The dark "streak" looks to me like a shadow following a ridge, and there are indications of other, fainter ones parallel to the most obvious one.

Look closely and that dark streak in the Western corner (lower left) is real, and associated with another important (but very subtle) terrain type-- muted terrain. This is a draping and softening unit also associated with crater chains and lineations.

--Bill

Thank you, Bill. I've been seeing this for quite some time. I've been calling these draping units "splash-emplaced terrain," and words to that effect, since some of the most obvious examples lie around the larger basins. But there seem to be many overlapping draping units of many ages. It's going to be tough to sort them all out.

-the other Doug

Yep, it's a big Rolling Conundrum. I have two similar units cataloged from the Survey Orbit imagery: Internal slumpage or flowage features, on the inside of craters and External flowage or slumpage features, occurring on the outside of craters. These two landforms are somewhat similar, but the better-resolution mapping imagery is showing more differences, and I'm starting to think of the "muted terrain" as different than some of the "external flowage terrain" and needing to go back and change the earlier SO-image annotation overlays.

One big headache is trying to figure out what to call these new landforms and find myself referring back to a lot of the USGS planetary reference material. I'll be glad once papers start getting cranked out on these "dwarves" and we start getting community-wide nomenclature standards established.

--Bill

New comparison between the June 2015 SO-11 image and the August 2015 HAMO image of the "Occator Faculae".

https://univ.smugmug.com/Dawn-Mission/Ceres...-11--compar.png

--Bill

I had mentioned earlier that a static draping mechanism didn't seem right because the dark areas needed to be explained. Thanks to the scale of Bill's upper image, the dark areas appear to be not a dark draping, but pits that evidence removal of the ground from beneath the draping material, leaving deep voids like holes in Swiss cheese. I can't profess to understand what gas might be escaping from there, but it looks like a phased event: first the deposition of salts, perhaps with some ejection of globs of that material around the area, followed by a less dusty outgassing event that has etched out some of the cracks and dust between blocks under the desposits. Water vapor is not out of the question, but other gases released from under pressure also seem likely. For today, at least, this scenario lingers as I look at that image.

those might be pits ?
there is a dark black line next to the light area
Click to view attachment
see the arrows

Bill's upper image here https://univ.smugmug.com/Dawn-Mission/Ceres...-11--compar.png shows that edge to be more of what I would call a curve fringed by a shadow falling on slightly less dark terrain below the edge. By my eyes, a pit. The more I stare at it, the more riddled the whole mound looks.

Remember that two different exposures were merged for this image. The boundary you've marked is likely between the two images, so you can't trust any details you see there. We have to wait till we have access to the two original frames.

Exactly. They may be pits, but they may likely be not. If you enlarge and tweak that same spot from my comparison image this is a darker area of the floor with maybe a ledge and shadow next to it. And that gray triangular area to the left/upper-left of the Spot is the central peak of Occator crater. Remember, this is a difficult area to image-- the floor is a very dark gray and the spot is a very light white, almost like snow on a coalpile, and two different exposures were needed to photograph it.

In the Caption of that image I noted that an apparent significant change in the group of spots as insignificant:

==
Although the earlier SO image is less clear, similar features can be spotted on both images and over the time span it appears that no significant changes have taken place. Note that the pair of spots on the Eastern side are less prominent in the HAMO image than in the SO image. It may well be that this pair of spots shows decreased activity in the later image, but it might be that this is simply an artifact of NASA compositing the image.
==

Since this image was composited by NASA I'm being careful on making pronouncements. However, I do think I can see a system of radial fractures around the large Spot, which may be a clue to it's origin.

--Bill

Processed enlargement of HAMO 15.



Doesn't seem to be much here we haven't seen already.


Imaging location map:

There seems to be a small flow-like structure in the small crater just below the large one in the lower left of the image:
Click to view attachment
(3x enlargement)

Click to view attachment

Blink comparison eastern part Occator (8/21 and 6/9 2015).
What is the best explanation for these changes?

Hi - the best explanation is that no changes occurred. Some are produced by a small misregistration. The apparent change in brightness is almost certainly caused by the use of a high pass filter during processing of the high resolution image.

Phil

Or the change in the two big spots in that image is simply due to replacing that portion of the long-exposure image with the short-exposure image, so they appear darker. We were told the two images were combined. But I agree with Phil that it looks like the portion of the short-exposure image that was spliced in may have been high-pass filtered as well.

Why doesn't that filter affect the other spots allso? All the smaller spots are brighter in the higher resolution.
Could the elevation angle of the Sunlight (seems lower in the low-res picture) be part of the explanation (illumination and reflection of brighter slopes, like on lonely mountain)?

There are lots of factors that are causing differences between those images. Different capture angles will receive differing amounts and positions of reflected light, different solar incidence will change the amount and position of reflected light, different exposure lengths will record the area differently, image compression can play a role, and finally image processing such as the histogram stretch and other filters can greatly change the appearance of the data.

Here's a rough modification of the higher resolution capture to appear more like the previous one.

Click to view attachment

I could say I'm hopeful that the area at the far right in the survey orbit image is evidence for the 'haze' that disappears in the HAMO image but I think what we are seeing is more related to Dawn being closer and better able to resolve the spots than anything else. Most likely, any images featuring the supposed 'haze' have not been released, unfortunately...

It looks very much like the longer-exposure image was used for the smaller spots (as it was for most of the new image). Only the largest spots were replaced with the short-exposure image. They may have simply selected by hand which parts of the long-exposure image to replace with the short-exposure image, or perhaps used some semi-automatic selection method.

We really can't say much from this new image and have to wait until we see the original two frames.

As I said in the caption to the Comparative images of the two timeframes:



https://univ.smugmug.com/Dawn-Mission/Ceres...-11--compar.png


And looking closely at the floor of Occator in the HAMO image, I can say that there has been no obvious changes in the 9June to 21Aug time period, although this has been a very active area.

--Bill

Processed enlargement of HAMO 16.




Imaging map:

This linear structure from that image seems to have a depression along part of its ridge line. It appears to be due to subsidence of whatever material formed the dike in the first place.

Click to view attachment

In the context of SO34 (http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19603), it is a part of a ridge, but it even looks as if it could be the central peak of a much wider/less obvious crater. You will have to rotate HAMO16 90 deg counterclockwise to get the same perspective.

ZLD: could you please add SO34 to your awesome map?

Click to view attachment

EDIT: I almost forgot, this is also visible in a different lightning in SO43 (http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19616). The flowage features from the crater on the right ridge are more obvious here.

Click to view attachment

In your enlarged version, it looks very obvious that there are boulders on the floor of the young, intriguing crater; but in the original image, it just barely looks that way. Hm.

bsharp: I'll try to include this in today's map. The Dawn releases have pretty commonly been occuring between 11h00 and 12h00 CST.

Habukaz: As for the magically appearing boulders, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of noise but most of the released HAMO images seem to be, for whatever reason, just slightly out of focus to begin with so who knows.

I just had a look at the TIFF file, and it seems that JPEG was the culprit. For such fine details, even light JPEG compression can make a big difference, apparently. Lesson learnt.

Pretty sure now that the boulders are real. I hadn't noticed boulders earlier, though I had only been looking at the JPEGs. I can see boulder-like structures in HAMO #6 as well now.

There is so much happening in HO16. An apparent slumpage feature to the west, a mantling terrain flowage feature to the east and on the upper side, a conical hill with a central pit.

And we are getting the "Meh" HAMOs from last month. Think of what the reaallly good stuff shows!!!!

--Bill

No kidding Bill. I think at this point, while the brights spots are tantalizing, Haulani is currently more intriguing to me. Really looking forward to that HAMO image. I will again hope that's what we'll be getting today but I'm not going to hold my breath (not interested in asphyxiating myself really).

Also, the conical hill you noted in your image Bill, there are several others in the area and to me it would seem that they may be related to ancient central crater peaks that have lingered longer than the crater rims.

Spectacular slump feature in HAMO17:
Click to view attachment
(enlarged 3x)

Processed enlargement of HAMO 17.



Now that we've seen an appreciable number of slumped soil in HAMO, this one seems particularly smooth, with an obvious exception that it was already unique. It seems almost like it just melted away like a lava flow rather than the other seemingly stepped mass wasting at other sites.


Imaging map:

Seen previously with different lighting in HAMO4
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=225665
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA19635.jpg

Quick tweened animation between the slump in HAMO 4 and HAMO 17.


(click to animate)

Far more complex than one lighting angle would suggest, that's for sure.

ZLD--

The White Spots are interesting, but I think that are an analogue to Mercury's Hollows, but perhaps with a unique Cerean twist. The "flowages" and "slumpages" and "muted terrain" are going to subtly be the major landscape processes. And the closer we are able to look the more we see.

Alan--

Yes! And remember the "HO-4" slump is some 20 km longxwide, and even by Terrestrial standards it would be a major continental catastrophe.

I have a new comparative image set of it in the Ceres Gallery.

https://univ.smugmug.com/Dawn-Mission/Ceres

--Bill

a few rendered images of the mesh of the slump in HAMO4
top left area in the first image -

This is a domes or craters? My eyes confused. .

Sunlight's coming from the right, so those are craters.

those are two small craters on the slope of the spill

because this area is raised ABOVE things ,there is a bit of an optical illusion .
using the image as a texture
Click to view attachment
rendered just the mesh ( sun in same spot )
Click to view attachment

Many Thanks!

That flowage area looks a bit flat (relief)-- wonder how it would look with 3x-5x vertical exaggeration?

--Bill

Processed enlargement of HAMO 18.



-----

Imaging map

Processed enlargement of HAMO 19.



-----

Imaging location map

Is it my imagination or does it look like something flowed into the large crater on the lower right?

Seen in PIA 19616, http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMod/PIA19616_modest.jpg, it could have been a rille. In this closer view, it certainly seems to originate from a hilltop and represent the meandering nature of a stream. But it is also highly degraded. I think an elevation map is needed to make sure it is not "flowing uphill" which would negate a flow of anything.

Could be but it's difficult to say at this scale. In the vicinity is a lot of deep cracks that have similar appearances to this.

Seems there was a bit of a hiccup in imaging back on the 13th. From the mission status page ...

Assuming nothing further happens, the particular terrain that wasn't photographed on this pass will still be imaged five times instead of six. Since I expect they'll be anxious to move on to LAMO on schedule (as will most of us) this looks like a write off of those lost images but probably no big deal. Just hope it was a unique event. In the latest Dawn Journal a situation like this was anticipated ...

On the right hand side of HAMO 19 there's what looks like a sinuous rille (if I think in Lunar terms).

I can almost convince myself that there's a 'cobra head' like source for some kind of liquid.

P

yah. When I saw the photo I thought - apollo15 hadley rille. but the processes at work on these bodies could be very diferent and produce similar features

A flyover animation of the conical mountain based on the Shape From Shading Technique with artificial colors (I always keep in mind the Mars-like color of a view obtained from the Hubble Space Telescope):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drwlpqxPa9k

This is an annotated view of another peculiar slump feature from the PIA19896 HAMO-18 image, which shows an area of mass-wasting with multiple lobes which suggests episodic events. In addition, it shows a peculiar light-toned area in highlighted inYellow with unusual tabular, upturned beds and a downslope terrain with a jumbled and chaotic nature highlighted in Magenta. A fracture zone to the South is highlighted in Blue.

https://univ.smugmug.com/Dawn-Mission/Ceres...ient--annot.png

--Bill

you might want to reuploade the vid
is is rather dark and way too contrasty

a screenshot of what i see
Click to view attachment

MP4 recording was not ideal. The quality of each png file is of course better. I will try avi, next time.
MP4 recording took about 7 hours with my computer:lol: then wmv... How long would it take for png's?
Thanks for the feed back and the advice John!