… that is to say, it looks like Curiosity is getting “curiouser and curiouser” about this formation, named “Shaler” by JPL .  This symmetrically composed ( by Curiosity ) panorama is a closer in shot of the panorama I posted in “Navcam vs. Mastcam”, the composition being determined by the choice of view for the 33 raw images from sol 120 that I used with PTgui to get the panorama. It is 3 tiers of 11 images each.

The previous panorama from sol 113 was, by comparison, skewed so I’m not sure what goes into Curiosity’s view selection. This sol 120 panorama is also closer in, which is why it is curved. Actually, PTgui wanted to make it into almost a semicircle, but it let’s you bend it around with a cursor drag in a final edit, so I straightened it some.

Looking at the sol 113 panorama, you can see that Curiosity moved ahead and to the right in the 7 sols since, and the new view is looking back to the left from the closer in spot.

It’s a fascinating formation, but I don’t know what the brains behind Curiosity have in mind with this lengthy inspection, not that I’m complaining. It certainly provides enchantment to us fans.

The north rim of Gale Crater lines the northern horizon of Curiosity’s locale, but is not seen in most of the Mastcam and Navcam views, which tend to be towards Mt. Sharp in the south. Here is a comparison of panoramic views that do show it. The B&W panorama actually covers 360 degrees, and is composed of 12 images in the Right Navcam Sol 60 Raw image gallery. At this time Curiosity was at the Rocknest site.

On Sol 25 Curiosity was near the landing site, and took the twelve Mastcam images that form what I call the “botched panorama” because they do not actually overlap. This means that panorama software can do nothing with them, because it depends on matching overlapping areas. However, one can align them by eye to form continuous contours, and the result shows a consistent gap, seemingly caused by a misalignment of some kind, because the black edges are part of the original raw images.

Here, the assembled panorama has been reduced in scale and superimposed on the Navcam panorama. It is still at a somewhat larger scale as shown by the pink lines which match it to the Navcam horizon.

Note the change in the midground between the two locations. Curiosity had come over the rise seen to the left of the Navcam view ( note tracks at left, ) and it now starts to obscure the north rim. The sol 3 panorama does extend to this point, as shown by the reduced scale excerpt of its “tail”

Here is a Hirise based view of the scene to the southeast of the Curiosity Bradbury landing site. ( South to the top. ) The colored ovals show landmarks discernible in the Sol 3 Mastcam panorama discussed in an earlier post.

The “river” here is the long depression at the base of Mt. Sharp running from SW to NE. I don’t believe it is a candidate for an ancient streambed, but it has the subjective appearance of a river valley on earth, especially because of the dark blue sand dunes which cover its bottom. This view to the SE is towards its closest approach to the landing site, and there is a conspicuous “Island” along the leftmost line of sight, marked there in an orange circle. I think of it as “Ellis Island”, in honor of Curiosity’s Martian Immigration … it sure ain’t coming back!

Below are two overlapping sections of the SOL 3 panorama, extending to the SE from the previously posted section. Of course the colors of the highlighted features there correspond to the Hirise view above.

Of note is the “invisible mountain” circled in orange-yellow, above the purple-circled “strait” . Can you see its outline in the panorama? Of course, it is readily visible in the Hirise view, and this threw me off for a while.

Finally, I include below some Hi-res Hirise views of selected features, as indicated by the colored borders. The High resolution view is very helpful in discerning vertical relief which might correspond to appearances in the panoramic view. All in all, a difficult and fretful business, to which I have now devoted a number of hours!

On Sol 113 Curiosity took the raw images from which these small panoramas are formed. They are from two different cameras, the Navcam and the Mastcam. The Navcam is a broad view, but of course still contains interesting detail. The Mastcam narrows in, and provides really fantastic “you are there” color imagery. Can you find the Mastcam view in the Navcam view ?

I was pleased that these uploads presented so well. I guess they are just the right size. When I click on the Mastcam view in IE9, I get the floating “+”, and when I click again I get full resolution, and “I am there”.

Here’s an image I made with paint.net of Curiosity’s route so far, superimposed on the north infield of the Indianapolis Speedway, of course to scale.

I used the radial gradient in transparent mode to blend it in. I’m a novice at paint.net, and I’ll tell you that it’s a real bear. I’m sure it works real nice once you get adept at it, but the help guides always leave me asking, “Yeah, but how do I DO IT  !?!?!”