February 21, 2007, HiRISE release

As usual, some cool stuff in this release;

Here's a crop from the 'South Polar Layered Deposits' image, not a very clean image, however the crop is from an area where banding noise is minimal ( aggressive stretching and unsharp masking applied ).

Nico

It seems like there is more banding in this batch than in previous releases. Is that a result of the instrument problems we've heard about?

Mostly no, the problem is that the HiRISE calibration program isn't quite 100% yet, and this batch of image featured some of the ones that were more bland, which tends to result in more calibration problems. Also more noticable is very dark areas. These problems will all be fixed with the next generation of the calibration pipelies, with a program called HiClean2.

As to instrument problems, well, there is at least an artifact from the problem in the image Mound of South Polar Layered Deposits. The left part of the image shows a black streak which I've usually associated with the CCD problems. However, this problem can almost completely be elimnated now through the new calibration program (Which hasn't been fully tested yet, that's the reason for the delay).

Those slope streaks are spooky!

Thank you very much, Tuvas. Keep up the good work -- we are all the beneficiaries of your blood sweat and tears!

One of the best weekly release overall.
Thanks Alex for making our "wednesdays" brigther

Using HiRISE Online Image Viewer, I took these amazing highlights from Northern Meridiani Etched Terrain (left), Beagle2 landing ellipse (center) and Floor of Ius Chasma (right):
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I suspect last one shows a tumbling stone (or a secret rover track! ).