Victoria Crater is now plainly in sight on the horizon - indeed we are only about 100 meters from its nearest edge. The interesting thing, though, is that there is still a lot of debate about what we are seeing, at least in the rover-watching community. Consensus, for the moment, seems to have formed around the - incorrect, I would say - opinion that we are not truly seeing the inside of the far rim yet, but instead are seeing the plains beyond the crater. I would disagree, but things should become clearer when we finally pull up to the rim in the next few days... we hope. Then again, things might not become clearer. So far, Victoria has proven amazingly enigmatic even at close range.
The view above is a 200 degree by 90 degree equirectangular projection of combined Navcam and Pancam images from Opportunity Sol 929. The minor crater in the foreground is "Emma Dean".
Edit: I guess I'm coming around to the opinion that we are seeing the plains beyond Victoria, as well as part of the inside rim. That would mean that the large hill-like feature on the horizon is probably huge and far away. But wow, it sure is hard to tell, even from where we are, less than 100m from the near rim.
