Hello all !

The next steps described by Steve :

http://athena.cornell.edu/news/mubss/

Interesting new software capabilities also !

Robert

PS: new topic because Duck Bay is the point where Oppys pancams should take the ultimate shot of Victoria

bingo

But I'm not really going to feel like we've "reached" Victora Crater until that first big Pancam picture of it is on the ground. Stay tuned.

Can someone throw up a picture of Victoria and point out this "duck bay"? Thanks, you guys are the best!

exactly my feeling too ...

hope they take all the time necessary to test the new software as thouroughly as possible before
doing the big rim-dance

Looks like Steve's words do show quite a bit nervousness about this (major) Software upgrade:



... but so far everything looks very good with new SW !

No, read it again. Duck Bay is where Oppy will arrive and take navcams and pancams of the two capes on each side. Then, on one of those capes the 'Ulitimate Pan' will be taken.



Click to view attachment

James

-- Steve Squyres

No kidding! No blind drives here! Fixed distance drives as far as can be clearly seen and then hit the parking brake!

"We'll have to tiptoe up to Duck Bay pretty carefully; if those images of the far side are any indicator, it may drop off pretty steeply! We'll shoot some Navcam and a bit of Pancam from there, pick either Cape Verde or Cabo Frio for the big Pancam pan, and then start moving into position. "
-- Steve Squyres

My vote is to do the big Pancam pan from Cape Verde. That would park Oppy almost beneath the Beacon, and provide a truly spectacular view in every direction.

David

A funny theme:

The rovers are getting older, but they're suddenly a whole lot smarter.



Hope that Oppy would obey to JPL commands to stop exactly 50 cms before to tiptoe on rim of Duck Bay.

Nervous...what happens if the metric conversion from inch to cms is wrong or the new loadad flight software has a bug! then Oppy might go into a pretty steep.

Rodolfo

Duck Bay? Could this be a reference to the Near Rim Team Mascot?????

That I don't know...
What I do know is that Mr. Squyres received one of this sometime ago...

You mean that is the prize! Very very neat..., eh..., hey that WOULD be really cool if so! Not only the rovers get smarter...

Do you see any Sponge Bay around?...I don't...

How about this-- Duck Bay ?

--Bill

"...naming prominent features along the rim after places visited by the Victoria during the first circumnavigation of the Earth."
Steve Squyres

Did anyone find a relation between Duck Bay and Magellan's voyage?...I didn't...There is one (Baía dos Patos) in Santa Catarina (Brazil) but I don't know if the expedition passed there...

Would fit very well this real Duck Bay, but I don't have a clue.
Btw. Ustrax great job on the naming! Anno 2006 the Initiator of Victoria's rim naming was a member of... (aka Ustrax)

I thought that Duck Bay occupied a wider area but now I don't think so...And that I knew the location of Cabo Verde and Cabo Frio but now...I'm all messed up...
So here I am asking for some dust devil to clean up my ideas...Is this correct?...:

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/ustrax3/DuckBay.jpg

To me it looks like there are some features matching there...And the ones in the horizon...Later ustrax...later...

Ustrax,

Here's my take on what we're seeing. I've added some blue lines to illustrate. The two blue lines on the left seem to correlate well, but I'm less certain about the eastern lines.

Click to view attachment

Castor

Well I disagree with both of you!

Here is my understanding of the situation.

Click to view attachment

The headings correlate well and make sense with what we see on the far rim.
I've also included my understanding of what the JPL names refer to.

James

James,

I think you're right. You can clearly see the annulus extending further away from us where Ustrax has marked Duck Bay.

Castor

Is this the duck?


Click to view attachment

(crop of Castor's image)

...since it's late September, I've now got this image of Oppy in camo crouching in the reeds with her Mossberg (uh, make that Mossbauer) and trusty labrador retriever next to her


[edit: switch to jpg and extend hunting metaphor]

James, what you're saying is that none of the high peaks showing up in my stretched image are one of the referred promontories?...So...Where are they?...

That is very cool!

Having just read a book on Magellan's circumnavigation (or rather his fleet's circumnavigation), I believe they are referring to Bahia de los Patos in Argentina (he named it in Portuguese) somewhere around 48 degrees South. The "ducks" actually turned out to be Penguins. Fascinating book BTW.

Thanks for that babakm!
That's it!:
"After two weeks the ships had reached Cape St Mary where Magellan is reputed to have said of the large hill behind the Cape "I see a mountain" ("Montem Video") thereby naming the place where Uruguay's capital city now stands. They explored the estuary of the River plate, ruling out any possible channel and then continued South with the weather growing increasingly colder, the terrain bleaker and the seas rougher before stopping briefly at Bahia de los Patos (literally Ducks' Bay) named after the abundant penguins found there. The penguins along with sea lions provided the necessary fresh food suplies and after sheltering from tremendous storms they continued southwards."

I was looking for a connection in Argentina, because of Patagonia...
In Portuguese is Baía dos Patos and I couldn't found anything...

Guess both could be right. But if they named it in the tradition of Victoria's circumnavigation, it should be called Patos Bay or so.

The name (bahia - pronounced ba-'i-a, h not pronounced, stress on second syllable) is an archaic spelling of the Portuguese word meaning "bay" and comes from "a baía de Todos os Santos" (All Saints' Bay...) (Bahia is a state of Brazil...)

Don't know if it's relevant, but it seems the name Duck's Bay couldn't be any clearer with Odave's drawing of the duck!

Yes Bahia is archaic Portuguese but in this context (Bahia de los Patos) is modern Spanish.
In my map I'll use the names as they are pronounced locally, Duck Bay = Bahia de los Patos, Cape Verde = Cabo Verde, and so on...:

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/ustr...ictoriamap3.jpg

I know a place that could fit the description!
If you go (much) south from Buenos Aires, you'll get to "Peninsula Valdes". There, you'll find sea Lions as well as "Pinguinos de Magallanes "(not sure how to write this but this means Magellan) where there's a collony of about one Million Pinguins. It clearly looks like a bay on the South side and that's also a breeding place for a type of Whale in the month of june only. Ocean is quite calm there. This correspond to the description. I've been there back in 1988 but my slides are not digitalised .
Well, it could be the place.
Edited : here we go :
Click to view attachment

I agree 75% with you.
My discrepancy is with the left feature which I would locate just right of your proposal.

Click to view attachment

About Cabo Verde (and I'm using the portuguese wording too ) I previously thought it would be the whole ridge to the left of Duck Bay including the beacon but, given this classification of Bays and Capes, now I believe it should actually be the first, hmmm ..., cape to the left of Duck Bay.

Tesheiner, I was just preparing my version when your's appeared! Good news is I agree 100% with you! My image shows a few more features I've identified:
Click to view attachment

That is the Punta Tombo colony, which is the only large penguin colony on the mainland of a continent anywhere in the World. Incidentally there are some "Patos" there too, large and flightless steamer ducks, and they may have been more numerous back then.

tty

Good to know that.
For those four features to the left (incl. bright outcrop & beacon) I was a bit doubtful about their location. Actually I was temped to place the beacon on the next cape to the left of your proposed placement (and the same as I point in my route map), but your proposal is quite convincent.
Just let me (or somebody else) do a couple of distance measurements via parallax to confirm it; or did you do it already?

Relevant page from the book is attached.

Thanks Babakm, description is very consistant to what I know. Bahia Blanca is about half way from Buenos Aires to Punta Tombo/Peninsula Valdes and as pointed by tty, that's the only place where we can find out pinguins.
I love this thread. I think we'll have fun to find out the places visited by Magellan corresponding of the naming as the Mer team release more and more "official" names.
Will be nice to have this in a more general thread instead of just here in Duck Bay

Hi guys (and gals?), longtime stealth reader since discovering UMSF a few months ago when we were at Erebus. Great image stitching, colorizing, rover locating and commentary, etc. on the Oppy threads. If I had DSL at home, I'd have to get my wife one of those widow cards.

Hey, Tesh, I found your misplaced Beacon while reading a local paper....seems someone moved it recently...

Beacon

Perhaps someone could photoshop it and place it to scale on Victoria's rim at it's proper location ..... on the near-rim.

Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

Extending on my previous post I picked some distances using AlgorimancerPG tool with the following results:
Beacon: 150m (aprox.) --> Match!
Left outcrop: 80-90m --> Match!

Fredk, you got it!

And I now think we are also seeing Cabo Verde. The feature highlighted in yellow (see below) is at the proper heading and at a range of 120m. Match too!

Click to view attachment

Monstrously off-topic -sorry- but: there's a flamenco song 'Bahia de Cadiz', by Camaron and Paco de Lucia... recorded in the late 70s. (Disclaimer: I know almost nothing about Theoretical or Applied Spanish!)

Yes, Monstrously off-topic
Flamingos are NOT ducks

Your right Tesheiner, it was late here so I took a bit of a guess at that one - should know better than to do that these days.



Right, I think it's quite the opposite in fact. It's looking to me like the capes slope downward toward there ends.

Tesheiner has already pointed it out in the navcams but here is Cape Verde in the pancams:

Click to view attachment

James

Well yeah, and "flamenco" is not a bird either

Is this the Duck ?

Robert

Click to view attachment

I think the one in odave's post quacks better....

Hey, if it looks like a duck....



[sorry, that had to come out sooner or later ]

Tesheiner, I think we're pretty close on identifying these features. I only disagree with you on the "sluffing slab", what you highlight in yellow. I think it's closer than you put it. Here's my final iteration using the pancam image:
Click to view attachment
In particular, the Beacon (farthest left feature) seems pretty certain, and it does agree with the route map position you've given all along.

I put the sluffing slab closer because it looks to me that the next feature I've marked to the left of it is the cliff on the near side of Cabo Verde (Cape A1), and the slab appears to be in front of it.

Anyway, this is of course difficult because of the saturated whites in the pancam image and because it's hard to get accurate parallax distances that far away, and we're pushing the limits of the satellite image. All this should be clearer after some movement!

Ok, so our only disagreement is regarding "sluffing slab vs. Cabo Verde".
You are right pointing out the accuracy (or lack of it) of parallax measurements. But I think that by using the pancams [left, right] (not the navcams for sure!) and selecting point-like features or at least features with enough contrast we can keep the measurements within the one-pixel error which is about 10-15m for distances on the range of 100-120m.

I picked three points in the pancams (see below) and measured distances starting at 106m and up to 120m. This range is consistent with Cabo Verde while the feature/slab you point out in front of the cape is at only 85m, so I still think we are seeing the right (not upper) face of Cabo Verde.

Anyway, we need only a small drive to know the truth, as you said.

BTW, I agree with James that the cape has a downward slope and in that case it's about 5 degrees. Watch your step Oppy!

Click to view attachment

With the appearance of the unclipped jpl pancam pans it's now much easier to see what's what in the "slab" area. Have a look at this 2x vertical stretched anaglyph:
Click to view attachment
(Or much better, use stereo photomaker to view the original L and R pans cross-eyed).

It's now clear that you're right about it's position, Tesheiner. My original impression of the slab (yellow area on your image) was that it had physically separated from the plains, with the bright crescent shaped area on its immediate left being the exposed crack face (hence my name "sluffing slab"). Now it's clear that the slab is continuously connected to the plains to the left (ie it's part of Cabo Verde), and the bright crescent is in front of the slab.

Still weird geometry, and I can't wait to get a different viewpoint!

The unpegged versions are so much easier on the eye, aren't they? I am not sure if I am seeing things the same way you guys are, especially since I am getting somewhat different distances from AlgoimancerPG. The originally described "sloughing slab" doesn't really look like a "slab" to me in 3D anymore. It seems that there are several outcrops/surfaces at different distances that are juxtaposed in this line of sight. It was suggested in the original raw jpegs, but it is more apparent now.

At that range the error bounds really need to be taken into account, and unfortunately the farther away the target, the "fuzzier" features become, unless it's something nice and sharp like a cliff edge (in which case you might get better results confining it to a 2D calculation.

As to the unpegged versions - yeah, it's just not fair that the only recent images we get to play with are loaded with compression artifacts ; we fund the mission, they keep the good stuff until they get bored with 'em, and these pics make it clear just how extensive the compression of the immediately released pics really is. Yeah, I know we're much better of as compared the the apparently mythical ESA missions, but still. Okay, rant over

The calibrated images take work; If there was a chance we'd get them sooner it sure wouldn't include all images..

But I must admit I'd like to see them at first instance too...

Nico