Almost there, so a couple of taster anaglyphs for ya...

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

We should be right at the edge after the next drive... imagine the view we'll have then...

Nice although the scale just doesn't quite work somehow. I have to force myself to remember that the opposite rim is 4-500m away. It seems much closer.

Not sure what you mean... I've done nothing to the scale, they're just r and l images put into Stereophotomaker. I quite like the impression of a sudden drop off into nothingness there...

I mean the far rim doesn't look like it's 500m away.

Ah, gotcha You're right, it doesn't. Wouldn't like to try and jump it tho...

So, this in "only" because of these two "rocks" on your first picture that we had such arguments about where and what the beacon was

Utterly awesome - the Beacon close up at last, and extensive views over the plains beyond the far rim of Victoria. The Beacon appears to be so small, just a cluster of small white rocks, yet we have been seeing it for months and months. They look over-exposed in the PanCams, so perhaps they really are very pale, almost white, compared with the general evaoprite colour?

Kenny

No new Exploratorium pics for two days... sigh... Come on, I want to see over the edge...!

Come on climber these rocks have nothing to do with the Beacon. It's on the other side of the crater.

Oups. How did I forget that for a while my favorite was "Beacon and Elk" ?
Ok, that's a bad pun, but I'm kinda out of arguments now
In a sense, You're right anyway, I'd like now a SCIENTIFIC explanation on how this can be the Beacon we've seen for weeks and from that far?

It's exactly what people were saying all the time. Right at the top of the ridge is a lone outcrop sticking up just a few tens of cm. We can see now there are other outcrops, but every other one is flush with the ground. We knew from the stretched images that it wasn't very high, just high enough. We also knew the far rim had to be much too low to see from the northwest because Victoria itelf is tilted, being formed on the edge of a broad depression. All that was being said way back when we were still north of Beagle, and it turned out to be right. I think the far-rimmers should stand the near-rimmers a case of Mars Bars.

Phil

[img]http://www.desirabledream.com/beacon_logo[1].jpg[/img] near-rimmer's 'Bliss Bar' not quite what it seemed: or, perhaps most accurately, the 'Slim Slab':

Curious to see with what NASA-JPL will show up on Oppy's 100th sol

it showed a remarkably similar crater bowl, no?

You mean 10th sol, don't you ?

You're right Phil and I'm happy we, Far rimers, challenged "your" Near rimer statment so you were able to find the rigth theory that prove now to be (100%) right. No challenge = no good theory
Just currious to know why Beacon is so bright. Any thought before we know?

I've always made the simplest assumption, Climb, that the Beacon rock was the same as all the other pale evaporite we've been driving over since Eagle Crater. (I'm a long-time follower of William of Ockam; i.e. don't postulate diamonds or polished marble, if good-old garden-variety sulfate sandstone will reflect enough light.)
The vertical edge of an evaporite slab facing northward will reflect plenty of light from the northerly-positioned winter sun back towards the north, from where we were looking, back in May and June. All other surfaces in the Victoria region were hidden or roughly horizontal so they would reflect back minimal light even if they were mirrors. Thus, that roughly 1.0 x 0.2 meter evaporite edge was by far the brightest thing we could see in the south - a true beacon.
The same sort of basic optical principles explain why El Dorado always looked black from orbit or from the top of Husband Hill, but has always looked rather light from Low Ridge. The difference is only that the well-sorted basalt sand of ElDorado reflects back little light, while the iron sulfates reflect back plenty.

All what you write here is convincing. I think we can assume that the contrast between beacon and the sky added to the Beacom showing that brigth since I guess we must be able to find from where we are now, inside Vicky, evaporite that reflect light the same way that beacon did; but we have to have pictures taken at the rigth time and at the right heading regarding sun position.

Oh, what's a power of 10 between friends?

Odave, can I borrow 1000 euros? I'll pay ya back...