Very soon we're going to have a hell of a lot of features of Victoria to discuss, so I think it's about time we had some way of telling each other which bits we are talking about. (A bit like naming craters Alpha, Beta.. Zeta, etc)

I know Stu started to label a few features, but only a few, and there are A LOT!

I've tried to divide Victoria into logical sections and given each a letter. Then within each region I've numbered each point of the rim that appears to bend in the opposite way to the curve of the crater, hence numbering "Capes". Some are quite subtle and therefore may not be seen very well in reality but I think it's better to have them all in there.

Here is the map, it is externally linked so should be updated with the latest version. (Now updated with the (half scale) HiRise image)



(Click image for larger version, ~400kB)

So:
A1 is Cape Verde
A2 is The Beacon
P4 is Cabo Frio
and as of the 943 drive we can see the far rim between E2 and K1.

Of course I'm sure that some of the more prominent features will soon acquire more meaningful names, but this should still help us all follow what we're all talking about!

Bays are given the same designation as the cape on there 'clockwise side', thus most of the major bays (which tend to separate lettered regions) then have a "1" designation (making the rule easier to remember). Bay A1, where Oppy is heading first is Duck Bay and the bay that Fredk has measured the slope of is Bay I1. Most of the major bays are marked in red.

JPL's names are also added, as are their numbered capes and bays - in square brackets.
Informal UMSF names are added within round brackets.

James

Works for me, James.

--Bill

Coincidentally, Mark Adler (who has been doing a nice job as Emily's guest blogger this week) just posted some relevant comments regarding this very topic. He's described the naming convention that the MER team is using for the features at Victoria. It would be nice if we could use the same names, but unfortunately it will probably be some time before we learn more about the official names...so your proposal works for me, as well.

James, I was just trying to think of a temporary naming scheme myself - again today you've managed to transform my wishes into reality!

I'm OK with your scheme as far as capes go, but what do you suggest for naming bays? "The bay between H1 and I1" is a bit tedious, but perhaps just "bay H1-I1"?

And only yesterday I was just starting to think - "I wonder if I could estimate the slope of some bays using the MOC and Navcams" before seeing your post doing the very calculation. Great minds think alike, as they say.



Yeah I was thinking about that, and I think "Bay H1-I1", etc. is they way to go, unless we adopted some convention where the bay has the same name as the cape clockwise(or anti) of it. But maybe that would get confusing, "Is it the cape clockwise of the bay, or the bay clockwise of the cape?"

James

Doesn't matter; no-one paid the slightest bit of attention to my suggestions anyway. Numbering makes sense, tho if we were being daring and creative we could come up with something better I'm sure... naaah, let's stick with numbers, your map is excellent James, a great starting point. I'm sure we'll have the real names soon enough, they're probably already decided upon anyway by the MER guys.

Alike indeed! But you know, there are plenty more bays on this "shore", and there's nothing like independent confirmation to boost the confidence of even a "great mind".

But it's not like we can't think of a thousand other things to do with these pictures, and oh yeah, almost forgot, perhaps actually get a bit of work done that we're actually paid to do!

Actually, thinking about it some more, this could work. If bays are given the same designation as the cape on there clockwise side then most of the major bays (which tend to seperate lettered regions) would have a "1" designation making the scheme easier to remember. Duck Bay would be "Bay A1" and the bay that Fredk has measured the slope of would be "Bay I1"

James

Cape and Bay works, too. We can adopt a temporary alpha-numeric scheme and revise that to whatever JPL/Cornell use. Remember, "informal" and formal names.

I was in-informally thinking along the lines of salients and recesses, but this ain't tectonic...

--Bill

Does anybody know when the clean (i.e. unlabelled) version of the latest Victoria base image will be released by MSSS? And what number will it have?

Castor

For a date I don't know for sure; there was talk about an October release.
About numbering it should be S11-00471.

I like this abbreviated bay notation. Let's use it!

I think all the features should be named for all the diehards in both forums who talk about The Rovers and their Journeys and Discoveries. It would be great to honor us all.

Just imagine seeing Tesheiner Ridge, fredk outlook, Horton's viewpoint, Stu Ripples down at the bottom, Doug's overhang or jamescanvin Coffee Stop at Beacon??? LOL

With all due respect to our Boss, I'm not entirely sure I want to see hi-resolution, enhanced views of Doug's, er, "overhang"...!!!!

I'm with you on that Bobby! Also, I seem to remember after Stu pointed out the interesting south-west bays, some possible gullies, interesting overhangs and some other features, that someone else suggested at least one being named "Stu's inlets" (or ramps, bays, whatever they were being referred to at the time.) Can't find the post though... this was a quite a few months back, IIRC.

IMO A1, B1 etc are (a) very dull, ( entirely arbitrary ( c) forgettable (d) no fun! These are "informal" names after all, it's not as if it really means anything except here on UMSF, for the next few days/weeks until we learn the official names. Also, a semi-objective way to allocate names would be by total number of posts... eg. on the route map thread, that gives us the following candidate names:

Tesheiner
djellison
dilo
Bill Harris
Sunspot
Phil Stooke
RNeuhaus
CosmicRocker
Pando
dot.dk
jamescanvin
climber
Shaka
gregp1962
alan
ElkGroveDan
mhoward
Bob Shaw
Toma B
algorimancer
OWW
SigurRosFan
paxdan
ustrax
dvandorn
ToSeek
lyford
Nirgal
TheChemist
marswiggle
hortonheardawho
[... etc ..]

...which would all look good with 'Cape' or 'Bay' after them.

Don't forget Bobby. (After all it was his suggestion).

Can also be sorted out by :
+ near or far rimers
+ bet before or after arrival at VC

Actually - I think we're going down a bit of a cul-de-sac here as there is a big list of places that Victoria visited waiting to be assigned to the various features 'officially' and we could get confused if we try to 'jump' that process.

The odd crater ( Albert became Erebus, Corner became Beagle etc etc ) is fair enough - but a whole swathe of Capes and Bays would be an un-necessarily complicated twist to what I think will become quite a hard place for us to get to know.

So - my suggestion ( flattering though it was to have someone suggest my name should be in the mix ) is that we don't go through this process as we'll end up very confused.

Doug

Agree, as I wrote on "Duck Bay" topic, I think we'll have fun to find out the places (on Earth) visited by Magellan corresponding of the naming (in VC) as the Mer team release more and more "official" names.
No doubt we could have imagination finding out names in VC but, by keeping A,B,C, 1,2,3 there'll be no confusion untill they'll get named by Mer team.
On the other end, opening a "detective" thread about what I said here above, would link Victoria's exploration to Magellan's journey, and I like this (Ustrax) idea

Names do sounds more personal. (Though, I would also not want to be stuck below "Doug's Overhang" or "Pando's Protrusion")

But, the numbering system sounds good in this case because it's more a matter determining location of a feature. The feature can be named, and it's location described by the numbering system.

Do not know, Castor. But I worked to remove labels and I encourage all (especially James) to use this version.
About idea to use forum members names, I like it but the number of bays is limited and someone could be angry for exclusion...

Thanks for pointing me at your cleaned up image again Dilo - I was going to use that the first time but I couldn't find where I downloaded it or your post again.

Right! I'm staking a claim to the ledge that is M1. I'm sticking my flag in it. It is Mizar's Cornice! There, I claimed it, it's mine.

Love that! Wow, this could become an UMSF martian land rush!

Like stallions in the days of Earth's Old Wild West, a line of rovers comes screaming across Meridiani, dust trailing behind them... as they approach Victoria they peel away in different directions, their drivers heading for different outcrops, ledges and bays, jostling for position, nudging and side-swiping competitors out of the way... as each rover reaches its target its door opens and a spacesuited figure bounds out, clutching a pole with a banner or pennant hanging from the top... with a celebratory yell they thrust the pole into the frigid martian ground, claiming it as their own, and stand back in triumph to watch their banner fluttering in the weak martian wind... looking around them they see the rim of Victoria decorated with dozens of other banners and pennants, the greys and tans of the great impact scar overwhelmed by the bright reds, oranges, greens and blues of the UMSF members' flags flapping and cracking above it...

And to quote the great man hinmself... I want that one...

Click to view attachment

Once we'll have a good shot of them, I'll claim Climber's Caves!

Here are the labeled Victoria maps using Dilo's cleaned version.





(Click images for full size versions, 188kB each)

James

Thanks James, they're going to be invaluable in the weeks and months ahead.

Absolutely! Good work, I made a print of that to keep track of things.

Thanks James.

Nico

Okay, just to kill some time here before something actually happens here's a just-a-bit-of-fun question for those who feel like playing...

YOU'RE in charge of Victoria feature naming. You're The Guy at JPL who makes the decision. Your word is, like Doug's, Law, no-one will argue against your choices. You have James' excellent chart spread out in front of you on your big, Battlestar Galactica bridge type underlit table, and your job is to name those outcrops and features... and you can call them and name them after whatever the heck you want.

What would you name the features after? Movie characters? Characters from sci-fi? Historical figures? Figures from martian exploration history? Fave cartoon characters? Family members and friends?

Absolutely nothing wrong with the Magellan-inspired names, just wondering what UMSFers would choose if they had the power...

I'll keep the Magellan proposition because :
1- it's got the spirit of exploration
2- It'll be fun to find out with others UMSF'ers where the marsian named place are actually on Earth and how/why there were named by Magellan
3- Steve Squyres said to "our" Ustrax it was a good idea

I agree with all your points I'm not suggesting an "alternative" map of martian place names, not going to complicate things, I'm just asking a general question... just looking for a little insight into UMSFers interests, that's all.

This is my very first post in any MER related forum. My best work is in the icy moons of Saturn.
But I will suggest a naming convention for the Victoria features. How about naming them after the people who died on 9/11? US technology being used on Mars honoring US citizens who died on that day!

OK Stu got the point!
It's hard not to say :
Mer's related people ; Astronomes or astronomy related names basicaly lot of topics looking kind of "evident" for us here.
So, I'd pick "Actual or ancient Ethnics minorities of the world" (I've myself a lot to learn on the subject)

Marco, James

beautiful map and labeling scheme. My personnal sweet spot is for K1. Ken's Koves: Boating in Victoria.

It looks to be overlooking one of the best spots to launch boat tours and scientific expeditions with a stirring view of both Victoria and Sofi.

ken

Welcome to the MER corner, angel1801. I think everyone here understands why you would suggest the names of those unfortunate souls, but with almost 3000 of them to memorialize it will be difficult to choose which names to use for features we identify here. I think about those people almost every day as I evaluate conditions on this planet. I keep hoping that the the people who can give more official names to things will find a way to remember them in this mission. This might seem too graphic to some, but that field of dust ripples we expect to see at the bottom of this crater somehow seems morbidly appropriate for such a memorial.

I originally came to this thread to post a suggestion, but it seemed irreverent to tack my suggestion onto my previous post. As I was trying to identify a feature on the opposite rim, it became apparent that it would be easier to do so if James' labelled map was oriented like the route map, with north on the top. I guess an alternative would be to add the labels to the route map, but that could become cluttered in the future. ...just a thought.

As for suggesting alternative names, for the time being, I'm comfortable with calling E1, E1.

I think ethnic groups get enough places for them at the moment.

ie Titan, Rhea, Ariel, Triton, Io, etc

There are lots of un-named craters on Rhea that need names right now. On this moon, creation myths and places of the worlds ethnic groups are used.

On Titan, we have names that use two different ethnic groups in one feature name.

Triton has sea and aquatic gods and places from all the world's cultures.

Ariel has spirits from the world's cultures.

And Io has multi-cultural names for fire gods.

Doug, I'm thinking that it would a good to have James' two charts in post #26 of this thread pinned in the Opportunity forum topic menu for quick reference.

In fact, as I think about it, what if there were a thread that is 'read only' to everyone but the administrator, (Doug) that had nothing but basic satellite views and maps?

Many times, I find myself searching for a map or satellite view that I remember seeing but can't find. It would be nice to be able to have one thread with just the maps etc. and no comments. The comments could be in the regular threads....kind of a reference library of maps.

Your right, it would be better if north was at the top - I'll sort it when I get a chance. I wouldn't add all the labels to the route map just those that we start talking about a lot.

To help you all with your ID's of the far rim, here is JPL's pancam mosaic alongside my labeled straightened rim.

Click to view attachment

As were not sitting at the centre of Victoria, a few features don't quite line up, but it's pretty close.

James

Just a quick note to say thanks for the excellent work you've done on these images james; I know it's helped me make a lot more sense out of Victoria. As the crater opens up before our eyes your labelled panoramas are going to be invaluable for us all. Cheers!

Thanks Stu, if you liked that, you'll love this.

I've been playing around (as you do on a non driving sol! ) and I've managed to distort the MOC image in such a way as to fit to the viewing angles from Duck Bay. i.e The line of sight from Duck Bay to any feature is vertically up in the distorted MOC image, it's not perfect but pretty close.

So here is another version of the pancam/MOC comparison and it's a much better fit to what we see.

Click to view attachment

James

Very nice...

Don't know about anyone else, but I'm ready to get out and give Oppy a push at this point. If you look at the top half of James' latest creation you can see that just below our current line of sight are some very intriguing features... hints of gullies, rock falls, more ledges and structure... and STILL Sofi crater is fascinating me, no-one has yet answered my asked-donkeys'-years-ago question of when it was created, pre- or post-VC impact... any ideas..?

Couple of items of interest...

I asked this some time ago, but no-obne replied, so I am still wondering if this used to be a Sofi-type impact crater...

Click to view attachment

... because every other bay has a rim roughly level with the crater's edge, while this one seems to my untrained eyes (correct me if I'm wrong... I'm sure someone will!) to be raised up above that level. Is this a Sofi-type crater that has been eroded away by the wasting process shaping the crater's rim?

And is this really a gully...?

Click to view attachment

James, that last Duck Bay view is superb - thanks!

Stu, this complete non-geologist can't believe that Sofi could have survived Victoria impact, got covered in Victoria ejecta, and eventually eroded clean to reveal such a superbly defined crater bowl. I vote for post-VC, and probably very-post.

To me that F1 bay doesn't appear to have a raised rim. That's just how a long bay appears when foreshortened.

Actually, the "H" has two names. The top branch is named Fensal, and the bottom branch, plus the dark region surrounding Elba Facula, is named Aztlan. Since we have considered the "H" as one feature for so long, the imaging team often hyphenates the name when both branches are in view ("Fensal-Aztlan"). It isn't the official name of the feature, however.

Thanks James that latest Duck Bay with labels is great and very helpful
Roy F

I would certainly have to agree, Freddo, since I figure VC as Noachian-Hesperian in age. Nothing this close to the Victoria 'ground zero' would have survived in anything resembling its original form. Its particles would be scattered over thousands of km^2.

I have to say, though, that there is something 'special' about Sofi Crater. In the MOC image it has a clean, conical appearance, that conjures up a big 'ant lion' pit! I have seriously wondered if it could even be a 'sinkhole' draining into VC through some crevice. It looks nothing at all like Beagle, though both are presumably recent. It looks amazingly 'precarious', fitted neatly into the 'cabo' like that. I wonder if the present rim of VC has slowly eroded outward to 'embrace' it I certainly hope Oppy gets a close look at Sofi before we finish with Victoria.

Actually, it looks quite a bit like Emma Dean. But we really won't know much more about it without a visit.

Clever and creative. Very nice James .... and a fabulous view of K1

I was also wondering (like CR) if you can orient the labeled map with North at top as time permits. curious why you didn't do that originally.

ken

Because the original labeled version of the image comes that way round and it didn't occur to me at the time. I'll sort it as soon as I get the chance.

James

I've updated the maps so that north is at the top. I've also made a version with the major bays labeled in blue (version on the right) - I'm not sure if I find it better or too cluttered, so I'm loading both so you can choose whichever you prefer.



James