With all the slipper sand, did they ever get the IDD on Mopmay or did they have to give up in the end? Well at least they should be able to examine Wopmay 2.

Here is the 'rock', lightly cleaned and rinsed (for a noisy JPEG)

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It's a winter wonderland folks! And it's great to be walking along...
Stu, your last anaglyph really sets the scene, brilliant...

Yep, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Now just wait:
02450 p0664.03 0 0 0 0 0 0 navcam_4x1_az_108_3_bpp
02450 p1211.03 0 0 0 0 0 0 ultimate_front_haz_1_bpp_pri_15
02450 p1254.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 front_haz_fault_pri15_4bpp
02450 p1312.07 0 0 0 0 0 0 rear_haz_ultimate_2_bpp_pri15
02450 p1354.01 0 0 0 0 0 0 rear_haz_fault_pri15_4bpp
02450 p1994.06 0 0 0 0 0 0 nav_1x1_MovieFrame_Leye_1bpp_pri72
02450 p2363.27 0 0 0 0 0 0 pancam_drive_direction_2x1_L2R2

Can you tell where we're heading to?

Here is the Pancam view taken on Sol 2447.

Jan van Driel

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and the Navcam view taken on Sol 2447.

Jan van Driel

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Wopmay 2.0 cross-eyed stereopair.
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Here; we're about 30m from the "mini Duck Bay". I'll update the route map once the images are down.
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(Can't wait to see them!)

"Looks like the Easter Islanders beat us to it."

"Mission to Mars"

Same here, and I'm not at work this evening so I can watch them come in with everyone else

I'm wondering now what the rocks will look like at the crater's edge. Will they look anything like the rocks we saw at Concepcion? It would be great if some of them had the same 'rind' or 'crust' we saw on the now-famous 'Chocolate Hills'. I've been working with some of the PDS files from the Concepcion visit and here's a reminder of what we saw there...

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But as usual, there will be things at Santa Maria we didn't expect to see, things we haven't seen before, and that's what makes this epic trek across Meridiani so fascinating...

We've arrived, pictures are down

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...EJP2363L2M1.JPG

Oppy is sitting on the northern flank of Santa Maria -- images up on exploratorium -- can do anything with them but gawk (...at work!)

Ooooooh...

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Looks like someone sliced the tail off a crocodile

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...EJP0664L0M1.JPG

Quick panorama:
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Lovely rock garden:
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Oh, wow. Spectacular! Beautiful navcams too. I can't wait to see the composite images that all you resident gurus produce from these.

"Looks like someone sliced the tail off a crocodile"

That's got to hurt!

Fantastic pictures.

Phil

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Woah! What a blast!
Here's my take on the navcams.
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Fast stitch.
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You people act like it's more fun to put these photos together than it is to traverse month after month of featureless rippled terrain.

Here's a pancam 3D view. I love the way you really get a sense that there's a heckuva big hole just over that near ridge. Topography at last!
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We should have a sweep... Try to guess the first Woo Woo headline...

"Alien (insert noun here) found on Mars!!!"

Very rough polar projection of Teseiner's pan:

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Phil

I will echo Stu's OOhh.
Stunning.
The comment about a Tie-fighter crash seems about right.
Should keep a couple of computers running hot for a while.
Mike

jo is' den heut' scho' Weihnachten ???

as the bavarians say for "Is it christmas already?"

Here's the view behind the 'gator tail. In 3D you can really see the incredible relief of the ejecta rays - this isn't subtle!
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And we've never been dominated by topography like this before at Meridian (except inside craters!) - this view is reminiscent of Spirit starting to climb Columbia Hills, with Gusev plain down below:
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I think it's fair to say - Santa Maria was worth waiting for!

Phil

Here is the Sol 2449 Navcam view.

Jan van Driel

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and the navcam view on Sol 2450.

Jan van Driel

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The Pancam view taken on Sol 2449.

Jan van Driel

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Nice work on that sol 2450 pan, Jan; I've added it to my blog post.

Nice Pancam view on Sol 2450.

Jan van Driel

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watch out for that edge!dont fall in oppy! wow the relief in 3d view looks scaringly dangerous to drive around now that we're so close to the crater pit.

Wow, look at that breccia in the far rim. Spectacular.

Try swiveling right to left and back and forth in your desk chair while viewing that one. Just awesome.

there's nothing new with the rim that we havent seen before..i'm just curious about the nearground rocks particularly the smaller ones..they seem to have different texture to what was seen seen up to now..dont u agree??

There's so much depth of field in this 3d view that you really can imagine being there...

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crocodile rock seems darker than the bedrock .

It took me a while, but I found the crocodile (circled in red) (from previous sol in MHOWARD image post #494, thank you Mike)
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Can almost touch the crocodile.
Now I'm looking forward another entry on your blog...

Huge thanks for all the image work everybody, especially the 3D.

That is a stunning 3D view, Stu.

Climber: I agree with your ID of croc rock.

I think I've been able to ID the two largest rocks that we've been following for some time - circled in black and white. The biggest and darkest one, circled in white, is actually pretty slim. But you can see from the side (2450 view) that it actually does hang over - that's why it looked so dark.
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Based on a distance of around 28 metres, the dark rock is around 90 cm tall.

What a mess.

When I see this, I'm just thinking: "The Perfect Crater". I feel like a food critic who just tasted the perfect... ratatouille..

- Not too big, not too small,
interesting topography,
eminently navigable inclines,
easily approachable rocks,
untreachorous solid surface:

Perfection.

Add to that:
a rover team which has reached driving and science operation excellence,
a deep space network that's not just a network but is more like a Swiss clockwork,
and finally a fast-working second-to-none imaging team at UMSF!

These are good times indeed.

Now I just hope Mars doesn't throw us a curve-ball. But even if she does, the MER team will deal with that splendidly, I'm sure.

I'm putting these here since the others for this sol are posted here. We should move to the new Santa Maria thread after this, though, I think this pretty much counts as arrival