Hey Tesheiner - I've just realised that when you shift the map we won't need your blue line any more!

How long have we been following your blue line!

Thanks for your work (and others) keeping us up-to-date with the route.

Castor

Here is a preview at half-size. I would like to use as background a non-annotated version of that nice hi-res image (S11-00471) used by Tim Parker but afaik it won't be released until October.

Click to view attachment

And about the path in cyan, of course it doesn't make sense to be kept after reaching the rim.

BTW, why don't you also correct the Beacon position on the F.. R.. ?

Can you update the right part before shifting the map?

I usually update the right part only when shifting the left one because it takes me a lot of time.
The reason is that the picture and the whole route you see on the right is a 1/4-size snapshot of the complete route map I have on a separate and *huge* Photoshop (like) file which my computer can barely handle, so I don't change it so often.

What I can do is to keep posting the "pre-shift" version until reaching the rim but with the right image updated exactly as you can see on the "post-shift" version.

Tesheiner,

It's a pity that the join between the two MOC images is very close to the crater rim that the rover will reach soon. I can see you've tried to stitch the images along a line near the crater edge. Perhaps it would be better to use one image alone rather than stitch two together for this next section, although I'm sure you know better than I do about what is most suitable.

Maybe even that labelled, but higher res, image that JPL have released would be more useful for now until we can get a clean copy in a month or two.

Castor

Just for a bit of fun, an aerial view of the travel of Oppy on sol 928. You can see the tracks and the rover near Epsilon Crater . And the vertical projection by Indian3000.

Click to view attachment

Woah!

That's really great! We're so close!

I love it.. nice work guys!

Nico

Yes, that would be great.

See, with your current method when you have a lot of info on the left, there is not enough on the right.
But when there is a lot info on the right, finally, you shift the map, and we get very little on the left.

It would be great if you'd update the right side just before shifting the map. That way we'd get at least one picture with lots of info on both sides.

That's great! It would be interesting to see this kind of colorized composite projection mapping reflecting the data from all recent images. Too bad it's so much work.

I like what you've just shown Ant 103; thanks so much.
Well, now, waiting for Oppy's pictures download I need to change my mind. I'm gona watch tonight's France-Italy soccer game.

Forza Italia!!! Whooo Hoooooo!!!!

Allez les bleus!!!

So, thanks for your comments In the coming sols, I will try to update my map.

is this a football chat?
ZIDANE FOREVER

Stunning!! Where i can see the full view version?

It is indeed! Game is over : France 3 Italy 1
Now, VICTORIA FOREVER

...after Jason, another Italy fan from Ontario!
ant103, I must join to the chorus: your last 3D routemap is superb!

Attached is my take on what we have in store in the coming weeks, as Victoria's Secrets start to emerge...



(Apologies for the lack of scientific discourse, geologic or otherwise, in this, my first post. Just wanted to insert a bit of humor into the midst of all our excitement as Opportunity arrives at Victoria... I figured sooner or later someone would do what I just did... Variations on this "theme" are welcomed!)

I can see publicity for the Mars Rovers soon.

"Mars Rover Takes Opportunity to Explore Victoria's Secrets
Veil of Secrecy Lifted to Reveal The Crater's Most Intimate Details"


It won't be long now.

This is the full sized pixel I have just the free non registered version of Terragen, so, the largest images I can make are 1280 x 960 px.

Also, thanks for your very nice comments, I didn't imagine that my picture is so ... astounding

My updated route map (sol 931).

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

We are not amused.

Indeed...

Fantastic, fine classic art, and the ultimate heights of exploration up on the surface of Mars, what could be better! This is a little off topic, but I am brand new here and I was hoping for some help catching up on earlier activity, perhaps from Tesheiner or other experts on the mer routes. Does anyone know of photos of where Opportunity crossed onto the apron of Victoria? I believe it was by the rough looking areas of Beagle if I'm not mistaken. But I was hoping for some frame references of that. Thanks much, what a great site and what exciting times.

Hi echo and welcome! The party is nearly ready to start and that's good news to see that a newcomer ask about "Apron". Feel free to bring along beers and something to eat, next week will have NO night
Edit : Sorry not answering your question but your basicaly right and you can see Victoria's apron on ynyralmaen picture

Welcome, echo. If I understand your question, Opportunity appears to have crossed from the plains onto Victoria's apron between sols 898 and 907. Images of the boundary are apparent in images from some previous sols and some later sols. You can find labeled route maps in this thread, as you already know. You can go here to find all of the official images that are available from the rover's cameras by sol.

If you want to find other images created by members here, you will need to dig around in the various topics.

In response to others regarding the sub-thread, you people crack me up. I am very amused.

yes this will exactly be the one and only week I've been waiting for the most ever since we left Erebus ... hundreds and hundreds of
Sols we've been only counting ripples and pebbles ... while Victoria lived only in our dreams and imagination ..
She didn't even do us the favor of appearing on the horizon during all but the very latest day of arrival !

And then, sadly, of all the weeks it is this coming week that I'm away from the computer and can probably not follow the great Party

Nevertheless it would be a little consolation, if the arrival date would be exactly the 12. of September

well think of all the fantastic views you'll be able to see when you're back ....ALL AT ONCE!!!

I don't understand you'll be away since you KNEW the arrival date 4 months ahead of time

Thanks much folks, sorry I was away. Yes, I'll look up those dates and explore these fine forums some more. Just saw a new update finally on the the official jpl page and see they want to do some rock analyzing tomorrow, so I'll join you all in waiting patiently as we keep lingering at the doorstep before this grand prize of seeing Victoria crater. Thanks again!

Oops , seems that Oppy and Victoria have been waiting for me to return before starting the party

Welcome back, Nirgal.

As you see, we never know when the action starts. It happened to me this year; I went to my summer vacations thinking ... "gosh, I'll loose all the action 'cause the rover will be arriving VC during my holidays!" and came back when Oppy was just leaving Beagle. Last year was the same with Spirit and the summit.

So, take your seat and enjoy!

That's why I'm taking my next holiday during solar conjunction!

So now that MRO has settled into its orbit, I wonder when the first data transmission from a MER will be relayed? how does this bode for updates? Will the MERs be able to use the extra bandwidth from MRO in order to transmit more data, faster ?

Just curious.

John Cooke

Not really the right thread for it - but

MRO isn't expected to be used for UHF relay until the relay phase of its mission which will be when Phoenix arrives as I understand it.

Doug

The route map, updated to this to-be-celebrated-and-remembered sol 943.

Click to view attachment

Note: It's still a preliminary estimation; I want to double-check it with the pancam data web mobility info but, if it's correct, today's drive was of 75m or so.

Edit: No mobility info yet, but I did a second attempt using the navcam mosaic from JPL press release instead of my own autostitched panorama and it locates the rover a bit SW of my first attempt.

This "route map" tread started on feb 11th 2005 and here we are 19 months later and nearly 1900 posts later ready to explore Victoria. Thanks Tesheiner and All to bring us there. We'd still be looking clues inside the elipse without your hard & fine work.

I second that climber. At the beginning of the thread I tried to do some crude maps combined with some guesstimates, but Tesheiner and others have taken this seriously to a much higher level. Many thanks to you and your hard work.

JPL site is very prompt for once and has a Sol 943 pan of Victoria, plus the following postional in formation..

"A drive of about 60 meters (about 200 feet) on the 943rd Martian day of Opportunity's exploration of Mars' Meridiani Planum region (Sept. 18, 2006) brought the NASA rover to within about 50 meters (about 160 feet) of the rim of "Victoria Crater," "

Can I add my thanks to Tesheiner for his wonderful maps on this long voyage...

Kenny

Obrigado! Obrigado! Obrigado! Tesheiner and all the others!!!

I second that !

Tesheiner, it has been like i've actually felt myself following your famous "blue line" all the way across meridiani and through the dune maze in my dreams

Thanks all for your kind comments.

But may I say thanks too for everybody who were doing this kind of work during the whole mission, I was just covering the part starting at Erebus and the trek really started long before that point. Pando, Dilo, James Canvin, Phil Stooke, Algorimancer, and many others; there is/was a lot of people involved on this sort of work now and before and they deserve this credit too.

And back to business, I updated the map on my previous post (for sol 943) based on the JPL's press release navcam mosaic.

Kudos to everyone, but Pando gets the big high fives from me. This thread is how I found UMSF back when Opportunity left the heatshield and began heading for Vostok. I was going nuts trying to figure out where we were.

Similar for me, Dan.
I wasn't aware of the existance of any mars forum until I googled for "Victoria Crater" (by the time the rover was at Vostok, Viking, and Voyager) trying to know where in the heck was it (and how big, etc.) and found Pando's posts here on UMSF and on the other forum.

There was some movement to the left on sol 939, 1-2 m.

According to the JPL MER post is that the Sol 943, Oppy drove 60 meters and now it is 50 meters away from the rim.


A drive of about 60 meters (about 200 feet) on the 943rd Martian day of Opportunity's exploration of Mars' Meridiani Planum region (Sept. 18, 2006) brought the NASA rover to within about 50 meters (about 160 feet) of the rim of "Victoria Crater," the mission's long-term destination for the past 21 Earth months.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre.../20060919a.html

Now it is sol 945, I have just checked the PANCAM database. No available activity plan for the Sol 945 and neither 946.

Rodolfo

Thanks to Michael's equirectangular projection, here below the pseudo-polar and the vertical (5 cm/pixel) views of Sol943 site:
Click to view attachment Click to view attachment
North is up. Note the paleocrater (I do not remember the nickname) visible immediately WSW of Oppy, with depression influencing the ripples apparent pattern...

No there wasn't.

Then how this animated GIF can be explained?

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...amp;#entry68046