I've enhanced the brightness of the pictures

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P1557L0M1.JPG

and

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P1557L0M1.JPG

I think, there are clouds in the sky! I saw clouds on some Viking-Pictures, but never before on MER-Pics ...

Tom

Yup - clouds are common on mars - Pathfinder caught lots of pictures of them

As a warm-up-act, www.msss.com showed an image looking toward the martian terminator above Meridiani with clouds showing.

They look fab

Doug

What are clouds made of on Mars? Are they water vapor like on Earth?

http://www.donaldedavis.com/2004%20new/newer/MER2SSET.jpg

On April 30 the MER-B rover obtained color images of the sunset with the L4, 5, and 6 filters. The original images caught half the inner twilight glow, with the right edge of the frame just catching the setting Sun. I first registered the Sun, which moved between the exposures, and the inner glows to the green image and obtained a plausable looking match in all 3 colors. I then 'mirrored' the frame and placed it so the Sun was a circle partially revealed from both sides. Finally I artistically 'filled in' the narrow middle strip of missing data.

Don Davis

Not as romantic as on earth, but very pretty nonetheless.

Wow, you have a lot of very impressive material on your website!

Tom

In the Black Rock Desert last year I saw a sunset during a dust storm which reminded me of being on Mars. I was particularly reminded of similar Martian views by the overall brightness contours and the blueish glow near the Sun, which was eventually dimmed enough so one could directly look at it. Aside from the nearby discreet dust clouds the resemblence to Mars surface images in the later view is striking. Another common sight in the Black Rock Desert are dust devils, which hopefully will be seen by MER-A.

Mr. Davis,

The images you posted are excellent, very Mars like (except for the buildings and trees...).

This is one of those 'internet moments' when an opportunity presents itself that people just 15 years ago didn't have...

I would like to tell you of how much I've enjoyed your space art over the years. Your style is unparalleled. I was a subscriber to Astronomy magazine for many years. Your 'dinosaur ending comet' painting is among my all time favorites (the one showing the earth from a distance and the comet entering the atmosphere).

Keep up the excellent work and thanks for contributing to this board.

Sincerely,

Eric Petersen - California

Keep up the excellent work and thanks for contributing to this board.


Thank you so much, more to come!


Here is a 'blast from the past', an attempt to present a Viking 2 sunrise image in increased dynamic range. The foreground scenery was recorded in the bottom few gray levels, but in standard presentations of such images the foreground is underexposed. I selectively brightened it to more closely approximage a human eye view. This is one of the very few Viking images which appears to show clouds.


Don Davis

Great stuff, Don! Awesome site! I especially liked some of the models you had created. I remember looking at your paintings when I was in high school during the Viking days. I'll look forward to seeing some more of your versions of the Mars Rover photos.

Cheers,
Aldo.