Mike, that's Flippin' Sweet!

fredk: I liked the mystery man image. It was a clever way to demonstrate scales in the pancams.

mhoward: So, should we expect MMB AutoPan to be a feature in version 1.4.9, or are you saving it for 1.5.0?

Lastly, before we get excited about the next drive, remember the eagle skull from sol 883? I couldn't help but notice some unusual features in the sol 884 navcams that reminded me of the curious feature that was the eye in the eagle skull. These all seem to be some kind of secondary alteration/mineralization. The anomalous part of the eagle skull just might be a cross-sectional view of the things seen in plan view in the sol 884 navcams. An annotated image is attached.

Yeah that was simple but cool. He would have come in handy as Spirit climbed up and over the Hill. I often found myself surprised by the scale and perspective as we moved about. I'd see what I thought was a huge rock and realize later in a different image that I was looking at a very small object.

OK, we're hooked. You'll have to add MM into ALL the pans now. Although maybe find a silhouette that isn't telling the rover to stop. We've already got one of those.

Brian

I noticed those Navcam features, too, and agree that there are similarities, although we don't know where "Eagle Skull" came from. Clearly, they are solution-remineralization features. The difference is that the "ES item" cuts across the bedding plane, and the "Navcam items" are parallel to the bedding. I seem to recall seeing similar features parallel to bedding before, though.

I was hoping for a closer look, but we've gotten into a drive-by roving mode...

--Bill

That is really nicely done, the "Mystery Man" gives it the sense of scale that it really needs. I tried something similar with an overhead image of Home Plate some months back, but my notion of representing a two meter person was a vertical line segment I like your notion a lot.

fredk: very good Idea that really gives a sense of scale to those images !

proposal for even better realism: How about using a shilouette with a space suit ?

The added Man In Black really helps with the scale, thanks.
But since when did the Pioneer Plaque guy get pants and a hat?

Hello

I'm very happy today 'cause I find the method to make a color picture from the Right camera of the Pancam by using the R1 and R2 filters. I mixed the two to obtain a pseudo green filter and make the classic L257 play of filters.

So, stop talking and the two stereo pictures I've made (crossed eyes) who show the two rocks from sol 881.

The rock I named "Tortle Rock" :
Click to view attachment

And the rock I named "Head Rock" :
Click to view attachment

I like these. I wish it were possible for me to cross my eyes and match up larger images. Thanks very much for making these.

Damien, nice going at the stereos. I think you have the first one in cross-eyed modus and the second in parallell (right-left vs. left-right).

Nico

""The added Man In Black really helps with the scale, thanks.
But since when did the Pioneer Plaque guy get pants and a hat? ""

When he took up Golf !

It's Greg Norman - I think he found a sand trap !

Well, I figured out an incredibly easy way to make Quicktime VR panoramas from MMB panoramas, without involving Autostitch at all. As a test, here is an Opportunity Sol 884-885 Quicktime VR:

Opportunity Sol 884-885 Quicktime VR (2.9 Mb)

If you right click and download the file first, you should be able to save it and then view it in Quicktime Player, where you should be able to make the window larger.

Wow - that's hot! - both format - and the terrain view

OK it passed that test - very nice VR pano.

That is really handy.

Nice job with the QTVR! I can't wait to see your first 360...

Thanks for all the feedback to my "mystery man" image! I do see him as akin to the "Pioneer plaque guy", but with a bit more modesty and a modicum of protection from the harsh Martian environment!

Here's my next installment. I've taken the sol 887 "sand sheet" pancam image which looks across to Victoria crater and picked two spots at 23.5 and 75 metres range according to AlgorimancerPG (thanks a bundle for this, Algorimancer, it really makes this so much easier!). I also measured the distance using the orbital map to the light features on the rim near the "entry point" of VC as marked by Tesheiner with the blue line on his maps, and found about 545 metres. Assuming the features along the right part of the horizon in this image are those near the "entry point", I placed men at each of the 3 points. Again, he's 2 metres tall up to top of raised hand.

The "horizon" is particularly closer than it looks, since it ends more or less at the rim of VC.

Notice how the two closer men appear above the horizon from chest up. This is a bit of a consistency check - if the ground was perfectly level, the horizon should be behind about pancam-height (1.54 metres or so) on the men. In other words, pancam gives us a 154 cm (5 foot) child's eye view of mars. (Actually a bit taller, your eyes aren't at the top of your head!)
Click to view attachment

Once again I really like this -- especially that guy on the horizon. I had no idea we were so close.

It occured to me that the size of the men might be a bit deceptive. The sizes are accurate relative to the features in the image. But remember that this is a pancam shot. So the full width of my image is only about 15 degrees - pretty narrow! The actual angular height of the farthest man is about 0.2 degrees, which is 2/5 the diameter of the full moon.

I find with my combination of monitor size and resolution, I need to sit about 2 metres from my monitor so that the image actually subtends 15 degrees, so I'm seeing things exactly as large as if I were actually on Mars. But even then, the far man looks surprizingly big!

I haven't been able to locate the link again, but I recall seeing someone using a similar technique to show distances on one of the Apollo 15 or Apollo 17 landscape shots. They used the "Hollywood" sign as the basis for judging size and distance, which of course is a lot harder on the moon than it is on Mars.

For additional perspective, you could also do something like this...



And, because you know you were thinking it...

Opportunity Sol 884-885 Quicktime VR with Fredk's Mystery Men (1.9MB)

Bill: I've been trying to get back to you on this for two days now. Before I posted that message, I flip-flopped several times. The true bedding is difficult to discern. Those many closely spaced striations on the left side of the rock really made me want to think the bedding was vertically oriented in this view. Yes, I wish they could have captured a closer view.

I still don't know for sure what the bedding orientation is. I am attaching a pair of images, with one marked up to show what I was thinking. The yellow-green lines are my guess at the bedding "planes." I'm having a heck of a time reconciling them with the apparent laminae on the left side of the rock (not to mention those I've highlighted in orange ), but I took a stab at guessing where my lower line emerges on the left side.

As for the lines I've marked in orange, they have me thinking that I must be confused. This is quite a curious rock.Click to view attachment

890 p1121.03 0 0 0 0 0 0 fhaz_idd_apxs_doc_512x512x1bpp_pri56
890 p1154.01 0 0 0 0 0 0 front_hazcam_idd_unstow_doc
890 p1585.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 navcam_cloud_4x1_dwnsmp_RVRAz_calstart
890 p2600.09 0 0 0 0 0 0 pancam_tau
890 Total 0 0 0 0 0 0

Something wrong with the IDD?

Still no sign of any driving towards Beagle/Victoria

Perhaps they're shifting to the new software. Nothing unusual w.r.t. IDD from thos obs.

This is quite curious, Tom. I'm presuming that the striations you have marked in yellow are bedding and the ones marked in orange are the usual vertical fractures. The structures seen in the Navcam images and this structure _may_ be related (I certainly think so) but we don't have more data than these two passing observations (this is reality, nothing critical of the Rover Team).


EDIT: Above I said: "I'm presuming that the striations you have marked in yellow are bedding and the ones marked in orange are the usual vertical fractures". Oops, I meant to say that the yellow striations on the left were bedding and the other yellow striations on the right were the vertical fractures. The orange ones seem to be bedding, also.

This the classical field geology dilemma of seeing an interesting piece of float and then an interesting outcrop on a walk-through survey and not being able to look closer. Hopefully we'll be able to see more of these structures once we get to that roadcut at Beagle Crater.

From the Rover Status Page at the JPL site:

"Sol 881: The Mössbauer integration continued this sol on Westport. A 13-filter panoramic camera image was taken of Preston and "Red Rock," another ejecta block."

It looks like "Eagle Skull" is officially Preston and "Carapace" is now Red Rock.

--Bill

Mhoward : nice Quick Time VR panos

Here is a view toward the horizon taken on Sol 880, perhaps on the right of Victoria Crater (see the crest just before the horizon).

British Board members are now holding their heads in their hands at the thought of one of the most amazing rocks yet seen on Mars being named after... well... Preston...

Fill us in, Stu. The only "Preston" I know of is Sgt Preston of the Yukon (RCMP) and there are many Google hits for a town in England of that name.

Has anyone figured out the current "naming theme" for this locale? Could be Wild West/Chisholm Trail.

--Bill

Be grateful they didn't call it Prescott

Chris

Well, there were rocks named "Wallace" and "Gromit" at the Mars Pathfinder site. Maybe they're resurrecting that theme with characters from their films.

Can't wait to see a rock named Totty

...or Feathers McGraw.

Maybe this Preston?

I think a clue to these fractures is found in the MI images of the Overgaard crossbedding. In this terrific MI mosaic created by Hortonheardawho, you can see a diagonal fabric cutting across the crossbeds. It is most pronounced in the top right of the mosaic. If you view the mosaic in full resolution, it appears that the fabric is produced by the alignment of individual grains. I think this fabric represents a post diagenetic process whereby, say, a rising water table saturated the primary beds and precipitated individual grains along this new orientation.

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=94842101&size=l

Er... aren't those diagonal patterns just due to the MI brush?

Ant, thanks for the colour mosaic! The view shows Waco crater, which we used to call "alpha" - see the latest route map.

CosmicRocker,
Forgive me for jumping in to the discussion you and Bill are having. I have a slightly different interpretation of the "eagle skull" rock (preston). The light and dark lines on the left face of the rock appear to me to be very small ridges and grooves caused by very slight differences in weathering of parallel bedding planes. You marked these with a yellow-green line. The features that you've marked (also with a yellow-green line) on the right side of the image, I interprete as fractures which are at a high angle to the bedding. There is another obvious set of fractues (not marked) which run perpendicular to the ones you marked. The lines you marked in orange appear to me to be another view of the bedding. The reason these appear to be at an angle to the bedding on the left face is because we are seeing them on a face which is sloping towards us, while the left face is sloping to the left. So if you continued the orange lines on to the left face, then you'd be following the bedding.

I agree with Bill that the "eye of the skull" appears to be a small solution cavity that is partially lined with a secondary mineral. If it's a solution cavity, then it appears that the dissolution occurred preferentially along the fracures you marked in yellow-green.

- gray

Thought I'd point out this page for the MMB VR movies. It's a work in progress, but since it's so easy for me to make these now I'll probably keep it up to date.

No problem, we're in public and the more discussion, the better.

Earlier I said: "I'm presuming that the striations you have marked in yellow are bedding and the ones marked in orange are the usual vertical fractures". Oops, I was thinking and meant to say that the yellow striations on the left were bedding and the other yellow striations on the right were the vertical fractures. The orange ones seem to be bedding, also.

This is an unusual rock and I'm sure we'll see more examples at Beagle.

--Bill

Damn', I had hoped my "Eagle Skull" would stick. Would have liked to name a feature on Mars!

The tracking site suggests that it is the other way around.



---

Good news - after the excruciatingly long Mossbauer (and now apxs) on Jesse we are off again Tomorrosol



Two sols to get to Beagle before the weekend (I think) - should be doable - at least to get close enough for a nice pan to plan the attack.

James

Hooray! I wonder if they found something interesting at Jesse, or if they are just being thorough. Since she hasn't been doing much more than Msbr/APXS and looking at clouds for a few days, the batteries should be nice and charged for driving, I would hope.

I hope the former is the case.
The remaining rover life time is limited and we should save as much Sols as possible
for the science at Beagle and Victoria ... so please no more 4-6 days long routine observations until
there is something really new to discover ...

those remaining sols of her life are just too valuable.... breakdown/ wheel failure
can occur any day ...

-> so lets spent her remaining days not here but at Victoria with the chance of discovering entirely new things

Just being thorough I guess - this is a new material it's got to be worth MB/apxs'ing it - even if MB does take an age these days.

Also, it makes sense that if it's only two sols to Beagle that we stay here and get as much science done before dashing across at the last moment to get the initial Beagle data at the weekend. We're going to be sitting around for a sol or two gathering the initial pan of Beagle - better if that's at the weekend.

ok you are right: if it only takes two sols then yes, it does make sense
so let's hope for a two-sol sprint to Beagle before the week-end

BTW.: when are we due to "restricted sol" mode again ?

I was trying to work that out a few days back - my best guess is in about a week to 10 sols. I think we'll be at Beagle through this period which should end around 20 sols from now so it shouldn't have much impact on things.

If my math is correct the MB will only be at around 10% strenght now as compared to the start of the mission.
That means that a MB of about 8 hours in the early days now takes 80 hours!

No wonder they need a few days to get a good MB integration

The MB has a half-life of 271 days and we have been through more than 3 now...

I was hoping for "Eagle Skull", "Wasp Nest", or "Frank" -- looks like we're out in the cold...

Fabulous, fabulous VR panoramas! Thank you, thank you, thank you!



-the other Doug

Are you taking requests? How about Eagle Crater, Anatolia, Burns Cliff, the Heatshield (you can skip Vostok), Rub al Khali......

Thanks for the comments, guys. I'm thinking of going back and capturing the big ones using Daniel Crotty's calibrated color images. Maybe I'll try to do one every couple of days or so. Burns Cliff is top of my list!