more that way since different bits come clear at different degrees of brightening.

I had a ply with those images as well - to be honest you're right - there's not a lot in there, the auto-exposure treatment of the images thanks to the ammount of sky in the scene makes sure it's a bit dodgy.

http://mer.rlproject.com/o085_endu.jpg


Doug

We have what could be one of the most spectacular sights in planetary exploration coming into view, and they still havent taken any decent pictures of it yet lol

How steep would you say the walls of Endurance Crater are? The top of the crater wall looks almost vertical, whether it looks like that all the way around the rim remains to be seen.

I did read somewhere that if they see something really interesting inside, they may send the rover in, even if that means never coming out again. However, we may have to wait a while before we get to see Endurance though:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20040...pportunity.html

We have a week long weather observing campaign, and then they might even head back to Fram.

I'm not sure why the navcam works so much better. Is it the wavelength of the filters? The pancam images are in R1/L7 filters, which are in the UV at a wavelength where the rocks are not very bright (note that the crater wall is darker than the Meridiani plains on Pancam R1/L7 images).

On the Navcam, the rock walls are bright - much brighter than the plains. I haven't been able to find any data on the bandwidth of the Navcams and Hazcams, but I suspect that they are broadband through all the visual, plus a bit of NIR and NUV.

There may be some shading effects on the crater wall, too - some of the darker areas look like shadow, but we may be surprised when we get closer and see things in different sun angles.

Be nice when they take a series of Pancam RGB filter shots of the crater and we can begin to sort out the stratigraphy.

Or lack of filters all together - iirc, the Navcam and Hazcams are unfiltered, just the lenses and the CCDs doing their own thing. The horizon shots with L7/R1 are often so very very dark because of the over-compensation of the pseudo auto-exposure the images get put thru before being dumped online I think.


Doug

"We have a week long weather observing campaign, and then they might even head back to Fram. "

I read that a couple of days ago, but read somewhere today that we arrive at Endurance in 2 sols.