If I had to guess, I would place those images toward the NW, based on dune and crossbedding orientation. I would also expect to see some evidence of Endurance in the background. I'm not sure what that is, but I don't think it's the backshell.

No, it isn't :-)
The backshell/parachute site is long way to NE:
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/02/09/
I think it's several km from current location of the rover.

And hello to everyone and greetings from Bulgaria :-)

Only about 3 km to Victoria now

And from from SOL 357 to 414 we drove 2,69 km!

Of cource the Etched terrarin will slow things down, but I really want Oppy to see that crater!

The Great Victoria Crater: what a fantastic ultimate destination for
this fantastic journey !

I bet, the view near the rim of Victoria
will yield the most amazing pictures of the whole mission

Yeah, that thing is huge - just the dune field in its center is bigger than Endurance crater.

I wonder what the dust is going to do on the panels, now that Opportunity is out of a crater and on the flats? There are several dark and light streaks radiating from Victoria - one or the other might make a good place to go for a dusting after the long trip.

Could be, this looks like the same object on sol 363 according to mar midnight browser (another one I couldn't find on JPL's website )
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...03P2285L1M1.JPG
and again on sol 390
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...00P2287R1M1.JPG

if it is the backshell, it emphasises just how flat and featureless the landscape is. Are there any similar places on Earth, where the land is dead flat and featureless all the way the the horizon?

Chris

[/quote]

if it is the backshell, it emphasises just how flat and featureless the landscape is. Are there any similar places on Earth, where the land is dead flat and featureless all the way the the horizon?

Chris

[/quote]

Sastrugi fields in Antarctica

The salt flats in the Kalahari desert in Botswana comes close as well as the salt flats in Utah

The orbital images showed the backshell to be west of Eagle Crater. It's getting tough to see Endurance crater now, whose edges have considerably more elevation than the backshell, or so I'd expect. I'd doubt then that the backshell would be visible at all. Heck, the heatshield, which is even closer, and very shiny, isn't visible anymore.
Large rock with a wind-blown tail?

Anyway that object is real, and it's darker and bigger compared to any stone on Meridiani we've seen. (Then it should be a hefty basaltic boulder, starting from 1 meter by diameter - where could that kind have come from, allegedly simply lying peacefully on Meridiani sediments? )

A couple of points yet for the backshell theory:

1) Oppy must now have gained a tiny bit altitude (1-2 m?) after its drive to south and so achieved a slightly better view over the totally flat plains to the north,
2) the visibility of the dark object cannot be compared to that of Endurance, which is distinguishable from the surrounding sands only because of its elevated 'tip' which breaks the horizon line (the crater's base is not behind the horizon, but still quite indistinguishable by its color e.g.),
3) the whitish patch beside the dark object in the images has moved from the right side to the left along the course of Oppy's drive, an observation consistent with what we know about the relative positions of the parachute and the backshell (p is behind the bs, as seen from Oppy).

I calculated the distance from Oppy to backshell should be around 2.5 km.

If it is it (and even if it's something else), seeing it may help to get a better idea of the changing elevation of the etched terrain when Oppy is heading further south and takes a pancam look back every now and then.

Oops...My bad! The backshell should be expected to the NW. Marswiggle said backshell and my brain said heatshield. Sorry.

But the backshell/parachute are so far away. It would be amazing if they could be seen from here.

Marswiggle, if your distance estimaton is correct, we should have a scale 0.7m/pixel in these PanCam images. "backshell" is about 3 pixel wide and "parachute" is 4 pixel away, so it make sense!
Bye.

The backshell and parachute were observed from Eagle Crater - and look very very different to what we're seing here

Doug

backshell or not its intresting none the less.

scott

It does interest me indeed. (Some thinkers think it quite wisely, 'don't look back'. But that's not so wise a seafaring principle.)
-The link below gives the looks of the backshell & parachute from Eagle, 440 m away. (Of course a combination of filters.) I would be absolutely astonished if we could not see a trace of them on that flatness anymore now, from only six times that distance, ~2600 m. (If advice is needed: think it one sixth of that size, even in medium res.)
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mer/images.cfm?id=1235

For my part, I see this case settled as for the facts, and we can turn forwards again, for a while.

We cant see the heatshield anymore - why should we be able to see the backshell?

Doug

Well, the parallax looks way off to me for something that's supposed to be 2.5 kilometers away....

It isnt the backshell. It's the wrong colour, the wrong size, and the wrong distance.

Doug

The image is from sol 409.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...00P2291R2M1.JPG
The heatshield was still visible then
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...00P2291R2M1.JPG

Well, kind od edit - I meant the case is 'settled' for the facts part, i.e. all the facts presented in the forum. Anyone can form an opinion. The truth about the dot's nature inevitably stays unsettled based on that knowledge. I don't know. Only made the observation and presented some facts in my reach. Can't still see it otherwise - perhaps someday with more wisdom?

EDIT after Alan's post - Thanks for that pancam image with *shiny* heatshield and Endurance. I couldn't find it, and therefore I was myself getting unsure. I originally estimated the angle from End to backshell based on a guess of End's location. My guess was just right. The angle should be a little less than 2 pancam frames wide, or somewhere between 20 and 25 degrees west from End. As measured from a map showing Oppy's location around sol 410 (as I thought), the angle between End and backshell is about 22 degrees. (This only as a reference to facts, not to the truth. )

Some corrections to what I mentioned above:
My original angle estimate was from N (not End) to backshell. The images being sol 409, a new measuring reduces the then distance to bs to somewhere btw 2100-2200m, (ie only 5x that from Eagle), and the map-measured angle fits yet better to that from pancam frames. The parallax should also be more convincing now.
These inaccuracies may have added to some confusion.

Does anyone know when Oppy will reach Erebus? How long will it take to reach Erebus from Voyager?
Does the etched terrain start before Erebus?

Updated Opportunity Route Map:

There are a couple of different landforms, here. There is what I think of as the true etched terrain, which has ridges of what look like evaporite outcrop surrounded by duneform-controlled patterns of dark and light sand. What lies directly between Oppy right now and its target at Erebus doesn't seem to have any actual outcrop (at least not any more than you would see out on the flat plains) -- it's just got what looks like duneforms of lighter sand overlying the dark, concretion-derived sand layer. As we get closer to Erebus and the ancient crater cluster to its south, some of the duning looks a *lot* lighter.

It's going to be very interesting to take a close look at the lighter sand in those dunes as we head south to Erebus. I would have to think there will be some significant differences in minerology between this lighter sand and the soils we've seen thus far.

-the other Doug

What's happening now? Are we on the move towards Erebus?

Judging from the latest hazcam image, it looks like they might be positioning the rover for some IDD work.

......also, looking at Pando's updated route map, Opportunity must be very close to the 5km mark now.

There has been a lot of dispute about where Opportunity is, though to me it's clear it is beside Voyager crater. However, I thought this approach might help to clear things up. You can take a 360 pan in Photoshop and use Filter-Distort-Polar Coordinates to make a 'donut' presentation of it. I have one here from sol 418 near "mini Fram". The pan was from an earlier post, I forgot to record which, I'm sorry.

Polar coordinates takes a bit of getting used to. The image must be square, so the long pan is made square with 'image size' . Top goes to the center so it has to be rotated 180 degrees. To get a more map-like perspective I also stretch it by at least a factor of ten vertically, then progressively shrink the foreground in a series of transform-scale operations. Complicated, but excellent results. If you look at this you can see Viking and Voyager as low rock piles at the expected azimuths near the bottom. Everything lies at the expected azimuth, which is why this is really useful for localization. Search for my name on the Lunar Photo of the Day to see an Apollo 14 pan done this way!

Phil

Click to view attachment

Just adding to my reprojected pan post... that image matches in every detail the map posted by Pando at:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...ype=post&id=431

but it does NOT match the other interpretation which suggests that 'Mini Fram ' was the location on sol 421, and that today Opportunity is at Viking.

Phil

Awesome projection, Phil. Thank you. Can you do the same projection for the navcam images next to Viking as well?

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...cam/2005-03-31/

Looks like we're ready to spring south toward a small crater named.... uh... (think Gilligans )

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...GYP1214L0M1.JPG

Nice one! now all that is left to do is fill the hole with this:

If somebody will stitch a pan of Victoria craterand post it, I will make a donut of it. Doesn't matter if it's not a full 360, as long as I can estimate the size of the missing sector. I don't have time to make the pans. I can barely get any work done these days, with rovers and cassini in the background.

Phil

OK, here's a donut plot for Vostok crater, another illustration of this method. The original pan is from the most recent news release at JPL. It's not a true map projection, but it approximates one.

Phil

Click to view attachment

Wow, great Donut pans!

Much better than the JPL ones I think

I just had to do like paxdan said

All you guys [creating images] better be careful, you're going to end up with a reputation to uphold! I'm looking forward to the simulated IMAX movies.

Great polar-pans! And you can still see Endurance due north on the hozizon.

--Bill

New forward hazcam, navcam and rearhazcam images from Oppy at exploratorium, maybe Odyssey is back online?

WOW:

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...GYP1607R0M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...GYP1607L0M1.JPG

Evidently we've gone from Viking to Victoria - http://qt.exploratorium.edu:16080/mars/opp...GYP1607L0M1.JPG

Doug

Damn, I thought Victoria was bigger

Don't you mean Viking to Voyager? Vicky's stiill a bit away.

--Bill

Updated Opportunity Route Map:

Nice look at Erebus, the road directly ahead:

Thank you. I was just about to post that image and ask if it could possibly be Erebus. I was looking for Erebus in the new images, but didn't expect it to appear so near. It is just big. It can't be anything else. I was thinking it was a couple of weeks ahead, after Viking.

It just gets more fun all the time. Woohoo! Off we go to the etched terrain.

er yes
I'm going back to bed

Doug

props to dot.dk

Thanks for dropping Oppy in the polar-pan, now thats what i call a self portrait.

I love the perspective, a martian birds-eye view. The thing i really like is that all the images are actually from the spacecraft itself. The closest thing i have seen to this kind of polar-pan self-portrait was this image from the pathfinder mission. However, the self portrait part was created from a photo of a museum model. Anyone have a link to the same thing from Viking 1 and 2 (the landers not the craters. OK, must try and drag myself back on topic.

Hey, if there are any rover image sequencers out there, when you are doing the definitive pans from the top of Husband Hill and of Victoria please can you throw in the self-portrait sequence (that is if you don't already plan to) so we have complete coverage when it comes to doing the the polar-pans. thanks.

I have seen this question be asked several times before but is there a problem with the exploratorium again. I realise there are several different URLs, however none of the explatorium links on this page have worked. Does it load quickly for you guys? It constantly times out for me. It definately isn't my connection as i am on a superwizzy 10 Mbit/s link.

Want to see Erebus.

It's fine here

Doug

Ok it's back and loading fine now. Hmm, if that is Erebus are we at the point where we can be confident that the etched terrain is gong to consist of flat areas of the exposed evaporate layer occupying the space between the dune crests where sand has been removed by wind action. Like vostock or the crazy-paving apron of endurance but with dune remnents snaking accross it. If so it doesn't look like it will present any obstacle to mobility. Roll on Victoria...

There's some elevation in there I think.

For those that use 3d programs - take something like eagle crater - then scale it in X and Y only ( not Z ) by 10000% - and I think that's what erebus will be like

Doug

When I'm accessing exploratorium from work (T1), I've found that I have to use the nasa.exploratorium.edu URL and remove the port number. Otherwise I get timeouts. When accessing from home (26k dialup) , I can use the qt.exploratorium.edu URL with port numbers just fine. I think the difference may be in the firewall used at my work, but I'm not sure.

--O'Dave

P.S. Thanks to the founders and admins for the great forums!