Really appreciate the positive comments on my imaging efforts, however I don't want to clutter other, more specifically scientific topics with my "artistic impressions" of Mars... but I enjoy making them, and I know others do too (Ant, dilo, Nix etc), so can I suggest this separate topic for posting them in? Kind of a gallery?

Just to get the ball rolling, two of my new ones...

"Victoria Dawn"

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and "We Will Follow..."

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These are great Stu. Actually I think they enhance the mainstream threads quite a bit as you post them. Especialy during downtime.

Little OT I know, but felt it might interest a few people. Last night I was leafing thru one of my most prized "martian possessions", a 1956 first edition of "THE EXPLORATION OF MARS" by Willy ley and Werner von Braun, and illustrated by the great Chesley Bonestell, when I noticed this...

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... and I thought "Hmmm, that looks like the layering we see in Victoria..."

Just wondered if anyone else had noticed it. Sorry, carry on...

By Phobos, you are on to something Stu! But then the pyramids must be buried round here somewhere ...

No conspiracy theory, just thought it was a cute coincidence. Time and time again space artists of the past are proven to have been "ahead of their time" in depicting planetary landscapes, that's all I'm saying.

Of course, ol' Ches was a bit out with his achingly blue sky and mats of green lichen on the edge of the landing site, but at the time such aspects of the landscape were thought to be almost 100% guaranteed. We can laugh at them now of course, with 20/20 hindsight, but give it 20 years and our modern day artists impressions of extra-solar planets will seem equally cringe-worthy and quaint, I'm sure...

Of course we now know the sky is more like this...

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... but isn't there a part of us all that wishes it was that beautiful, wonderfully-naive and innocent pre-Viking blue? I often wonder how the history of Mars exploration would have changed if Bonestell's visions of Mars had proved to be true... but that's being covered in a different thread.

"The Spirit of Exploration..."

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Great visionary images, Stuart!

Seconded. Very nice.

Very nices pictures Stuart.

I'm the third, yesss (why? because 3 is my favourite number... ).

Thanks guys, really appreciate the feedback, I'm in awe of the work you all do. But this is a thread for everyone, so come on UMSF Image Mages, let's see some unashamed creativity here! Let your imaginations run wild!

Wow, Stu, those are some amazing images. I love the Columbia Hills one! Can you do one with just the sun and clouds?

Here you go...

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Woah again!!

Very nice, but just for the record are those terrestrial or Martian clouds?

Very much terrestrial I'm afraid... the sky is a tinted photo of the sunset sky above Kendal, taken last year.

Stu! Wordsworth? I think more Tennysonian:

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me–
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads–you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Is looks good. But the reason I asked is that so far as I know we don't seem to see the high martian ice clouds easily at low elevation angles like that. It's early days for the 'clouds' theme though (and one APOD already!)

Tinted? Looks more like Sellafield has caught fire (again).

Andy

Hmmmm... either the RAT can do a lot more than just grind rock, or in the 21st century "Mars Heritage" came up with a way to honour Oppy's exploration of Endurance...

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Enough Stu, please!
You mentioned a few days ago that you were starting to learn Photoshop (IIRC) and a question, may be OT, occured to me : do you (or others) think that it's the best software for working on images? Is there any thread hidden in the forum that talk about this question?
Don't stop Stu, please!

Make up your mind!

re Image processing software. I can only speak from personal experience, but while Paint Shop Pro served me loyally for the past 5 years, and let me do what I wanted to do, after a couple of weeks with Photoshop Elements I'm like a dog in a lamp-post warehouse... just don't know which way to turn next! I'm finding Elements' colour changing tools, its cloning tools and layering abilities to be almost magical.

Other people here make the fantastic mosaics, colourisations and anaglyphs etc we all drool over... as for me, knowing I can't get anywhere near that level of expertise, I'm just messing about with slightly more artistic ideas and "visions" as the thread name suggests.

Hmmm...I didn't know that the MER team had gotten that good at controlling the RAT by the time they reached Endurance... must be all them video games they play!

Slightly OT, here, but when exactly do we come out of solar conjunction?

See over here

Thanks, James...missed that one.

Nov 10th? Yeowch...let's hope that the Sun is quiet sooner rather than later! (I know we're near solar min, but there've still been some pretty hefty magnetic disturbances & 10-cm radio events lately...)

A hot day at Gusev


OK - so I nicked the drawing from the net somewhere and placed them in Gusev.