No dip into the east crater.
The plan for thisol (2199), as I can see it, is to take a final pancam mosaic of the west crater and leave the area heading southeast.

I love that word "East"! We are finally pointing towards the ultimate goal.

John

I used to have a concrete Black Cat.

Ustrax - you know it's rude to break into John's UMSF account, right?

No Doug for Rui there is no "ultimate goal." It's all about the journey.

There'll be other Interesting Rocks to look at along the way. And if we need to, we can catch That Rock next time we're in the neighborhood...

--Bill

Yes, after a complete circumnavigation of the planet!

Phil

So, this is the end of the West Side Story...

Yup. And now, 40m closer to Endeavour. The images should be available on the next Exploratorium update; unfortunately too late for me (zzzzz).

40m closer, but still not quite as close to Endeavour as they were from sol 1927 to 1930. The next drive should be the one to break that record. From that point I think we can pretty much call the western detour over.

I have this point in mind as the next "waypoint". It's about 500m from our current position.
Click to view attachment

There's no special feature at that location, no crater. But if we trust the route plan, that point is, more or less, where we start moving almost due east because we leave behind the ripple fields (you can see those fields NE of that point).

ADMIN: If you want to start a new topic, just call it "Next Waypoint" and we can change the title later once it has some name.

I don't think we have yet seen the pancam images from Sol 2197. The exploratorium site seems to be downloading old images from Sol 1931 and the jpl site only shows pancams up to 2196. Can we "get Scotty to kick the engines" on the downloads?

While we all wait for the latest images, why not read AJS Rayl's latest superb MER update over on the Planetary Society's blog:

http://www.planetary.org/news/2010/0331_Ma...ate_Spirit.html

Nice Stu!

(nudge, nudge.. Hey I know that Stuart Atkinson guy. No seriously, we are old pals, had a couple of beers one night after nearly getting mugged in downtown L.A., we go way back.)

Oh, yeah, I remember that night. You guys were annoyingly fast on your feet!

We didn't have enough beers, Dan, just cos S & I were both shattered with delayed jet lag. Will have to have a proper night next time we're over there.

oops - caught out by not paying attention to image dates - post removed.

That's one of the very old images that's reappeared on exploratorium. It's from sol 1931, way back at Absecon/Reeds Bay.

You can easily check the dates yourself using the excellent filename website:
http://www.greuti.ch/oppy/html/filenames_ltst.htm

Good question.

A regolith is a debris layer of rock and mineral fragments, produced by the physical or mechanical break-up of the parent rock. A soil, OTOH, is a mixture of rock and mineral particles mixed with organic matter. In my mind, a soil carries with it the implication of chemical weathering in addition to physical weathering. On Mars we have seen the suggestions of chemical weathering in the surface, but no organic component.

So what would the proper term be? It's more than a simple regolith, but not a full-fledged soil.

--Bill

Quick n dirty and coloured-in panorama of last San Antonio images...

Click to view attachment

Larger version: http://twitpic.com/1dks4s/full

And some more recent pictures here...

http://roadtoendeavour.wordpress.com/2010/...ell-san-antonio

Sol 2198 L2 pan of San Antonio

Link to some driving directions.

Stu, beautiful productions as usual .

A bit of catchup.

Here are all the R21 colour drive direction mosaics from the drive between Concepción and San Antonio.



James

From the latest batch on Exploratorium, a bit of a belated offering from Sol2196.
Click to view attachment

A really beautiful panorama with perfectly seamless stitching again, thanks !

Sol 2198 updated version (colors) of the pan of San Antonio :

Just the horizon part because the bellow part is filled with a lot of black area.

It's finally done, and I'm not very satisfacted about the result, but it's the better I can do with THIS pictures.
So, San Antonio pan in color, on Sol 2196 :

Il n'est pas parfait, mais il est bien quand même car on se rend compte du terrain. Merci bcp de nous l'avoir posté.
Anyway, THANKS for your nice work !

...yeah, Ant, what VM said! Your work is always a welcome sight, and I look forward to your posts.

je plussoie sur Vikingmars

merci fourmi

My version of the 'east' pan.



James

Merci beaucoup

James, your version is way better than mine (not totally stitched at this time). Really appreciate to see your version .

Je plussoie! Celle-ci risque d'occuper nos amis quelque temps!
Je plussoie aussi d'ailleurs!