Oppy won't be able to climb on sandy surface. It is well know of her limitation with her experiences in Purgatory and Jummerbught ripples. Around Victoria Crater has ramps of greater than 10 degree. There might be few concrete ramps or over outcrop similar to ones of Endurance crater, these are only places that Oppy can go down to study the layered outcrop but by few meters down from rim and nothing else.

It would be a be a tough decision for JPL members in advance months, go down and stay inside Victoria Crater for forever or not by going to Big Craters that is a very remote possibility.

See my picture when I was driving at about 25-30 degree slope of a giant dune of 80 meters height at the post http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...ost&p=69857

So Oppy can go down from any ramp.
Rodolfo

Aaarrgh! Not this again!

Looks like your using 16.8 degrees as the pancam fov - this is a myth! it's 16.0

People got so confused before that we ended up having to ask Jim Bell directly here

Each pixel actually subtends 0.273mrad (0.0156 deg)

James

A crop of Nico's pan showing the "caves" of Cosmic Rocker. The portion circled in black appears like it may have an overhang over the dark "cave" layer. The white circle perhaps shows an area where the roof collapsed down. Of course the resolution is still not decisive - there may be no undercut layer at all, just a dark one.
Click to view attachment
Edit: That was Climber's "caves". Dang, there's just been too much to take in recently!

This is looking really cool. I would resist calling it a cave though...an overhang and a cave aren't the same thing. A cave would be really cool though.

I have tried to merge basic colors from recent color data with the pancam panorama I stitched together. Here is the result.

Yeah...but unless we see something like a dinosaur bone sticking out of one of the strata, I think it would be far more productive to forego entry into Victoria if the slopes appear even moderately hazardous & try to reach another target after performing a good remote survey...at this point, who really knows how far we can go? Let's see as much of Meridiani as we can.

Sorry to get you back into this debate James. I'm sure the man knows his own instrument. I'll just note though that the National Space Science Data Center, "NASA's permanent archive for space science mission data" thinks it's 16.8. Ergo, not a myth. :-))

In any event it is not 3 decimal points of accuracy I was after. Whether it's 16.8 or 16, the difference over 800m is less than half a metre.

I agree on what you say and was about to write it.
Except that I first claimed for the caves

Well I think it's beacuse some respectable places like this quote the wrong value that it has become such a widely beleved myth in the first place. Just beacuse somebody/somewhere respectable believes in a myth doesn't mean it isn't one!



Sure it doesn't really change the result by a huge amount (the cliffs are big - we know that ) but you did quote your result to 3 sig figs. More importantly you handed out a .xls sheet which I assume contains the same error and the 16.8 error has already spread way too far without it being used in tools that people will beleve are accurate.

James

WOW tedstryk ! this is the best color image of VC so far !
how did you do the merging ?

There's a lot to take in with these new pancams, isn't there? As much as I was awaiting the clarity of these indigo filters, I now find myself missing the IR views. I think those few places where layering is suggested are indicative of what will become more apparent as we get better views. I sure hope so, because layering is what we should expect to see in the walls of a crater punched into the top of what is supposed to be an 800 meter thick pile of sediment. ...stay tuned.

James, for more precision this should be the average value. Due to rectilinear nature of the optics, angle subtended from each pixel should vary going from the center to the edge, as 1/tan(angle). This variation is small for PanCam (less than 0.7%) and more important for NavCam (5.5%) while doesn't apply to hazcam, which is not rectilinear).

Dilo, I was under the impression that JB and co had tried to measure the change in IFOV across the image and found it to be zero within there error limit (~0.5%).

0.273 ± 0.001 is good enough for me. If you want better, then before you start worrying about unknown distortions, you need to start worrying about which pancam you are using!

Camera : Focal Length mm : FOV deg : IFOV mrad/pixel : f/#
103 43.018 ± 0.220 16.052 ± 0.082 0.2736 ± 0.0014 20.00 ± 0.06
104 43.165 ± 0.220 15.978 ± 0.099 0.2723 ± 0.0017 20.06 ± 0.09
114 43.065 ± 0.220 16.015 ± 0.068 0.2730 ± 0.0012 20.02 ± 0.06
115 43.019 ± 0.220 16.032 ± 0.094 0.2733 ± 0.0016 20.00 ± 0.03

Few hours left, but hell, I couldn't wait...

Hey Nico.

Absolutely awesome panorama of VC.
I was just showing it to the Ops Team here at the DSN in Canberra.
They helped get this data back and they deserved to see it in all its visual glory.

They were totally blown away by your work.

Me too!

Cheers
Astro0

QUOTE(kenny @ Sep 26 2006, 09:56 PM)
Are people noticing the fissures on the rim in the Cabo Frio direction? Sort of like the arcuate rim cracks that appear near volcanic craters, or the slump separation of a snow cornice (although obviously in vastly different material from both those)




Fredk said in Post 461
"Here's a pancam version of my navcam anaglyph of Cabo Frio:

Frio is the ridge jutting in from the right and in 3D you can see it's between the foreground and the far rim."

Fredk
I was interpreting the apparent big hole in the right foreground of your picture posted above as being a slump feature a few metres back from the main rim of Victoria. Might be Cabo Frio itself, but see what you think...
Kenny

Let me just say first that I'm no expert at all, far from it. But isn't the white layer we see here the same layer we've been driving on for a long while, the one of the "etched terrain" (and Eagle)? And, if there's only this one distinct white layer, does that indicate that there was just a shallow puddle of water here back in the past, and all below the white line are just layers produced by "dry" processes...?

Stunning pictures, great job all!

some additional anaglyphs..

Nico

Many thanks to everyone who's been creating such stunning images.

What I'm having a hard time getting my head around, from these panoramas, is that the lowest portion of the crater's insides that we can currently see is still way up the sides of Victoria. Something like this - the orange line marking the limit.



I grew up with colour Viking imagery that said "Mars" to my generation. As good as Spirit's panoramas have been, I strongly suspect we're just a few weeks (and metres) away from having a new "defining Mars" image in the public perception. And it's going to be spectacular...

Andy

Truly beautiful picture, made my day seeing, downloading and then exploring that. Love the colours; put my "quick and dirty" version at the end of yesterday to absolute shame... Can't wait to see what you do with the new pictures as they come in...

I think we're looking at getting to the 'arrival' point from which 'the' panorama is taken possibly as soon as this weekend. It would make sense in terms of sequence writing restrictions ( i.e. every Sunday being restricted in some way )

Doug

IIRC, "the" panorama would be taken from one of the capes after reaching the rim at Duck Bay.
I agree with the intention to reach the rim before this weekend but the decision to select and drive to either Cabo Verde or Cabo Frio would be left to next week, imho.

Sol 950 processed by myself
based on CAHVOR Model ..

L7

Click to view attachment

and stereo

Click to view attachment

GOAL ...

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...EKP0673L0M1.JPG

Is this real, or is it a better fake than Pando's?
If it is real, it is a little disappointing in terms of the scientific studies that look possible.

Indian3000, that looks like a great dawn shot of fresh powder snow on Victoria.

Now where are my skis?????

Wow....

That closest cape.

Nice to see an insider provide some advance pics too at last, if only 8 minutes in advance :-P

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...EKP0673L0M1.JPG

Wauw, look at that shot "general" just posted: that slope looks doable! At least the lower part, let's see how it looks further up. And a nice parking lot there is for Opportunity in front of that HUGE rock wall!

If this first pic is indicative, then we might indeed have been fooled by the foreshortening in the more distant views, as many have suggested. The slope doesn't look too daunting. Maybe it won't be so difficult to get into - and even out of - Victoria.

Sometimes the rover crew seems a bit slow to us impatient followers. Well, not this time! - Great aggressive driving!

I'm flabbergasted.

Oh my.................

Pics are in, we see sand dunes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think we might be needing this.



Doug

Don't hoard the rest of the images now then... We can't wait another hour!
:-)

d*** good one doug

Every time - EVERY time - I think this Forum can't get any more perfectly pitched and in touch with what I'm thinking something proves me wrong..! Genius, Doug, sheer genius...

My first thought: "We're NEVER going to see the view from the ****** bottom now..."

(chink) <--- first coin landing in box.

I think you don't know what your talking about - IMHO.

Drop dead gorgeous

...cue the "2001 Space Odyssey" theme music...

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!

Hands up, I didn't actually believe until really recently that we'd ever see this view, it just seemed soooo far away... now, to be standing beside Oppy, on the edge of this incredible wound in Mars' landscape, looking out across at those outcrops and ledges, and gazing down at that beautiful sea of rippled sand, I actually feel quite emotional. What an amazing adventure this is.

To think that someday in the future native martians - men, women and children - will stand at this very spot, looking down into the crater, and think back to the day the interior was seen for the first time sends shivers down my spine...

Holy... <clink> <clink>

The usual

Click to view attachment


No attempt at brightness matching

Now that Opportunity has arrived at Victoria Crater, I guess a new topic is needed?

The view is incredible!!

Congratulations to Pando for a highly accurate preview.

Here's a reaction for Doug's box:

羔羊中的孤羊。What a stunning view of Miss Vicky!

(Pronounced "Gao yang jong duh goo yang" and meaning "Motherless goats of all motherless goats." Shamelessly borrowed from the TV series Firefly, one of the finest sci-fi series ever.)

Or...

"Look at the size of that frakking crater!"

(from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, possibly the second best sci-fi series ever made... or third, after The Clangers... )

sorry... <chink>

Some of us may have trouble grasping the true size of Victoria and the scale differences between Victoria & Endurance. It's one thing to know the numbers, it's another to grok it from the images.

Perhaps one of our math & image gurus can help give a sense of the scale, maybe put two similar images of Endurance & Victoria crater walls together with Mystery Man standing at the top or bottom. That should give some perspective as to how much vertical relief Vicky is showing us.

w00t!!!

OM*G! (<clinck>)

Pancams! My kingdom for some pancams!

OK, you've conviced me, here is a quick brightness/contrast matched version

Click to view attachment

James

Been thinking before, the almost vertical walls of the capes are going to be a problem solar energy wise too. Oppy can't just be placed anywhere to RAT a few holes, otherwise she will be in the shadow of the cape for a part of the sol! So the places of investigation need to be carefully selected in this sense too.

I am purveyor of arrival - I will give the word

Doug

Some of those rocks that have fallen down the left hand side of the crater, in the mid distance, have to be 10 feet tall don't they ?