Friday, December 30, 2005

El Dorado


2_AL00_706_4
Originally uploaded by marscat.
Some nice Pancam false-color images are now coming in of "El Dorado". I happen to be home today so the MMB pan metadata has been updated with the new images.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Things to Come in 2006 (Maybe)


2_AKSR_705_2
Originally uploaded by marscat.
As far as MMB programming goes, I'm officially "retired" - not that I was ever "hired" - but there are still some things I'd like to get done in 2006, if I can find the time.

One of the smaller things to do is to make it easier to update the metadata on this end. That might result in timelier metadata updates on your end, plus make my life easier.

One other, larger, task would be to rewrite the program as an Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) application. This might allow me to give the program a much nicer user interface. Reasons why this might actually get done include the fact that I need to be learning Eclipse plugin and RCP programming anyway, and this would give me another area to develop my "skillz".

Another thing I'd like to do is get rid of some of the program's remaining memory leaks and improve the performance of the Panorama feature (especially switching between panoramas). Unfortunately no one bought me JProfiler for Christmas. :(

Anyway, those are things I'd kind of "like" to do with the program - whether they actually get done or not depend on whether I find time and focus in the New Year. We'll see what happens.

To all twenty or so of you who read this blog: Happy New Year (Soon)!

Friday, December 23, 2005

Comanche Tidbits


2_AKFF_697_1
Originally uploaded by marscat.
New Mission Update by Steve Squyres at the Athena site. Summary: Similar to the other rocks around here, Comanche is relatively unaltered and has lots of olivine, but it otherwise appears to have a different composition from anything so far, so it may be yet another new Gusev rock type. Next Spirit target is El Dorado; expect lots of driving. Oppy, on the other hand, won't be going anywhere for awhile as they are still figuring out how to safely stow the arm. "64KC" now probably the best-imaged site on the planet. :)

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

"Comanche" Up Close and Personal


2P188061742ESFAKE1P2584l257
Originally uploaded by marscat.
Some false-color closeups of "Comanche" now coming in...

I couldn't begin to speculate what we are looking at, but it's interesting to me that the rock is broken up, and appears to be much darker than the bedrock beneath it. I've been puzzling over this one for a while, in my clueless non-geologist kind of way. I hope somebody more knowledgable throws some commentary out there soon... This just looks like a rock that is trying to tell us something new.

Friday, December 16, 2005

"Comanche"


2_AKE1_694_3
Originally uploaded by marscat.
Spirit is on final approach to "Comanche", seen here.

Meanwhile, Opporunity's arm is working again, mostly, which is great news. See the latest Mission Report by Steve Sqyures", here.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Opportunity's Shadow


1P187593770EFF64KCP2425l247
Originally uploaded by marscat.
Opportunity took this image of her shadow on Sol 669. Pancam false-color.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Opportunity Hits a Snag

Planterary Society Blog article (with a MMB screenshot)

Here's hoping the rover operators can figure out a way to get the arm working again. Good luck to them and Opportunity.

If not, well... there are worse things to have than a mobile camera platform with a working MiniTES on a still largely unexplored planet. But let's not go there yet.