Exactly.

Sadly, I do not have the possibility to run any projection until Saturday (and connections speed is very low).
I hope Oppy will not arrive to VC before this date!
Meanwhile, I will be delighted by other's work...

Curious navcam image tosol. If you tweak it, you can see what appears to be the horizon. Local time was about 4:30pm, so it does look like sunset.

What have they done here? Can it be a long sunset exposure? Wouldn't that be horribly overexposed? (There are no filters for navcam!) Could it be a sum of many short exposures?

Is it possible for the sun to be setting perfectly vertically seen from the latitude Oppy's at? Sounds very unlikely to me.

There's also this one from Sol 908, which was taken much higher in the sky. It's definitely the sun; other than that you can reach your own conclusions I guess.

If I had to guess, I'd say it is CCD bleed.

Wondered how long it'd be till someone spotted those

I asked Jim about them - he says that Justin Maki is the guy to ask BUT....

Both obs were called navcam_sun_zero_second_msl_test

MSL will have Navcam's similar to MER's...and they've done those two obs ( 914 and 908 ) to find out how good Navcam might be at the sun-finding observations they currently do with Pancam for pointing purposes - the aim being to unload that need from mastcam onto msl-navcam. I'm guessing the clue is in the title w.r.t. exposure - it's pixel bleed causing the streaks.

Doug

Hmm... I think I might know what we're seeing here. The second image mhoward pointed to indeed has strong charge bleeding, but the first one doesn't. I'm not very acquainted with MER cameras, but I assume navcams have no shutter? Alternatively, if they do have a shutter, this might be a test without using it, e.g. without closing it after exposure. That is: 1. opening the shutter, 2. immediately reading out the CCD, 3. closing the shutter.
If so -- we're most likely looking at a zero-exposure sun image that appears streaked because of the readout phase that makes the sun's projected image shift because it's shining on the CCD the whole time during readout phase.

You know -- the sort of thing LORRI imager on New Horizons is expected to have for bright targets (Jupiter etc.).

My first thought was ccd bleed - but it really doesn't look like bleed. Recall we're very near the equator, so sun motion is nearly vertical. But I can't believe it'd be such a long exposure.

I don't know what would make you think it didn't look like bleed....because that IS what it is An exposure long enough to do that would be HOURS long, and we know that your average Navcam exposure of the sky isn't black like this one

I'm not sure of the technical aspect, but I like UG's story - it sounds reasonable. If the readout starts at the bottom of the image that we see, then the bottom half of the image would never have been touched by the sun, whereas everything above it would. with some intelligent programming, one could use it to find the actual sun position I'm sure.

Doug

Could they have been moving the camera head in altitude during the exposure? That would cause the vertical streaking.

--Bill

The clue is in the title..

ZERO SECOND.


It's an artifact of readout, not a long exposure or motion.


Doug

I was looking at the PC tracking site today in hope of a SOL 916 drive. But no hazcams are planned
But there is a pancam_drive_direction_L2R2 planned. But didn't they already have a drive direction pan from the end of the SOL 614 drive??

Why would they retake a drive direction pan without driving?

Two options -

They ARE driving but the engineering camera data didn't get through to the db

OR

They're just taking drive direction images in a different direction.

Doug

It's not the first time it happens, and in 99% of the cases it was the former.

The same direction but different time of day(sol) ...for better lighting I gues?

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...TCP1311L0M1.JPG


Nice terrain!

Wow!

That looks like a huge drive! We'll know more when the navcams and pancams are available.

Castor

I'm pretty sure that's 100+ m

Wow!

I expected the driving on the annulus to be fairly easy, but I didn't dare think it would be this easy.

Very much like the parking lot days between Eagle and Endurance.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...GTP1211L0M1.JPG

Looks like my speculative interpretation from a few days ago could be quite accurate - James Caird area terrain, transitioning to Fram area terrain.

If they were brave..if they had a few more Whrs...they could set a new record here.

Doug

But there is nothing on "Pancam Data Tracking Web Interface" that suggest this kind of driving today.
OK "pancam_drive_direction_L2R2" but nothing else...
Not that I'm against this sort of last minute drives.
Whats up?

The Pancam tracking site had all the Pancam info.....just none of the engineering camera stuff on top of it....not unusual - it's happened before. I'm suprised we don't see more of it given the schedules of the scientists and engineers, with one team 4hrs apart from the other.

It's easy to imagine science obs being scheduled, scripted, passed over to JPL, then everyone at Cornell goes home, the JPL team script up the science AND the driving imaging, and then it takes until the following day at Cornell for that driving imaging stuff to be acknowledged and put into their DB, even though it's already happened on Mars. I don't know how it really happens, but it's a thought.

Doug

I thought driving on the annulus was going to be hard! I'm happy to be proved wrong, wrong, wrong.

Rover's position info is not yet available, but based on the current site/drive IDs and *if* the driving commands and slip-checking pattern were the same as of sol 914 we are talking about another 70+ m drive.

Based on the rear hazam images from this and the previous sols drive, i'd say it "looks" a lot longer, although it could just be an illusion lol. We're probably looking at the tracks from the last sols drive too remember, so it could only be about a 10m drive lol

Too fast Oppy....! no speed bumps!

Its so flat I think Epsilon is visible in the forward hazcams.

I am surprised of the almost straight driving after seeing their tracks. I tought it would not be do so since it has a minor problem with one of the actuators wheels. The ripples is becoming even softer and covered by small spherules. I don't think the Oppy's drive on Annulus Victoria would set another record distance driving due to its limitation of solar energy, less minutes of driving.

Before approaching to Victoria's rim, I expect that there will be more drifts, boulders or stones. Let see it if it is true

Rodolfo

imho - the terrain will be like this if not a little better right the way up to the rim just about.

like THIS
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...6F0006L0M1.HTML

for another 300 metres

and then the last 50m or so to be a little like this
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...0P1829L0M1.HTML

A look-back like this
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...02P1825L0M1.JPG
in, say, 10 sols time would be my expectation.

Doug

Navcams for sol 916 now starting to appear:

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...TCP0685R0M1.JPG

The road ahead looks clear

Castor

Ok, finally got some data from the PCDT and Oppy seems to have moved about 85m!

Way back when I was betting..to myself..that we would never get to victoria crater and if we did the last leg would be waist deep in unpassable sand..gessh..glad I was wrong on all counts Go Oppy go

When was the last 85m+ drive?

I can see I'm not going to get much work done next week!

Castor

Nor me!

Phil

Would two driving days bring us to Epsilon? And then maybe two more to Victoria rim?

Let's not count our rover eggs until they've hatched. This is a superannuated machine and anything could go wrong. <crosses fingers that it won't>

I'll be travelling next week.

I assume it will take a little break at hawking and/or epsilon+eroded crater?

Panic not Tesh - I think I'll be able to keep up on your behalf

Doug

Victoria Pan on Labor Day weekend?

How about an update for the right half of the map? The box already contains the edge of Victoria so it won't be adjusted before Oppy arrives.

Pancam images are coming in... Looks like there's a glimpse in this image where we can see both near rim and far rim separately:

2006-08-22/1P209508718EFF75TCP2365L2M1.JPG

No, I'm sorry, Diane, but this is looking at Epsilon crater and a bit of the sloping outer rim of Victoria south of Epsilon. We have still never seen the far rim, we are too low down. I think the far rim lies topographicaly lower than the near rim because Victoria formed on the side of a shallow depression, so the near rim has always blocked the far rim. But when we do see it, it will be a blockbuster.

Phil

A nice look back

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...TCP1966L0M1.JPG

Nice straight driving, the new pan cam images show some very flat terrain. Looks like a straight shot to the crater edge

A bit of stitching...interesting stuff.

Doug

Gorram it. My impatience is wearing thin.

From the MOC image, I'd expected Epsilon to be more of a degraded crater. Looks like we'll pass close by for a better look, soon enough.

Difficult to get this one right - a lot of brightness variation, vignetting. Sol 916:

I agree

Nico