Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter sees Curiosity's tracks

The HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter got this shot from orbit of Curiosity's trek across Mars to "Yellowknife Bay." Full-size image & caption: www.uahirise.org...



Amazing detail! You can see the current whereabouts of the rover, so this can serve as a map to plot Curiosity's current and future activities in the Yellowknife bay. I have also found the parachute and other stuff left over from the landing.

You can try viewing the large jpg image but I suggest downloading HiView to view the humongous JPG2 files where you can zoom in closer and see stuff more clearly. www.uahirise.org...

if they can take pictures this clear and detailed of mars then why can`t they do the same with the moon?
all the pictures of the moon are just blurry smudged pictures with an arrow pointing to a blurry rock with the caption "apollo lander"

Originally posted by Tardacus
if they can take pictures this clear and detailed of mars then why can`t they do the same with the moon?
all the pictures of the moon are just blurry smudged pictures with an arrow pointing to a blurry rock with the caption "apollo lander"

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mapped the Moon in hi-res, mostly at 0.5 m/pixel, and in places down to 0.26 m/pixel. You can see not only the Apollo landers but various equipment left there by the astronauts, and even their foot tracks.

www.lroc.asu.edu...
target.lroc.asu.edu...
wms.lroc.asu.edu...
wms.lroc.asu.edu...

reply to post by Tardacus
Look what this guy did from his back garden

This is a combination of raw video and individual images processed from video. An 11" amateur telescope was used along with a B&W CCD video camera. The video feed was captured on a Sony miniDV Camcorder. Because video has a lot a "noise", image processing is typically done by stacking multiple frames on top of each other

Originally posted by Tardacus
if they can take pictures this clear and detailed of mars then why can`t they do the same with the moon?
all the pictures of the moon are just blurry smudged pictures with an arrow pointing to a blurry rock with the caption "apollo lander"

What's obvious is one of two things you are either a liar or you just don't know were to look!

Originally posted by wmd_2008

Originally posted by Tardacus
if they can take pictures this clear and detailed of mars then why can`t they do the same with the moon?
all the pictures of the moon are just blurry smudged pictures with an arrow pointing to a blurry rock with the caption "apollo lander"

What's obvious is one of two things you are either a liar or you just don't know were to look!

or maybe I have bad eyesight because i don`t see anything in those super duper state of the art up to date high definition moon photos, but i can clearly see the rover tracks in the new mars photos.
maybe they can take that mars orbiter and it`s camera and zip on over to the moon and snap a few pictures for me?

Originally posted by Tardacus
if they can take pictures this clear and detailed of mars then why can`t they do the same with the moon?
all the pictures of the moon are just blurry smudged pictures with an arrow pointing to a blurry rock with the caption "apollo lander"

They can and do. The Mars image linked to in the OP was originally taken at 28cm/pixel. This image of Apollo 11 (link) is at 39cm/pixel. That's not much of a difference at all and there are some of the Apollo sites that are down to 25cm/pixel.

Perhaps you only saw the first images of the Apollo sites that came from the LRO when it was still in a higher orbit, during its commissioning phase. The current images of the Apollo sites are anything but blurry.

But back to the main topic. Great image, thanks for posting that wildspace.

Originally posted by Tardacus
or maybe I have bad eyesight because i don`t see anything in those super duper state of the art up to date high definition moon photos, but i can clearly see the rover tracks in the new mars photos.
maybe they can take that mars orbiter and it`s camera and zip on over to the moon and snap a few pictures for me?

Here:

Apollo 17 Foot Paths and Rover Tracks From Orbit
Apollo 14 Foot Paths From Orbit
Apollo 12 Foot Paths From Orbit

By the way, images of the astronaut foot paths and the lunar rover wheel tracks could be found in the links by 'wildspace' (in a post above), if you knew where to look. Most of the images posted by him were zoomable. The more you zoom, the better the resolution image that is shown.

Originally posted by Atzil321
reply to post by Tardacus

 

Look what this guy did from his back garden

This is a combination of raw video and individual images processed from video. An 11" amateur telescope was used along with a B&W CCD video camera. The video feed was captured on a Sony miniDV Camcorder. Because video has a lot a "noise", image processing is typically done by stacking multiple frames on top of each other

Too bad NASA can't do as good a job, just for show cause we want to know.
Bravo to that youtube video.
NASA using far better Astronomical equipment from all the worlds observatories must have
gotten expert advice on where to make the landings down to the gravel size.

Originally posted by TeslaandLyne
Too bad NASA can't do as good a job, just for show cause we want to know.
Bravo to that youtube video.
NASA using far better Astronomical equipment from all the worlds observatories must have
gotten expert advice on where to make the landings down to the gravel size.

That video was great considering it was earth-based observations, but NASA's images taken by the LRO spacecraft are much, much better.

The images in that video can only resolve craters and objects a few miles across at best. Something the size of an Earth city would be about the limit of the resolution seen in that video.

On the other hand, some images from NASA's LRO oribiter can resolve objects 30 centimeters. That mean rock the size of a beach ball could be seen.

Here is a link to a gallery of LRO images. These are zoomable, and I suggest you zoom in and see objects small enough that a person could pick up.

LRO Browse Gallery

Originally posted by Tardacus

or maybe I have bad eyesight because i don`t see anything in those super duper state of the art up to date high definition moon photos, but i can clearly see the rover tracks in the new mars photos.
maybe they can take that mars orbiter and it`s camera and zip on over to the moon and snap a few pictures for me?

edit on 16-1-2013 by Tardacus because: (no reason given)

edit on 16-1-2013 by Tardacus because: (no reason given)

Here watch this then book an appointment at an opticians !!



As for the youtube video taken with an 11" telescope yes it is very good is it hi-res NO even the Hubble can only resolve down to about 300ft at the distance of the Moon.

The LRO got down to 26cm/pixel during it's lowest orbit.

Seriously if you are going to continue to use your conspiracy cliches you are going to continue to look like a bit of an idiot! ( You do know what a cliche is )

Here is a link for you it will explain how to use the LRO quick react map to see hi res images obviously from your comments you don't know how to do it!!!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Forget moon landing comparisons and all the rest of it ... I want Mars base now! NOW!

I hope this means we're a step closer to the future and it's not another 50 years before we see an astronaut taking a step for mankind.

This is a bit off-topic, but this has me wondering: Is the galaxy gray? And on those lines, why is earth so colorful?!

reply to post by doesntmakesense


Oh gosh, my thread is being carried off-topic.

The galaxy and the rest of universe is fairly colourful, but the light from them is very dim. Our eyes see in b&w in dim light, so the milky way and other deep space objects appear grey (unless you use a really really big telescope). With photography, however, we can capture that colour and vibrancy. Have a look at my blog about this: astromaks.blogspot.co.uk...

Originally posted by Tardacus
if they can take pictures this clear and detailed of mars then why can`t they do the same with the moon?
all the pictures of the moon are just blurry smudged pictures with an arrow pointing to a blurry rock with the caption "apollo lander"

They aren't that blurry now that we have had a modern craft take pictures.....do you live under a rock? You can see the tracks that the Moon rover left just as you can see these tracks....Moon tracks

Originally posted by doesntmakesense
This is a bit off-topic, but this has me wondering: Is the galaxy gray? And on those lines, why is earth so colorful?!

Interesting that you mentioned that.
Have you ever looked at what your vaccuum has in it's bag or cup??
It's grey. No matter what color your carpet is, the contents of the vaccuum is grey.

Originally posted by doesntmakesense
This is a bit off-topic, but this has me wondering: Is the galaxy gray? And on those lines, why is earth so colorful?!

I'm not sure if you are asking : "why are the pictures from Mars often black and white?"

If that's what you are asking, then it's because of the way many digital cameras work...

Digital cameras with CCD light sensors are essentially color-blind. The CCDs of "consumer cameras" and the CCDs of NASA's space probes cannot see light in color -- they only see it in greyscale.

To get color, your home consumer camera and NASA's probes view each subject through various filter which give them grayscale versions of the same image but with different grayscale intensities depending the filter. By combining and analyzing the different grayscales, a computer can figure out what the actual colors are.

In your home camera, the filter used is called a Bayer filter, and it creates one image based on simultaneously stacking three images seen through a single red-green-blue filter . The computer in your camera analyzes each grayscale pixel seen through a red, green, or blue filter, and then constructions the one color image that you see out of these combined filtered grayscale images.

This all happens inside your camera for most peoples home consumer cameras.

Many NASA probes use this same basic concept, but instead of the different grayscles being analyzed inside the spaceprobe and having the space probe construct a color image from these, the various grayscales are transmitted to Earth to be combined by computers here.

That's why many of the Raw images coming from NASA probes are grayscale.

However, not all NASA probes do this. Curiousity's MastCam and its MAHLI Camera utilize Bayer filters (like your home digital camera) and the computer onboard Curiosity is what tries to determine color from the Bayer-filtered grayscale images.

++++++++++++

And keeping that in mind, and looking a the OP's image specifically, NASA constructed this image by emphasizing the tracks as seen through the Red filter. This helped the tracks to stand out against the rest of the image (and when I say "through the Red Filter", I mean the grayscale that is created when seen throug a red filter. The Mars Reconaissance orbiter HIRISE camera has a Red filter, a Blue-Green filter, and a near-Infrared filter).

Here is a description as to how the OP's image was processed:

This image was acquired for color coverage of the region that the Curiosity rover may explore, but we acquired some extra RED (monochromatic) coverage of the rover tracks.

Source

reply to post by doesntmakesense


Here's a colour image from Mars for you, taken by the Curiosity rover. The colours are very close to what you or your digital camera would see there:

Originally posted by wildespace

The HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter got this shot from orbit of Curiosity's trek across Mars to "Yellowknife Bay." Full-size image & caption: www.uahirise.org...

Amazing detail! You can see the current whereabouts of the rover, so this can serve as a map to plot Curiosity's current and future activities in the Yellowknife bay. I have also found the parachute and other stuff left over from the landing.

You can try viewing the large jpg image but I suggest downloading HiView to view the humongous JPG2 files where you can zoom in closer and see stuff more clearly. www.uahirise.org...

I'm just wondering what were is the detail of the amazing TUBES>

Why is there no follow up? Tracks mean very little to me in the sense that they are the tools to FIND THINGS

reply to post by thetiler


What tubes



Like a lot of Mars images low res, low light and an over active imagination made people see what they hoped and wanted to see.