Why no pyccku?

Here is an L257 Pancam of the pre-RAT brush at the current Cabo Verde stop. I stretched it a bit to pull out some shadow detail. The MI of the brush shows an unusual texture to the rock surface. Pulverized and recemented evaporite etched by wind erosion?

--Bill

In my opinion, folks, this texture is not that far different from Diamond Jenness and Bylot group of rocks at Endurance. These are the rocks that hosted our "popcorn spherules" and indeed near the top of the microscopic image posted above you can see a couple of microspherules encrusted with sulfates.


Check out some of the MI photos at the bottom of this 2004 press release.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre.../20040818a.html

It looks as if a few of the embedded berries that were sticking above the surface got a crew-cut from the RAT in that brushing. I don't think I see what has been described as unusual in that MI. It seemed similar to previous brushings. To me, it looks like a weathering rind in which the shapes of clasts and crystals in the rock are vaguely recognizable.

A stitch of the best two frames from Sols961 and 962 (before and after RAT brush):
Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

There is an oatmeal (with blueberries) texture to the surface that makes me think that this is a primary characteristic of the rock, but this outcrop is undergoing non-usual wind erosion since the rock is elevated and exposed to the wind instead of laying on a flat plain. We'll know more soon after the grinding.

--Bill

Added one image.

The 360 degree panoramic view from Sol 959 and Sol 963.

Taken with the L0 Navcam.

jvandriel

Here is that same place before brushing.

Taken on Sol 961 with the Mi camera.

jvandriel

I have not had much time lately to browse the forum ... but *WOW*
what a breathtaking view !
Congratulations Micheal, your panorama stitching work is getting better and better
This one is unbelievable... one of the definite all-time-favourite MER images !!



P.S. how did you manage to avoid the stitching-bumps in the horizon ??I understand you're using PTAssembler .. what additional tricks do you do in addition to the auto-exported MMB-panorama-files
to flatten/smoothen the horizon ... is it a matter of finding good control-points aong the horizon line ?

Thanks, Nirgal. To answer your question, I'm exporting a PTGui project from MMB and using PTGui to stitch it. I am not generating any control points; MMB puts the camera pointing information in the PTGui project. That seems to eliminate most of the stitching errors that one tends to get in Autostitch (which was kind of the point, come to think of it). It also allows things like the Sol 950 Clouds stitch, which probably couldn't have been done without the camera pointings. Anyway, there's an option in the MMB panorama feature to export these PTGui/Hugin project files along with the brightness adjusted images; I think it's been discussed a little elsewhere. Only problem with it is that it depends on the MMB panorama metadata, which I update online based on the tracking info.

Luvverly new Pancams up...

Will Opportunity be taking a big panorama from her current location during conjunction? Has anyone seen the commands show up in the image tracking log?

Thanks, Floyd

Better to hurry! Officialy conjunction starts on October 16th

Post related to Cape St Mary move to own thread.
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=3351

And the "Soup Dragon" posts moved to a dedicated thread.

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=3353

James

I think this image shows how amazing it is that we're getting ANYTHING from Mars at the moment...

Mars approaches the Sun

(Mars is the "star" to the left of the obscured Sun, and that's Venus on the right...)

Looks like the intention passes for giving names of Cabo Verde's islands to the studied targets on the promontory...Great! Ilha do Fogo's (Island of Fire) landscape always seemed to me from another world...Something like Mars should look like

And I'm curious to know what place will be named after Ilha do Sal (Island of Salt)...
And, even if we don't have Ultreya (the pilgrims shout towards Santiago), we'll have Santiago itself at Victoria...

EDITED: One question...Can someone tell me where is located the Maio target referred on the update?

Six sols, four drives and 127.61 meters (419 feet) later, Opportunity arrived at the rock target "Fogo" near the tip of Cape Verde.

Fogo = Fire = Ustrax.



It comes from a pancam shot taken on sol 955 in all filters before leaving Duck Bay, but only the tiny thumbnails have been downlinked for the time being. Here are two of them (L2 and L7), and you can see it's just another general view of the whole Cabo Verde as seen from Duck Bay.

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Edited: Perhaps they are referring to the Cape's Wall as "Maio".

816 posts and you're still quoting the whole of the post before yours...with all its images..... SLAP - Doug.


That one didn't ocurred me Tesheiner!...


About Maio, it appears on the update as Cabo Verde Maio all together...Maybe it's the whole wall of the cape...

> About Maio, it appears on the update as Cabo Verde Maio all together

That name comes from here:



It's a "single" shot covering only the fov seen on the little thumbnails.
This pancam shot taken on sol 953 covers almost the same area.

Deserved...

FYI, the rover has already started to take the "Cape Verde Panorama".



It's sloooowly being taken, one pointing per sol, perhaps slower than McMurdo.
Off couse it won't be as big as McMurdo but assuming it's similar to Duck Bay's panorama (14x2) it will need a whole month to be adquired. For the time being only the tiny thumbnails for sols 970 and 971 have hit the ground.

That makes sense, Tescheiner: Oppy has been programmed in an 'automatic' mode and will be working on the major first Victoria panorama during the conjunction hiatus. And, hopefully, is making a long MB integration.

2 Unmanned Spaceflight members driving each rover

Wonder who's driving them???

Ha Ha Ha... Any resemblance is purely coincidental.

OT: Hey Doug, can't you modify the PHP code to turn off the quote button by default?

Er, did someone note this fantastic special-effects image?

- Superimposed Rover on Rim of Victoria Crater

Opportunity on Cape Verde:

No. (and if I could...I wouldn't anyway)

If you need to quote a person, you hit the 'reply' button at the bottom right hand corner of their post

If you don't need to quote a person you hit the 'add reply' button at the end of the thread.

It's not that difficult really

And even if you hit reply not add reply, editing out a quote really is very easy, and I'm an utter HTML/PHP/SQL moron

Doug

(PS - SRF..those SFX images have been released for more than a fortnight - they came out at the Friday HiRISE/MER press con )

Doug, I've just overlooked it.

I'm pretty sure that this



Is the last part of of the Cape Verde pan.

So we could be on the road again fairly soon. Beacon here we come.

And indeed, it looks like tosol (992) is a driving sol.

Let the magical mystery tour continue...

James

I am eager to see what is around the next bend, but it would be nice to see what Opportunity has already seen here. The downlinks are still painfully few and far between. I gather, from Doug's surprise interview with SS yesterday, that we are still waiting for more solar power to allow the morning downlinks. I also enjoyed hearing that we can expect months of pancams from 90-120 degrees around the lovely north side before taking the plunge.

That was a very insightful discussion, Doug. Thanks, and I hope you can do another before next year.

Glad to know that.

OT: It will be time to re-start the route mapping but I'm currently too busy (and will probably be for the next couple of months) and unfortunately I can't find spare time to dedicate to the mapping task.

excuse my ignorance, but where can we find the Doug interview with SS?

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...c=3448&st=0

I even moved the news section to the top of the forum so no one would miss it....so....how could someone not notice it?

Doug

Ah.... thanks Tesh.... and Doug. The explanation for "how" is that I'm permanently book-marked into Opportunity only and due to selective myopia am not seeing anything above that level at the moment. My narrow-mindedness... ! K

"top of the forum"? Personally I find it hard going just to keep up with the MER forums, and like Kenny my bookmarks are of the Spirit and Opportunity thread index pages. Are there really any regular users who start a session at the very top level? If you (Doug) hadn't linked to the interview from a post down here in 'Oppy', I wouldn't have known it was there. In fact, when I came to post my chunk of the transcript, I couldn't find my way back at all; I had to return to your original "these questions and many more are answered here-->" post, and follow the link again, before I could figure out it's location in the tree. Just my 2e...

Well what else am I to do? I can't spam-email everyone with important forum news items - the onus is on people who visit to check in with that forum for important notes regarding rules, downtime, and cool things such as the Steve update.

I have to start at the top level, and then do a 'view new posts' which whilst not 100% reliable is a fairly good way of checking in with everything.

Doug

I do. Actually, I use Firefox and open the top level and the other MER levels in tabs at the same time. I've always found the top level to be a useful page to scan, to see where interesting discussions are developing. Still, I often neglected to scoll all the way to the bottom of the main page in my haste to learn the latest about the rovers. I used to force myself to open the Front Page just to avoid missing important stuff. I think Doug's relocation of the front page to the top was the perfect solution for me. Community Chit-Chat and Forum Management are also general areas to keep an eye on.

I also go to the "top page" of the forum when I bring the site up. I use the indicators to see where there have been new posts; from the top level, the large forum icons indicate which ones have new posts, and within the fora, threads are marked as having new posts with a red flag. I simply click on the red flags and am taken directly to the newest posts in each thread.

And yes, I read every new post. Every day.

-the other Doug

It's what I do too and I find it very handy! It's so easy to miss something important (like MGS story developing right now) if you don't go to "View New Posts".
If you go there on a regular basis, you can see what has changed (generaly fit on one screen) and choose what is of interest for you... unless you're Doug or The Other Doug and check everything and regarding time you can dedicate.
I personaly cannot think of a better organisation (knowing that I have no experience with other forums).

Actually, we're just talking here about little points of convenience and detail. The whole forum exercise is a truly amazing insight into exploration as it happens on another world ... it's like sitting on the deck of Captain Cook's ship as it weaves around the ocean, watching close up what the crew does, inspecting what they find, and having a privileged opportunity to ask real time questions.... astonishing really!

Kenny

Well, thanks Doug, climber, dvandorn, and cosmic_rocker -- I hadn't realised that ("view new posts") was a really usable mode. Hmmm, 23 posts in the last 24 hours... perhaps I'm a slow reader? (or just slow? I have to admit I feel rather defensive now about being such a slacker about keeping up, which tends to mean I'm wrong, and I know it, but don't want to admit it. "Must try harder", as my old teachers used to say. Perhaps if I put a couple of other hobbies in a box in the loft for a while...

Anyway, as Kenny said:



Absolutely right Doug /did/ post a link up here, I did see it, and I really enjoyed the interview. It's all good

Yesterday's update

I'm curious about why the information from the MERs has been so infrequent recently. They are out from behind the Sun, and have done a little bit of roving since the conjunction, but there's no sign of new data in six days. Has the failure of the MGS had an impact on the other missions? Or has some other issue impacted this mission? Or is this a normal situation?

BTW, congrats to Opportunity on getting to Sol 1000.

antoniseb,

It seems whatever process gets the images out onto the various websites has broken down.

I doubt that the problem is at the website stage, since the pancam tracking site isn't showing anything being received either. But new commands are still sent to the rovers solly according to the same site. I suspect this all has more to do with the recovery efforts of MGS...

Nice tribute posters by Doug mentioned on Emily's blog:

http://planetary.org/image/djellison_spirit_2000_large.jpg

http://planetary.org/image/djellison_oppor..._2000_large.jpg


B)

Beautiful view of Cape Verde and Duck Bay in the background from sol 995 location on CSM:
Click to view attachment
From this point of view Verde looks like a knife-thin promontory jutting into the crater - amazing to think we were sitting near its tip over conjuction!