Great. I love the hi-res insert, shame about the extra work.

Roy F

Actually, that's 200% full-res.
I would like to have the whole map at that resolution but it's too much for my computer and wouldn't fit on an average sized (KB) image except if heavily compressed.

Very nice Eduardo, I guess we'll need it now.
I also bet Oppy will not go any further north for quite a while

I've been looking at lots of the previous route-maps in the last few days, and admiring all the work Tesheiner, Phil, pando (and everyone else!) have done over 1111 Sols, for a personal project [I have a vague intention to at least attempt to make something that might one day be worth posting. No promises ] I then happened to come across this quotation from the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, whilst the "firefox-tab flicker-book" effect was still fresh in my mind. I hope it's not too off-topic... (Fans of science fiction films may also recognise a reference - the film's quoting Baudrillard, not the other way round!)



(From 'Simulation and Simulcra', spotted here

(strokes chin, looks thoughtful...) I don't quite understand it, but I think I dimly grasp the outlines... rather like the serious geologist talk here, in fact

New nav, pan, and hazard cams are up on the site.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/

For the lack of anywhere else to put it...
If you haven't seen it yet, there is a very nice 'flyover' animation of both the Columbia Hills and Victoria Crater on the JPL website:

Opportunity here

Spirit here

Enjoy
Astro0

Wow thanks for posting it Astro0, that animation looks awesome!

Huge poster-size anaglyphs of both MER sites were up on the wall at Tuesday's LPSC poster session. I thought I was going to fall right into Victoria. Ahh, if only you could have seen them!

Phil

I saw them, Phil. The Columbia Hills were pretty impressive, too. I wish I knew you were there...I would have liked to meet you. I arrived Tuesday just in time to catch the posters, but had to leave Wednesday afternoon.

Updated route map (sol 1126).
Click to view attachment

Cool, Oppy is now past Victoria's northernmost point.

Updated route map (sol 1127).
Click to view attachment

Updated route map (sol 1129).
Click to view attachment

Updated route map (sol 1130).
Click to view attachment

Updated route map (sol 1132).
Click to view attachment

I guess Tierra del Fuego is the end of the line for the trip around the crater. I'm looking just beyond there and I see two places where the dark-light pattern in the sand looks like the pattern familiar to me as rivers in larger images. I'm not saying there's any reason to think water was involved, but I'm curious to hear ideas about what formed them, and perhaps get a closer look. Are these the only places near Victoria where this sort of pattern occurs?

What happened to checking out the fractures over by "Soup Dragon"
to see if there was any water-born mineral deposits in them?
Not that I'm unhappy about making a beeline for Duck Bay and a
closeup look at the base of a prominence.

Updated route map (sol 1134).
Click to view attachment

I can't answer your question, but don't feel lonely. The same question is also in my mind.

Jack

Another map update (sol 1137) including a shift to the zoom picture.
Last drive into the "darkness" went way out of the previous zoom.

Click to view attachment

It's now Sol 1142 for Oppy. The latest Navcams and Pancams are down. It appears to me that Oppy has moved substantially--in an unexpected direction, according to plans reported in the updates from the Planetary Society. The MER team may have decided to investigate the NE section of bays of Victoria. At least they are taking images of that area from a spot that appears closer than before.

Actually - it ties in well with the visit a dark trail then visit the source of a dark trail plan.

Doug

Yes, it does make sense. But their recent statements suggested they would quickly take a look at Tierra del Fuego, then high tail it back to Valley Without Peril for a possible toe dip--then retrace back to Duck Bay for the real ingress. It now appears the investigation of Tierra del Fuego is going to take a lot longer than expected. It might also lead to a closer investigation of the bays on the NE side of Victoria, like what most of us thought would happen very early on because of what Steve said in interviews. I think they have an eye on those pipes as a possible source of the dark deposits.

OOOHh! Tres tres kewl! JPL has a new 'official route map' with isometric lines at 2-meter intervals:NEW MAP
Quick, who's going to be first to calculate the slopes of all the bays?
fun, fun, fun

P.S. Please add a horizontal scale bar, Mister NASA! Pretty please!

And you guessing all of this from a single drive toward a target we already knew they were driving to?

To date, they are following the plan as mentioned on planetary.org to the letter. They've driven into a dark streak, and this recent drive ( from which you are reading an array of things none of which are related to the drive itself ) is exactly what the next step should be - driving back up the streak toward where it meets the crater. Then, Tierra Del Fuego (to get the views of the next bay/cape along, and back toward VWOP - then VWOP for a possible toe dip, then back to Duck Bay. The stuff here should take about a fortnight.

I'm not quite sure what you thought the plan was, and why you think what's going on is not the plan...but it is.

Doug

Could Oppy enter the crater near Soup Dragon' ?

Doug

I cannot help it if I have a creative mind. Perhaps I'm thinking about the possibilities too much and putting those thoughts into my posts. My main focus for posting on this particular thread was to find out precisely where Oppy moved to. I'm just waiting for the map update.

Some new names on the new map, including Straight for what we called Hoy, and curiously "Nose of Vincent" for the tip of Cape St Vincent!

I get 10 pixels/metre and 4 pixels/metre for the two maps in their largest formats.

"Straight"?! What's next? "Pointy"? "Crumbly"? "Ooh, looks a bit steep..."?!

(I know, I know, there'll be a Magellan connection somewhere... just joking with ya... Seriously tho, "Straight"? Didn't the guy sail past some epic-looking rock spires or outcrops that were given epic names...? Ustrax! Help me out here...)

Nose of Vincent:
Click to view attachment

What a wondrous map. Thanks for pointing it out, Shaka. Congratulations on the slope estimations, fredk. Can we assume these contours are based on the HiRise stereography?

Unless I got off track following those contours, it appears that the Beacon's elevation is slightly above -1374 meters, and the lowest point in the crater is somewhere within the -1450 meter closed contour on the SE side of the center. That pins the current total depth of this hole at roughly 76 meters.

My latest map update (sol 1142).

Click to view attachment

Edit: Changed the map to include Hoy's "formal" name: Straight, and correct the placement of "Barcelona". I thought Barcelona was the whole rocky top of Cape St. Vincent but this newest map at the JPL places it at the lump#2.
Boy! Plenty of places from the whole spanish geography are being used here. The next one is "Alicante".

not to get too OT here, but heres anothe good view of Sofi in the middle from this angle here
compared to the angle from last December.
its worth noting that the face stain from an earlier post is still intelligible from this angle.

Updated route map (sol 1143).
Just a little move NE (2m or so) to play golf with "Alicante".

Click to view attachment

Don't know if I'm correct, I'm a bit off due to work, but could it be the Straight of Magellan?
Tesheiner, do you know to what Santiago are they referring to? If it's the Galician one I would be very happy...

In English... a "strait" (as in "of Magellan") is a different word than "straight" ...

That's the joke I was trying to make...

(Fast Show voice) I'll get me coat...

Let's just hope she's not heading straight towards dire straits.

Stu said: "(Fast Show voice) I'll get me coat..."

A straitjacket?

Phil

This might be useful...

I don't know, but my guess is for Santiago de Compostela because they were naming features representing places in Spain in the whole trek since Duck Bay.

Rovers move in mysterious ways Tesheiner...

Updated route map (sol 1150).
Click to view attachment

Does anyone know where we are? This is my best guess.

Looks about right to me...

This is my version, updated after last drive on sol 1155.
Click to view attachment

Note: I'm *very busy* since the middle of this month so unfortunately I won't have the time I had before to update the route map so often. I will try to do it once a week if possible but can't promise anything.

Route map, updated to sol 1157.
Click to view attachment

Hi folks.

Been a while since I've had a chance to post. I did get the message that my location maps need a scale bar (I thought that simply rendering them at 25cm/pixel for the full map and 10cm/pixel for the blowup would be sufficient). So, the full Victoria map now has the USGS scale bar on it:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/tm-...nity/index.html

planetarily,
-Tim.

Beautiful work as ever Tim...hopefully R.K. will be able to release some sort of DEM product for we mortals to get all artistic with soon

Cartographcially,

Doug

Got to chime in - that's a fantastic map. Thanks for posting it, Tim.