MEX-VMC coming back online! Here is the first test image since it went down last fall.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/esa_events/72.../in/photostream

Awesome news!

I have to ask: how did you notice the posting of that image? It wasn't mentioned on the ESA VMC blog.

Facebook. (It has its utility).

Phobos from the VMC: http://blogs.esa.int/vmc/ (note: direct link to http://blogs.esa.int/vmc/2014/03/28/mars-w...m-spots-phobos/ does not seem to work at this time)

VMC photographed Earth earlier this month.

http://blogs.esa.int/vmc/2014/07/27/earth-...rs-we-are-here/

Hi, VMC team here, its been a while.

We thought we'd give you an early Christmas present.

We have updated the VMC blog to now permit the downloading of the raw unprocessed images.

The entire VMC image archive is now downloadable in raw format.

http://blogs.esa.int/vmc/2014/12/17/access...-image-archive/


This will be now automatically populated along with the flickr page within a few hours of images arriving.
anyone following the @esamarswebcam twitter account then gets a tweet telling them new images are available.

we've also made single archives of a each years observations so those of you who want to get the full set don't have to spend ages downloading each observation individually.

and to launch this new setup we've been lucky enough to have taken these rather nice images of the Martian south pole on Monday morning!
Click to view attachment

Thanks a lot wood_s ! Those good news are much appreciated ! With warmest regards, VM

That latest image is great - the almost detached section of the polar cap used to be known as the 'Mountains of Mitchell' after an astronomer who discovered it.

Phil

hi,

just in case you haven't seen this,

we're running a program to offer schools the chance to image Mars using VMC at the end of May.

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Operatio...tary_spacecraft

http://blogs.esa.int/mex/2015/03/06/vmc-imaging-campaign/

Hello,
I cannot seem to be able to download the "vmc_flat.raw" file from Gordan link in the forom. I am always redirected to a totally different website. Is the a more up to date link?

Pierre Verschueren

thanks for mentioning this, i've added the current flat field to the raw image archive.

http://blogs.esa.int/vmc/vmc-data-archive/

its at the bottom with the full year archives.

btw, if anyone fancies having a go at creating a new one, do feel free, we have a lot more images now than when the current one was made including some (like our ISON observations from october 2013 ) without Mars in it

When clicking on the fil, it it looks like the file itself is being ooened? Cannot be downloaded as is.
Pierre Verschueren

Right-click to save it. It is a raw image file, not a png or jpg file that can be clicked and viewed in a browser.

Hi,

I noticed that the altitude is not being written to the image set description at flickr - is there someone here who can fix it? It just says %altitude% as in "VMC Image acquired on 13-10-2017 at 06:07:25 at an altitude of %altitude% km above Mars"

I just sent an email to Daniel Scuka pointing out the issue.

Thanks both! Have pinged the MEX team.

yeah its been like that for a while, the interface to the system in flight dynamics where the information is obtained from was changed

it should be working now.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/esa_marswebca...eposted-public/


ironically this is just in time for the web article about the first publication since VMC was upgraded to full science instrument status!
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Sc...altitude_clouds

its a milestone we're really proud of, congratulations to everyone on here who has contributed over the years, we wouldn't have gotten this far without you!
http://blogs.esa.int/vmc/2016/08/05/vmc-grows-up/


for those interested, the full paper is in the january edition of the journal icarus and is available here
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/artic...1501?via%3Dihub

I'd like to add my thanks and congratulations to the mighty mighty army of UMSF image wizards who have made such a significant contribution to the science utility of VMC. That's a really special thing you all did right there...you should be extremely proud!!!

A few VMC observations that I worked on. I did stacking of 4-5 images within an observation, then enlarged them by 50% and applied some sharpening. I think I'm getting some decent results with my workflow.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

A new dawn breaks above Mars-3 at Terra Sirenum.

An animation of 117 VMC pictures showing a flyby of Mars on 14 June 2019.
Nice view on the northern seasonal ices! (my favorite seasonal process, I studied it during my PhD )

Same video rotated of 90° to show a more usual perspective.

Another flyby from Argyre Planitia to Valles Marineris on 14 June 2019.

a new web article on monitoring of polar dust storms
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Sc...th_pole_of_Mars

including a very nice animation from the team in Bilbao

Small white streak, bottom right, first few seconds of animation. Meteor burning up perhaps?

Being just one pixel in width, it's probably an artifact of the .gif animation.

Yeah, it's an artifact.
The images have been adjusted to keep Mars stationary in the frame.
MEX is actually getting closer to the planet in each shot.