Image Sets  04 June, 2010 14:20

New Images From 04 June 2010 Added

10-155_13.37.17_VMC_Img_No_3.pngNew images have been posted to the image database. These images are from the VMC observation on 04 June 2010, for more details on this observation hit the "Full Story" link below. To access the images click the link below. Also you can access the Celestia file to see where the images were captured and access the raw data in the zip file (for more details see Help us with the VMC)



04/06/2010 13:35-14:20 Gallery

Celestia Script

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General , Public Submissions  02 June, 2010 17:06

VMC video - submission by Hannes Griebel

Hannes Griebel, Mars Express operations and mission planning engineer, has sent us his own versions of the VMC video, which he's reworked into several formats. Thanks, Hannes! And remember: we'd be delighted to receive similar efforts from anyone who would like to try their hand at generating a video (or any other production) from the raw image set of 27 May (here and here). Artistic, scientific, interpretative, whatever: take a look and give it a try. We'll republish the best submissions right here in the blog.

Clik on 'Full story' for more details and to view all versions of Hannes' work. -- Daniel

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General , Image Sets  02 June, 2010 15:30

Astronaut-eye view of Mars from orbit: A unique video tour of the Red Planet

The Mars Express VMC team here at ESOC are delighted to publish today's special treat: a movie carefully compiled from 600 VMC images snapped during a single, complete 7-hour orbit on 27 May 2010. This video shows what future astronauts would likely see from their cockpit window: Mars turning below them as they sweep in orbit around the Red Planet, our beautiful planetary neighbour!


Notes:

  1. The original 27 May image files are avilable in two earlier posts - we heartily invite all keen VMC fans to try their hand at creating their own versions!
  2. Also, at the very bottom of this post, you can see a second version of this video with a time/distance counter embedded at the top.

 

Click on the 'Full story' link for more details and a description of our video(s). 

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Image Sets  27 May, 2010 09:18

New Images From 27 May 2010 Added (1 of 2)

10-147_02.07.54_VMC_Img_No_3.pngNew images have been posted to the image database. These images are from the VMC observation on 27 May 2010, for more details on this observation hit the "Full Story" link below. To access the images click the link below. Also you can access the Celestia file to see where the images were captured and access the raw data in the zip file (for more details see Help us with the VMC)



27/05/2010 02:06-09:18 Gallery

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Image Sets  27 May, 2010 09:17

New Images From 27 May 2010 Added (2 of 2)

10-147_02.07.54_VMC_Img_No_3.pngNew images have been posted to the image database. These images are from the VMC observation on 27 May 2010, for more details on this observation hit the "Full Story" link below. To access the images click the link below. Also you can access the Celestia file to see where the images were captured and access the raw data in the zip file (for more details see Help us with the VMC)



27/05/2010 02:06-09:18 Gallery

Celestia Script

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   Slideshow
Image submitted by Ted Stryk, Powell, TN, USA. Ted writes: An an image compiled from the 11 July 2009 MEX VMC image set created by M. Malaska, USA. Credit: ESA/P. Wellmann Credit: ESA/H. Griebel/MOLA/Google Public submission by Martin Ahr: I have created an animation from a VMC image series that was made on November 5, 2009. It shows what I believe to be clouds onto which the sun starts shining as the rotation of Mars brings them towards the sunlit side. There are clouds which appear to move also in a direction transverse to the direction of rotation of Mars, and some seem to disappear as the sun starts shining on them. For each frame of the animation, I combined three images from one of the exposure bracketing series into one HDR image. I tried to also use the fourth image having the shortest exposure time. However, the HDR program I used could not combine this image with the other three images, probably because the difference in brightness between the image and the other three images is very large. Since the sunlit side of Mars is overexposed in all three images used, it remains overexposed. However, the dynamic range of the HDR image is sufficient to cover the entire brightness range of the clouds. I then took the logarithm of the brightness values of the pixels in each HDR image to obtain images that can be displayed on a monitor while still showing the full dynamic range of the HDR images. Thereafter, I shifted the images such that Mars it at substantially the same position in each image, combined the images into an animation and rotated the animation such that the sunlight shines from the right. I tried several orientations, and, in my opinion, this one looks most natural. Unfortunately, Mars is moving out of the camera's field of view at the end of the series. Since the clouds are not shown any more in images No. 30 and later, I omitted these images. In the remaining images, I made the cut off portions transparent (which can be seen in the animation at the upper right part of Mars). GIF images can comprise only 256 different colors. Therefore, I converted the images to grayscale. This does not make much difference, since the color saturation in the original images is so low that colors are almost invisible. I used three computer programs for the processing: Fitswork for reading the raw data, extracting color information from Bayer patterns, shifting images and calculating logarithms of brightness values; FDRTools Basic for creating HDR images; and Gimp for combining the images into an animation, minor adjustment of the brightness of individual images and rotating the animation. This is a list of the VMC images used for the animation: Frame 1: 09-309_19.02.06_VMC_Img_No_3.raw,09-309_19.02.59_VMC_Img_No_4.raw,09-309_19.03.53_VMC_Img_No_5.raw; Frame 2: 09-309_19.05.39_VMC_Img_No_7.raw,09-309_19.06.33_VMC_Img_No_8.raw,09-309_19.07.26_VMC_Img_No_9.raw; Frame 3: 09-309_19.09.13_VMC_Img_No_11.raw,09-309_19.10.06_VMC_Img_No_12.raw,09-309_19.10.59_VMC_Img_No_13.raw; Frame 4: 09-309_19.12.46_VMC_Img_No_15.raw,09-309_19.13.39_VMC_Img_No_16.raw,09-309_19.14.33_VMC_Img_No_17.raw; Frame 5: 09-309_19.16.19_VMC_Img_No_19.raw,09-309_19.17.13_VMC_Img_No_20.raw,09-309_19.18.06_VMC_Img_No_21.raw; Frame 6: 09-309_19.19.53_VMC_Img_No_23.raw,09-309_19.20.46_VMC_Img_No_24.raw,09-309_19.21.39_VMC_Img_No_25.raw; Frame 7: 09-309_19.23.26_VMC_Img_No_27.raw,09-309_19.24.19_VMC_Img_No_28.raw,09-309_19.25.13_VMC_Img_No_29.raw. Image Credit: Martin Ahr, ESA