Looking at the Exploratorium - it appears we've left Vostok on a very long drive - I guess a few days of spectrometer integrations is data-thin giving time to dump out the flash memory ready to pack it up full with Autonav again

I believe a 10 or 11 x 3 L257 Pan was taken at Vostok on Sol 400 so should be some pretty pictures soon I'd put cash on it being downsampled to 256 x 256 like the Triplet imagery however.

Anyhow - here's to the next leg of the big-treck (raises a glass of Diet Coke as a toast)

Doug

I'll drink to that [raises his ice-cold frappe]

The question is, do we go south towards Victoria, or southwest to meet the etched terrain earlier ? We'll see soon

I'll go for the diet coke too. Cheers! personally I hope this will be a straight route to Victoria. There's plenty of etched terrain around.

I'd like to see us visit that large super-vostok feature in the Etched Terrain - but to be honest, despite some peoples concerns - I see no reason to expect the etched terrain to be anything other than more verbose and widespread versions of Vostok - possibly the dark parts in MOC images being drifts of the darker soil that lives under the blue berries - similar that that which we saw in one of the Triplet craters.

I've not seen any results of DEM generation from MOC stereo pairs to generate 3d models of the etched area - but MOLA shows it as flat to within a degree or two on a 250m scale.

Doug

Is that the first sign of the etched terrain wee see in the horizon?

http://qt.exploratorium.edu:16080/mars/opp...49P2386R1M1.JPG

Well, according to this map stolen from R.Arvidson's pdf "MER main scientific results" on http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=36537,
Oppy will graze the etched terrain to the southwest first and then head south to the 'weird crater' in the main etched terrain.

The next MSSS MOC release isnt too far away is it? I'm looking forward to grabbing all the meridiani images and doing a better route-to-victoria map

FWIW - my strategy would be a drive straight south toward the pair of eagle sized craters that are just before the beginning of the major etching - I'll call them the 'Gate Post' Craters for now (NE Gate Post and SW Gate Post) - I dont see much point in heading off track ot look at other Vostok-like features. That they stopped for such a short time at Vostok suggests it's nothign we havnt seen before. (they are at the end of the 2nd leg on that map previously linked)

Also - a route to the Gate Posts from a slight NW direction would appear to give a slight lull thru the more rolling terrain whilst giving an Opportunity (damn pun not intended ) to observe the etched terrain from afar.

I would then tackle the Western route around the large erroded crater (call it Albert crater - Victoria's husband ) then pick my way SE to an area of exposed rock directly north of Victoria just after the Etched Terrain ebs out - simply because it looks a little out of place there -

Pah - I'm dreaming again..dreaming of being a rover driver

Anyone had that walking-on-mars-and-find-an-MER-still-working type dream.

Doug

Not yet
But walking the dog in the evening I often see muddy truck tracks in the fields, and automatically look around to find the rover
Plus I stare at the half-clouded sky in dark evenings and think : "This looks like Titan's surface"
Should I worry ?

Head southwest to get to the etched terrain as soon as possible. And I want to see a 200-meter drive along the way.

On the other hand, I'm still wondering what that black spot is NE of Vostok. But they don't seem to think it's worth investigating.

The similarity in appearance to the heatshield impact site in the overhead shot does intrigue...possibly another meteorite? Doesn't seem like we'll be seeing it though.

Obsessed, how do you save images from a PDF file? I've been wanting to do that for some time but could never figure it out.

Notice the six units they have outlined? I wonder the difference is between units B & C and D & E.

You just need the full Acrobat for that, Aldo. Use the graphics select tool on the left menu.

If you 're cunning, (as Doug would say ) you can do a screen capture with any image processing software, but with less satisfactory results on the resolution side.

Here:

http://mer.rlproject.com/index.php?act=ST&...findpost&p=3467

I used the 'cunning plan' in this case...
You can solve the resolution problem by being REAL cunning. Just stitch a couple of smaller feats of cunningness into one cunning masterpiece!

Yours truly, Baldrick.

Ahh - even more cunning, set your screen res to something silly ( 2000 x something ) THEN screen grab it

Doug

what the hell, I'll be über-cunninglicious and here is the damn original.

Yours cunningly,
Pando

In OSX the system graphics engine uses a variant of pdf so anything you can display on screen can be saved as pdf, printed to pdf, and previewed in pdf. So a screen grab generates a pdf and you can the crop and copy graphics or text from the Preview app, even if the file is locked. I got the image from the PDF this way, but without using Acrobat.

Hi Lyford, i hope you share some kind of tenderness with PC users while explaining your tips and tricks....

But of course!

The free Acrobat Reader will let you copy the graphics if the document is not locked by the author.

In that case, try MWSnap, a freeware screen grab utility that my wife swears by. (We both swim in multiplatform seas, but I defer to her judgement in the PC graphics realm.)

That's the best way to get the pics out of a locked pdf for free on an XP PC that I know of....

If you want to go hardcore, you could spend $449 US and get Acrobat Professional for the PC. (Or you could spend $499 US and get a MacMini which ships with the PDF Preview app in its Candy Coated Unix.)

Linux users - have to get back to you! (My RedHat 6 box is out of commish right now...)

Atari fans - ? PM me!

Wouldn't it be great if the rovers happened upon a piece of a previous US or Russian failed mission? Say, Mars Climate Orbiter or Phobos 2...

Thanks Lyford for your cunning advices, but after a fall by night with my dog on the bottom of Victoria stiff slopes (Oppy don't go there please) , while gazing at Titan skies, i'll rather spend my bucks for medic nuts and bolts...

Uh, umm, there is that little key dinghy on your keyboard that says "Print Screen" on it. Press it, and like magic the screen is copied to the clipboard, open Paint and paste away...

By the times, i will first search that little key on my keyboard; but it so simple, i will try it!

And adopt it...

Yes, but MWSnap lets you select a section of the screen to copy first - one less step.
Time is money!

Amazing explanation!!!
I don't believe so though. Alas we won't know anyway .

heck the place probaly had a plak placed there saying "here lies the remains of another failed earth probe" with little matrian feet prints around it.

I use "atl" "print screen" then paste into an image program like photoshop. though i prefer the ease of the old irfanview for simple stuff.

Just a thought regarding the 'other' dark splat mark near by.

Whats the surviveability of the cruise stage after jettison 15 mins before EDL?

Doug

There's a large black object siting out on the plain in this image from Sol 390, not sure if it's looking in the right direction though.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...0P2287L7M1.HTML

Well, considering Phobos-2 is still in orbit, that would be remarkable indeed. The chances of running into something on the ground from a different mission is slim-to-non, and trending towards none. Too much area to cover.

An elevation map from R.Arvidson's paper

Thanks for all the tips on saving images from PDF files. Pando's Print Screen method is perfect.......So typical (for me): the solution turns out to be only one or two keystrokes away

I'm getting a Mac Mini in a few months

.....anyway back on topic. What's the scale on the map (MOLA?) from the PDF posted above .. is the large purple area Victoria Crater or the giant crater tens of km further south?

the large purple area is the gigantic crater to the south. I think the crater the arrow is pointed to is victoria.

I think most of the landing ellipse is covered in that image. Try lining up the terrain in the wide-angle MGS image here. The big crater is below the eastern tip of the landing ellipse, and it also shows a smaller crater above the landing ellipse about 1/3 of the way to the left

It seems from that map that Oppy, if it makes it to the far side of Victoria, might be able to see that giant crater to the south in the distance. I hope so!

ohhh how cool would that be. altho it's so far away it will just look like hills or a depression/valley in the distance depending on the dust conditions. I didn't realize the area oppy was on was that elevated. Thanks for the stolen map

scott

ToSeek you are right. Linked below is the corresponding area, shaded relief from MOLA datas, cropped from hematite.jpg (from MERs Landing Sites Website )

252kb jpg

Hey, skip Victoria and head for that BIG crater!

There is something rizing sharply in the horizon in this pancam from exploratorium. However ripples run parallel to the horizon, so this can't be the south.

Looks like they skipped straight past that little bit of rock and carried on driving. I wonder if they'll do much weekend driving - it'll be one HELL of a week for the odometer if they do. A 500m week anyone? Could be at Albert for April

Doug

I'm not so sure Doug about the long drive. The last forward hazcam image shows that they have turned in front of a little piece of outcrop.

They are alternating between forward and backward driving....when they drive backwards they perform a turn at the end of the drive I think.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P1315R0M1.JPG

I forgot about that sunspot, thanks ! So then maybe for the whole weekend
(Afterall, this IS a racing weekend, there's the Malaysia F1 GP )

No sleeping late on Sunday. Got to watch it live. Got to give in to my addiction

Hell yeah - Sepang GP, and the Sebring 12hrs (as a Brit - I'm beside myself over the DBR9 ). Not so happy with the new F1 regs - make a farce of things really.


Dragging things back on topic...

This

http://207.7.139.5/mars/opportunity/forwar...T7P1215L0M1.JPG

Is at Site 50

THIS...

http://207.7.139.5/mars/opportunity/forwar...00P1214L0M1.JPG

Is site 51

If they were going to manouver to that rock in the first shot, they'd have simply kept the Site 50 reference. It's a different piece of rock I think

Turn in place at the end of a long drive is common - it lines up the UHF antenna ready for the Odyssey pass to reduce any obstructions by HGA/PMA/LGA for a UHF-Odyssey line of sight to get the max uplink with minimum drop outs. Infact, they have turned in place DURING a UHF pass in the past. And best of all, they've turned in place, taken photographs and done a UHF pass all at the same time on one occasion

Usually - they'll face the rover E-ish or W-ish so that nothing obstructs the UHF antenna. If they face north - then at the beginning of the pass, the PMA can get in the way for the first half of a pass. If they face south - then typically the PMA will obstruct the end of the pass. I dont know this for SURE - I'm just guessing that's why they turn 90 degrees at the end of the day. I do know htey turn specifically for the UHF pass though


Doug

You can easily tell that Oppy has moved. Just compare the crater on the horizon in the PanCam images. It is 338 pixels wide on Sol 407 and 372 pixels on Sol 408. I'd say that puts Oppy closer to that crater, no?

That's true. One set of tires for the whole weekend ...
But it's interesting to bet how many engines will blow up in the heat of Sepang.

Tom, quite off topic

latest estimate

I read on a Mission Managers report that they always turn the rover at the end of a long drve so its in an optimal position for the communications passes.