OT: Mars mission

[DiT]

Off topic, but thought some of you might be interested in the tech behind the images coming from Mars.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft_instru_pancam.html

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DiT
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[isshinryu_mom]

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[Ralph Encarnacion]

The full size color image of Mars can be downloaded here: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20040106a.html It's over 8 megs.
Ralph
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[Sandra Jackson]

The CCDs for all nine cameras were made by a company here in Canada called DALSA Corp. "Consumer CCDs usually have imperfections, with a few core wonky pixels amonth the million-plus on any chip. But the CCDs for the rover cameras has to be perfect, one reason NASA chose the (DALSA) plant, which employs 375 people and has been operating for three decades.... NASA carried out extensive tests to choose the final 18 CCD arrays - one each for the nine cameras on each rover - from 624 shipped by the plant...... The view from Spirit's panoramic cameras is as detailed as someone with 20/20 vision would see on the Martian surface, three times higher resolution than cameras on previous successful Mars missions like Pathfinder in 1997. The Pancam consists of two eyes mounted on a mast that extends more than a metre above the Martian surface. By swinging up and down and rotating in a circle, the Pancam captures panoramic images that are also 3D or sterioscopic. That image will be 96 megapixels compared to the 6 megapixel image of a top-quality consumer camera, DALSA spokesperson Patrick Myles".

96 MP!!! Now that would take a while to print!!!

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[DiT]

96 MP!!! Now that would take a while to print!!!

Sure beats Fuji's recently announced 20MP CCD huh? hehe

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DiT
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[Leif Söderlund]

beat us!

Our (the Europeans') Mars lander didn't even land (they claimed it never was supposed to, and making it go into orbit was a success...
yeah, right ;-)... lol .

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[DiT]

Can't blame the Europeans... From what I read, they were limited to just 60kg for the lander... And their funding was 1/10 of the Americans...

beat us!

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[Leif Söderlund]

Can't blame the Europeans... From what I read, they were limited to
just 60kg for the lander... And their funding was 1/10 of the
Americans...

Gotcha!

So with some 10 times more fundings we could probably get the next lander to freakin' Pluto ;-) Way to go Europe! lol

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[David Chin]

... who made us, and are is anyone out there?

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[Leif Söderlund]

... who made us,

unless "The Man" himself is reading this forum, I dout you're gonna get an answer to that ;-)

and are is anyone out there?

Sure! Haven't you seen "E.T"?

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[Randy]

... who made us, and are is anyone out there?

Funny, the Mars missions right now are rootin' around the edges of your interesting questions. We're all hoping they'll add to our expanding encyclopedia of knowledge.

Fascinating time/age of discovery to be alive. We're on a little planet in a galaxy amongst billions of galaxies. Tip-'o-the-hat to the universe for putting us here.

;^)

 

[DiT]

Gotcha!

So with some 10 times more fundings we could probably get the next
lander to freakin' Pluto ;-) Way to go Europe! lol

Well, the Americans always do things big don't they. I was disappointed the European effort failed too.. but I guess they've learned their lesson and they won't make the same mistakes twice right?

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[DiT]

... who made us, and are is anyone out there?

42. At least according to the super-computer in Douglas Adams' Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

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[David Chin]

... who made us, and are is anyone out there?

42. At least according to the super-computer in Douglas Adams'
Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

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