Image Sets  03 October, 2011 09:26

Updated Images From 03 October 2011 Added

11-276_08.58.10_VMC_Img_No_3.pngUpdated images have been posted to the image database. These images are from the VMC observation on 03 October 2011, 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)



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Image Sets  03 October, 2011 09:13

New Images From 03 October 2011 Added

11-276_08.58.10_VMC_Img_No_3.pngNew images have been posted to the image database. These images are from the VMC observation on 03 October 2011, 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)



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Image Sets  21 September, 2011 17:39

New Images From 21 September 2011 Added

11-264_17.10.45_VMC_Img_No_3.pngNew images have been posted to the image database. These images are from the VMC observation on 21 September 2011, 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)



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Image Sets  19 August, 2011 12:13

Updated Images From 19 August 2011 Added

11-231_11.47.19_VMC_Img_No_3.pngUpdated images have been posted to the image database. These images are from the VMC observation on 19 August 2011, 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)



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Image Sets  19 August, 2011 11:57

New Images From 19 August 2011 Added

11-231_11.47.19_VMC_Img_No_3.pngNew images have been posted to the image database. These images are from the VMC observation on 19 August 2011, 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)



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   Slideshow
Image submitted by Ian Musgrave, Adelaide, Australia, 28 August 2008. Ian writes: 5 VMC observations obtained early February 2010 show that clouds that form in the morning disappear in the afternoon. The attached image composite shows the five individual observations at different Martian day times. Hannes Griebel: Mars Express Limb Observation - The images used are based on the raw images and were processed in the following way: 1. the Moiré pattern was removed, 2. the color saturation was adjusted, 3. the clarity (contrast) was enhanced. The brightness distribution accross a single image is a camera effect and has not been removed. The streak appearing in each image is an artifact (perhaps on the camera lens). To make the mosaic the individual pictures were geometrically corrected to match a map. Images towards the equator are larger in coverage but lower in resolution as the spacecraft moves away from the planet. A screenshot from the MAPPS science planning software shows the approximate position of the spacecraft for the observation and annotations showing what is visible have been added. Note clouds and dust in the atmosphere! Image Credits: Hannes Griebel/ESA Sixty-four Views of Mars from Mars Express VMC || The Mars Webcam (more officially known as the Mars Express Visual Monitoring Camera or VMC) has been capturing global views of Mars for the public since October 2007. These 64 images were taken between July 2 and November 15, 2008 and July 1 and August 15, 2009. This image is available as an 11-by-17-inch poster from The Planetary Society Store. Credit: Data courtesy of ESA / processing by Emily Lakdawalla. 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