I think you're right. We need another couple of drives before we get to the real "Parking Lot". Until then we'll still be in a ripple field... kind of the grassy area where people dump their trolleys that borders the Parking Lot

Click to view attachment

With the same measuring I used there I get the 'Rightmost' about 100 meters farther, but for the later sols it is definitely no longer possible to hit these spots.
It seems to work fine (on sol 2402) with a fixed feature at the far horizon... as for the used map above and additionally for the "little" crater at 124 degrees in this image (from ESP_012820_1780_RED.abrowse):
Click to view attachment

FWIW my latest attempt to identify Santa Maria:

Looking at Stu's image, it seems one can still dimly see ripples beneath the smooth "parking lot" surface. Maybe this is an illusion, but it suggests that the parking lot level has been superimposed on a pre-existing rippled surface. Can we infer anything about the surface formation process from this?

I agree. I make our 2403 position to be just to the SW of where you've plotted it, Stu. The roughly 5-metre crater in that direction is just visible on the far right of this hazcam view:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2403
And here's the navcam view east showing one of the last patches of ripples we'll encounter:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2403

Edit: Btw, I still prefer "tarmac" to "parking lot", since you either park or drive very slowly in a parking lot, but you move quickly across the tarmac!

Phil:

This is neat. Like many of you have been suggesting, I *think* that Santa Maria is starting to poke up as the two dark patches at the left of your stretched pan. We should know soon enough...


...but I'm just starting mourning having left the largest expanse of outcrop we've ever seen (possibly more than we'll ever see).

-Tim.

Stereo view of little crater near us on 2403, with really big crater Iazu in the background:
Click to view attachment

This is only very rough, but shows where we are on the edge of the smoother region. This is from the navcams.

Phil

Click to view attachment

And immediately after the brief smpooth area imaged by Stu, we seem encounter further ripples. This 'tarmac' edge seems to be a localised feature or outlier rather than the true tarmac edge.

You're right, Serpens: close-up of the terrain en-route to the next waypoint crater... definitely going to roll over a much flatter swathe of ground on the way to it...

Click to view attachment

As Marsophile pointed out, there seems to be an underlying ripple structure. There are also a number a craters that are seemingly of the same age in the flattened area boundary. Possibly an airburst which generated sufficient overpressure to flatten out the ripples?

Would the ripples build back up over the surface there? (How long does it take these ripples to form?)

They would build up again... but never mind. These are tiny little ripples, and those HiRISE images, very nice though they are, have had to be extremely contrast-enhanced to show anything. Latest images show this is a great place for driving.

Phil

You're right Phil, I had to boost the contrast up to "OMG!!!" to show the differences between the neighbouring terrain types. All good driving ground.

Here's the current pancam panorama and a stretched version of the more distant part of it. We can start to map out the various small craters on views like this.

Phil

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

I did some measuring from today's suddenly rock-free pancams to check on earlier calculations. Result: the separation of he two prominent middle distance features increased by 4 percent. Using a figure of 43m for the latest drive, that puts them around 1070m away. The fainter feature that I tentatively identified as Santa Maria behind the leftmost streak is becoming clearer, as is fredk's one farther to the right.
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...cam/2010-10-29/

EDIT: Is that 'waypoint crater' we're seeing over on the right?

Santa Maria will be our Christmas Gift This Year when we stare into her crater from the edge.

Yep! Here's my take on matching Phil's stitch-'n-stretch of the current pancam view to the orbital view:
Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment
I think these identifications are all pretty solid, except for crater F. I'm now pretty confident that the "two dark spots" are Santa Maria. I checked the growth in angular separation between those dark spots from sol 2382 to 2402 (long baseline), and it was consistent with SM's distance. And now the angular separation between the "two dark spots" and crater A is also consistent with the orbital view.

There are some craters beyond A that we should be able to match with a wider orbital view.

I just spent way too much time going over all these images and GE, and I think this is correct.

The distant dark spot beyond 'A' is visible in the Post #452 image above. (The 124 degree heading)

Phil

I got the same result while we were travelling ENE. The trouble with that was that we weren't approaching those features directly and the change in viewing angle may have had the effect of reducing the rate of widening, resulting in an overestimate of the distance. By triangulation TMAN found that 'rightmost' is 100m more distant than 'leftmost', consistent with such a result. (I suspect that TMAN's finding of a lower parallax for 'eastmost' is independent of the absolute values of the azimuths involved.) From the most recent drives on an almost direct approach heading I'm seeing about twice the rate of widening I'd expect if the features were at the distance of Santa Maria.

One thing's for sure. If those two features don't belong to Santa Maria they have clearly been placed exactly where they are and at exactly the right distance apart to cause maximum confusion.

I'm not sure I'm entirely familiar with that computer program Stu!

What are the other levels out of interest?

Neil

Well, it gradually builds up from "Huh, that doesn't look much different" through "Yeah, that does show a bit more detail" and "Ah, now we're getting there..." to "OMG!!!" and eventually ending at "My eyes! My eyes!!!"

Stu,

You are such a clever writer... of prose as well as poetry. I always enjoy reading your posts.

Yes, I love Stu's take on things, outreach personified...
I'm going to Endeavour with Cumbrian Sky Travel...

I prefer booking the express through Stooke Travel. Cumbrian Sky has too many stops on its route.

Tadaaaa

http://gigapan.org/gigapans/63708/

Taken from http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=34....mp;t=k&z=20

Giga-Doug strikes again!!! Nice.

Hi,

A long long break into marsrovers imagery (sometimes it's good to have a break).

"Back to business".

Sol 2344


Sol 2363, with the meteor sitting on the floor


Sol 2379, a closer view of Oileán Ruaid.


Sol 2370


Sol 2371, the meteor. Beautiful piece


Sol 2385


I have other images to do.

You do make fantastic work Ant103, your images really take me there. Love those craters looming at the horizon, thanks for the interplanetary trip!