Is this journalist very young or what ?
Was not he around a couple of years ago, when the rest of the world witnessed the Meridiani definition of flat and featureless, during Oppy's travels south from Endurance to Victoria ?

[Stu, you 're young too. Your mum owns a PC ? ]

Owns, yes. Uses, no.

What's happen with Mark Lemmon's site ?
http://www.met.tamu.edu/mars/directory.html

I invite you all to take a look around Phoenix's very own "Rock Garden"...

TECP in action, on sol 46

I was told they have a Web upgrade during this WE and it should return to normal a few days from now...

full inline quote removed - Admin

Vikingmars, are you on this photo ?
Click to view attachment
Photo taken after successful Viking 1 landing.

Good view of the secondary blade and rasp too!

Nice colors there, slinted!

Lots of detail visible in this new trench image...

(You found any 3D glasses yet Nick??)

And what about with Tamu website? Can't found the page where raw are placed . It was helpfull before (the phoenix galery is awfull and nasa main page are not updated…).

Mark Lemmon knows about the problem with the SSI site and it is being worked on...

--Emily

3D of new trench site... just have to budge that rock aside first...

Yep; gonna go get 'em after work today!

BTW, in the States, American Science & Surplus is a good place for quirky stuff like that. I just searched their website and see a package of 3 (el cheapo) glasses for $2.75--although the minimum web order is $10. Not sure if those are up to the standard of UMSF though!

I always advise people who want some 3D glasses - and who maybe can't access the internet - to go down their local magazine shop or discount book store and scan the racks and shelves for children's mags or books for 3D "specials" about dinosaurs, bugs or space. There's usually at least one magazine or book that comes with a free set of 3D glasses, and they're usually really cheap, too.

Alternately, go into a big confectionary store or department store ("Woolworths" is a safe bet here in the UK), find the "Pick n Mix" counter and scan the boxes for sweets wrapped in clear but coloured cellophane. There's bound to be some sweets wrapped in red or blue, and, at a pinch, their wrappers can be used to make a pair of make-do 3D glasses until you can lay your hands on a proper pair.

Also a very good excuse to pig out on sweets.

Another 3D landscape shot...

... with this interesting rock that caught my eye. There's a small concave area, with what looks like smaller pieces of rock inside it...

Click to view attachment

Phoenix's very own "Berry Bowl" eh? Curious as to how smaller pieces got in that depression though... weathering/erosion/wasting of the rock itself? Debris created by the impact by a small meteorite?

Fascinating place...

No, but Steve Wall (without the helmet) is : I worked a with him designing the VL imaging catalog and for VL imaging data storage for the PDS at NSSDC...

Hey Nick - something to try out your new 3D glasses on...

Midgard Revisited

I think that's Ken Jones with the helmet.

Phil

"I think that's Ken Jones with the helmet."
and I think the other vikinger is Steve Wall.

Phoenix significantly extended the length of the Snow White trench on sol 49, and might have exposed some bright ice. It's a very small spot, but I don't think it's a lighting effect. It shows up in all filters, doesn't move, and is (relatively) brightest in green/blue like the ice seen in the Dodo trench.

This a crop and brightness enhancement of that particular spot, click through for the full frame.

Well spotted, Dan.

By the way, it looks like Mark is back in business with the TAMU website; it's up-to-date to sol 49.

--Emily

Snow White imaged just after 8:00 the morning of sol 47 showed a region that was much more prominent in the blue L2 filter than in red (L1):
Click to view attachment
Views later in the day show the brighter region, but its contrast with the surrounding soil has decreased dramatically. One guess is that in the morning we were seeing (near) specular reflection off a smooth surface. But that should also be prominent in the red filter. Also the geometry doesn't look favourable to specular reflection.

Could there be a thin layer of H20 frost that appeared during the colder "night"? I believe it was PI Smith who mentioned the possibility of frost growing on the exposed ice table due to a "cold finger"-like effect.

I'd sure like to get a handle on the various dynamics that are/may be going on here, and why (until now) Snow White didn't have any relatively very bright regions unlike Dodo/Goldilocks...

Olivier, I love your B&W "à la Viking" rendition of Phoenix surrounding from a few days ago.
This give a different and very sharp perspective

Strange days! When I spot a Phoenix story on Slashdot first, and nothing here yet...



Links to a PC World .au (!) story: http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/id;593684490

Doesn't look like anything wildly dramatic, but it's interesting that potentially harmful command sequences can get uplinked to the vehicle and then caught by on-board sanity checks, rather than anything on the ground.

The latest press release tells that the Sol 50 rasping succeeded in freeing up enough material for scooping. Interestingly, it also mentions "the putative ice sublimed out of the shavings over several hours". Here's a 5-frame animation from RAC showing changes in the scoop : Sol 50, 12:05-20:09.

Thanks, slinted, you saved me a lot of work!

I had a brief conversation with Ray today. I didn't learn anything Earth-shattering. A couple of details of interest here: they'll probably command the TEGA doors open about 2 sols before they try rasping and delivering in one day. They have to do a test run of the rasp, scoop, and prepare to deliver yet before they can try that. Also they want to do rasping and delivery in early morning, by 7 am local time, to keep temperatures low, which means they'll need a 2-sol plan in order to preheat the arm motors first.

AFM checkout is complete but now they're sort of calibrating, testing the distance of the AFM needle to the samples. Less than a week before the first sample.

Tosol they're going to do a 4 x 3 array of rasp samples, should look like a little grid of holes. Yestersol's was 1 x 2, like a "snakebite."

Oh, and how does he feel about yestersol's rasp test? "It was really sweet."

--Emily

Actually, those seem to be before and before. The RAC was occupied looking at the scoop after. Among the SSI "after" images showing the snakebite hole pattern are these: http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?...489&cID=151 and http://www.met.tamu.edu/mars/i/SS050EFF900...3_15976L1M1.jpg.

Whoops! Thanks very much for the clarification! I was so focused on the scraped area that I didn't notice that the snakebite wasn't there yet

I do like the "rainbow" effect on shots like this...

Click to view attachment

... but in 3D it looks very deep now...

What causes that 'Rainbow effect'?

Changing sun angle between the shots, so the shadows move. So a given pixel might be in direct sunlight when, say, the blue filter is used, but in shadow for the red and green filters, so it comes out blue--or any combination of above. The further away the object casting the shadow is, the greater the effect.

Based on the time stamps, the images were taken about 50 seconds apart.

Fabulous anaglyph, Stu! I think the increased depth perception is due to the scoop 50cm or so above the trench.

Errr... I don't think Stu meant this to be an anaglyph as much as a color composite.

Stu,

serendipity happens ... you make a color composite - it still acts like an anaglyph...

cheers

I think Imipak's comment referred to the 3D image linked to later in the post, not the colour composite...

oops

never mind!

That's why checking UMSF at work is dicey....you miss stuff trying to get ready for that next 3 hr meeting!


<nice work>

Snow White extension after scrap. In color, and in color anaglyph

Ahhh, my bad! Missed that one...

God, that's just gorgeous, Ant; thank you!

Okay, dammit, TODAY I will finally make it to the comic book store after work and get some 3D glasses! I've still gotta look at all of Stu's work, which has received rave reviews from one and all!!!

This is a polar version of the RAC mosaic released yesterday (find mosaics in the Phoenix image site, then select the day).

Phil

Click to view attachment

Sol 52 OM panorama:




The internet tubes now flow with raw OM.

More scoop action...

Click to view attachment

(your glasses are in the post, Nick )

You are my HERO... ...thanks!!! Better get your liver in shape for Nov...

... and this is the view of the trench once the scoop had moved away, I think... very pleased with the resolution on this one...

So, you finaly get your own 3D glasses

A picture just to bide the time.
'There are five holes' (trek)

Yeah...I lost mine somehow a few weeks back, have had a hell of a time locating another set. Stu, being the cool guy that he is, is hooking me up. I in turn will render him thoroughly inebriated this fall when he plans to visit LA!

You do realise Cumbrians have hollow legs, don't you