Sorry, I worked all the afternoon and the evening... That's why I haven't give any reaction.

HAIL VICTORIA!!

The view is great. Due to my terragen simulation, I have he impression to know this landscape . It's so ... unreal!

Me too, I want the pancam!!!!

Tomorrow, I will make my own composition. Now, I'm tired .

"It's a big rock. I can't wait to tell my friends. They don't have a rock this big." (Spike, in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer")

I'm a little surprised to see those small outcrops between the dunes on the right. The annulus is neither quite as flat or as featureless (at least in this region) as I supposed.

It's very easy to match even the tiniest details between todays navcams and the orbital images. Look at this comparison, for example, centred on the largest "bay" feature on the far rim:
Click to view attachment
You can identify many small features on the slope of the "bay".

In fact, we can now do a very firm measurement of the slope of that "bay". I've identified a feature at the top of the bay on both images (green arrow) and a feature some distance down (red arrow). The orbital map gives about 46 metres horizontal separation between the two, and today's navcam gives 13.6 metres vertical separation. Highschool trig gives an average slope of just 16.5 degrees!

Again, this is an average slope - there could be steeper and less steep portions of the bay. But, gall darn it, 16.5 degrees sounds totally doable!

Edit: forgot to mention that navcam crop is 2x vertical stretched. The calculated result was correct, though.

Okay, I got tired of waiting for the tracking data on the last two Navcams and decided to just cheat on those.

200x80 degree cylindrical projection:


equirectangular projection:

You're doing a lovely job of getting rid of the vignietting on those Mike - any pointers?

Doug

Yup, I agree. As a matter of fact, I think we should stay here for a couple of weeks and study those small outcrops... Not!

I'm just using MMB's brightness and vignetting compensation feature. If you export the pan images from MMB using the "File->Advanced->Export Pan Images and PTGui Project..." you'll get the same results, although it depends on my having updated the metadata first. PTGui also helps by smoothing the interface between the images.

BTW, everybody... there's a really nice bit of outcrop to the South ... I think we should investigate it while holding still without taking any images for, say, one or two weeks! (I dodge whatever you throw at me ) (Seriously, it might be something to check out after we've done several nice pans from the rim. Or not.) (Edit: Whoops, same joke as Oersted. )

P.S. Nice matchup, fredk!

Just joined the party - wow!

Re: The large 'rock' on the left - others have already mentioned it, but people still seem to be confused. It is not a rock, it is the crater wall on the back side of the beacon.

Click to view attachment

James

Nice big outcrop. Looks like a an easy taget to test the 'go and touch' after they reboot to the new software.

no further delays pleaaaase sure there are enough other nice outcrops at the big hole in front of us

very good work, fredk !

so does this mean that the cliffs on the south rim are "only" about 13 meters high ?
with the total crater depth only about 20-30 meters ?

Nirgal, the vertical extent of the cliffs that's visible now is somewhere in the 10 - 13 metre range. But it's hard to say exactly where the top of the cliffs is (we need pancams!) and we don't clearly see the bottoms yet, though based on the orbital images they don't go much lower than we can now see.

Also this is just part of the far rim. Things may be different below us on the near rim...

As far as the total depth goes, it's guesswork as to the slopes in the main bowl, but I think we're certainly consistent with 50 or even 70 metres total depth. Actually it depends which rim you measure from - the near rim is roughly 10 metres higher than the far rim, so add 10 or so to the depth measured from the near rim.

Hehe, I meant to say that I missed the *start* of the party...

NICE views and panoramas everyone, the views are already quite stunning. What's funny is that traveling only some x-number of meters opened up this scenery which all of a sudden makes perfect sense now!

Some more PTgui-Photoshop Mambo-Jambo





I wish we could share these first views in person guys, we're in for a good time -'been a long ride..

Nico

Nico's post above reminds me of something I posted two weeks ago here. Compare the top frame of the attached image to Nico's panorama. As we get closer, notice how the ground will open up at the bottom while the far rim stays comparatively the same, since we're already very close and the crater is huge. So, with navcams we're not really going to see much more detail at the far rim, but pancams will be nice

No, I think this high section is blocking our view of the gap just beyond it, through which we viewed the array of beacons along the far...

Oh, I give up. It must be the cursed beacon.

Brian

Another try at the anaglyph..



Nico

SENSATIONAL VC!

There's more coming down soon. Just took a quick walk down the road to photograph DSS-45 which is locked up on Opportunity at the moment. Here's a photo I took a few minutes ago. NB: Note the shadow on the dish surface from the subreflector. We are just a few degrees off the Sun at the moment.
Click to view attachment

If you think that we are all having fun at UMSF, imagine how Steve and the rest of the MER teams are feeling.

Enjoy
Astro0

Thank you Astro0 - im pulling one all nighter here with the hope for more images and perhaps even additional info when the US guys do their job in my nighttime. So I stay tuned.

If you can climb up there to the focal point of that dish, you could fry some hot dogs there also...

Great and timely pic! Thanks.

I'm surprised that there is a downlink now, there is nothing in the relay schedule for about 8 hours. (although I sometimes struggle to understand that data so I could be wrong).

EDIT: Oh I guess you mean we're in DTE - that makes more sense. I wonder if we'll get more images or if it'll just be checkout data after the reboot into the new software.

You're right James. DTE (Digital Tone Extractor) for anyone wondering.

Astro0

Oh the fun of confilicting abbreviations! I meant Oppy's communicating Direct To Earth (DTE) through her high gain antenna, as opposed to using the UHF relay through Odyssey that isn't scheduled till later.

Thinking about it more, isn't this morning link more likely to be for the sols commands to be uplinked rather than for data to be downlinked? I wouldn't expect anymore images till much later today (7+ hours) (Assuming that the data pipeline is working again!)

JPL Opportunity update "Oppotunity's First Glimpse into 'Victoria Crater'"

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre.../20060919a.html

Thanks Floyd - a *very* quick update by JPL there!

There image contains a bit more detail (no surprise!) particularly in areas that are very bright. It is a spectacular match to the MOC image, so many features that look almost exactly the same!

Here is a 3x stretch of the rim in JPL's image

Click to view attachment

James

...and when I read DTE quickly I get "Data Terminal Equipment"

Here is the far rim in JPL's navcam image compared with a 'straightened' far rim from orbit.

Click to view attachment

James

EDIT: Replaced with a slightly modified version

James: That is strictly top-shelf work...a very useful comparison between the rover's view and the MOC view. Thank you, very much. I'm sure we'll find it very useful in future discussions.

Cheers Tom.

Here is the whole rim straightened out (kind of reverse polar). Could be quite handy in the coming weeks/months.

Click to view attachment

The point Oppy is approaching is at the edge, so the far rim is in the middle. Emma Dean can be seen at the top left.

James

Brilliant, James!

Phil

So are we confirmed to be on restricted Sols now or not? Perhaps even if they are they could scramble to upload a simple 'bump 40 more meters and take a boatload of pics' to Oppy for tomorrow?

Well the upload for tosol (944) has already gone, it's the middle of the sol already. I'm pretty sure the lack of activity tosol is due to the reboot into the new software - because of that I wouldn't expect any driving for a sol or two.

Hopefully we should get the drive direction pancams down later this sol, which would be keep me happy for now.

Press Release - http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2006-111

Yowza! What a neat perspective....

Not to flog a dead horse, but looking at that image made my wonder where the Beacon was? I didn't see any near rim feature that stood out with a bright contrast.

Crikey, James, I was just thinking earlier today "now if only I knew how to take the orbital VC image and unwrap it straight..."

I didn't even have to ask!

Thanks James, we can easily see Sofi from the ground now.

Fredk wrote : "In fact, we can now do a very firm measurement of the slope of that "bay". I've identified a feature at the top of the bay on both images (green arrow) and a feature some distance down (red arrow). The orbital map gives about 46 metres horizontal separation between the two, and today's navcam gives 13.6 metres vertical separation. Highschool trig gives an average slope of just 16.5 degrees!"

When you look the far rim, one can think that it's vertical. That can be true for the cliff, but it's nice to see your mesurment confirm that it'll be drivable in between. Be ALL care of what you see. A Mountain, a cliff, a glaciar appears to be much more vertical from a distance than they realy are.
Here is (another) Earth exemple :
See the little glacier on the right above the shed that look vertical :
Click to view attachment
The same from a side view is visible in the centrer of the picture :
Click to view attachment

Could be too steep for Oppy, but it's for the demonstration

You can see the beacon at the far left of James's pan in post 78 above. It's pretty much at the highest part of the rim. We're now so close to the rim that we're looking at it quite forshortened. Still the pancam views should be great if they point that way.

OMG!!
Squee!!
Squee!!!
*pant*pant*

Whew, did it just get hot in here or what?

That Victoria girl, she is HOT!!

--
Still waiting on those Card Carrying Mars Widow cards. Maybe the caption would be "Mars Widow: Find my SO at www.unmannedspaceflight.com" with Spirit's panorama on one side, and the upcoming Victoria pan on the other.

James,
Perhaps 'DTE' could stand for "Damn That Errata".

It's been a busy day for Mars comms.
We were two-way on MER1 when I left my message.
MGS has got its problems at the moment.
We're getting closer to conjunction.
Makes it all very interesting for us, just as things are getting interesting on Mars.

Astro0

Wow!

I'm totally amazed about the details of the far rim that are already visible from this location! What a great view there is ahead of us in a few days! Thanks to everyone for the exceptionally good image processing (as always ).

Michael

Great pictures James. The pancam pics will be brilliant. This morning in the Channel Islands we had an island wide power cut and I thought just my luck that oppy will have sneaked up to the edge and the pictures will be flooding in but power is returning all is well on this exciting day
and Hendric Squee indeed.
Roy F

My wish too Nico...
Indeed a long long ride, but worthy, wasn't it?
Keep that Mambo-Jambo coming!

Great work james!

Damn!...I'm happy!

A big thanks to everybody here for the steady stream of up-to-the-minute news and images. My new class of GCSE Astronomy students started yesterday evening and they were thrilled to see the first Victoria pictures, including the first anaglyph, being posted here in 'real time' during their 2 hour session. Fortunately we have a nice big screen and a couple of pairs of 3D specs to pass round. (I think I should order a few more pairs for the coming days and weeks!)

In the Amstel tradition......"This is gonna be great!"

Just a bit of fun...

Click to view attachment

I knew you would look lovely Victoria...well this looks like the beginning of the beautiful friendship...

--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Toma B @ Sep 20 2006, 01:11 PM) </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
I knew you would look lovely Victoria...well this looks like the beginning of the beautiful friendship...
[/quote]
Any allusion to these words ?
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...ost&p=56795