General , Public Submissions  18 January, 2010 15:46

Exciting terrain & cool processing: Image submission from Rick Hollar

Rick Hollar Mars Express VMC First-time contributor Rick Hollar, from Bakersfield, California, USA, has sent us two beautiful interpretations of one of the images from the recent low-altitude VMC image sets - where Mars Express orbited down across the end of the Red Planet's great valley, Valles Marineris, and past the Tharsis Montes chain of volcanoes.

To get such stunning detail out of the original VMC image, Rick used a technique called 'flat-fielding' - which maps the marks and irregularities on the camera itself and subtracts them from the digital image to output a 'cleaned' version; this technique can be applied to improve all VMC images.

Hit "Full story" to see Rick's two interpretations of this image, his description of what he did and a comparison with the original VMC image, as delivered from Mars. Thanks for the submission Rick! --Thomas

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General , Public Submissions  15 January, 2010 16:31

Clouds on Mars: Processing from Doug Ellison, Hannes Griebel and Mike Malaska

Hannes GriebelMike MalaskaDoug Ellison

One month ago today we had a 'first' for a VMC observations - we targeted the 'limb' of Mars, pointing the camera at low altitude to the edge of the planet to try and catch some clouds and weather features on the Red Planet. The observation was a huge success and we caught a broad swath of the edge of the planet, acquiring VMC shots of weather on another world!

As always with VMC, you are our scientists and the images were picked up eagerly by several amateur contributors (look at 'Help us with the VMC' if you're interested in getting involved). Today we present some of the fruits of their work, including two beautiful mosaics showing the whole limb observation, from Hannes Griebel and Doug Ellison. The third image is a stack to enhance cloud detail on a portion of the observation, created by Mike Malaska, and really shows off the detail in the clouds.

Thank you to everyone who sent in home-processed images, and please do continue to share your results.

If anyone wants to interpret what is shown in these images, then let us know in the comments. Hit the "Full Story" link for more details on each image. Thanks from everyone to Doug, Hannes and Mike! --Thomas  Full story »

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Image Sets  14 January, 2010 18:03

New Images From 14 January 2010 Added

10-014_18.07.39_VMC_Img_No_39.pngNew images have been posted to the image database. These images are from the VMC observation on 14 January 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)



14/01/2010 17:39-18:09 Gallery

Celestia Script

Raw Files Archive

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Image Sets  13 January, 2010 18:31

New Images From 13 January 2010 Added

10-013_18.02.12_VMC_Img_No_1.pngNew images have been posted to the image database. These images are from the VMC observation on 13 January 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)



13/01/2010 18:02-18:31 Gallery

Celestia Script

Raw Files Archive

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Image Sets , Public Submissions  12 January, 2010 16:15

24-Hour turn-around time: From Mars to Mike Malaska to the web!

Mike MalaskaRegular VMC contributor Mike Malaska contributed this beautiful view of Mars and set a new record for VMC - the fastest-ever turn-around time from VMC capturing the pictures at Mars to a processed and enhanced version being created and uploaded to the web.

Mike used our new "Observation Details" information (hit the "Full Story" link on any observation to see it) to determine that the images were captured and sent to ground in quick succession. Then Mike processed the image - bringing out colour and detail - and uploaded it to his Flickr site within 24 hours of the capture - our fastest ever!

It's really great stuff to such active involvement in the images; thanks again, Mike! Hit the 'Full Story' link to see the timeline of this image and read what he did to make it happen. -- Thomas

 Image Credit: ESA/M. Malaska

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   Slideshow
Credit/caption: ESA/Mike Malaska, USA - cloud under changing lighting conditions Description Image submitted by Mike Malaska, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. Mike writes: Here is an image sequence of what I think is a cloud under changing lighting conditions at sunrise. To create this montage, I used Photoshop CS3. For each image, I used the floor of the crater near the terminator in image #5 as 'standard' and tried to adjust the exposure so that all the images in the sequence had the same level of exposure. The images were aligned, then cropped just enough to show some of the surface near the terminator. I added the date and time for the image in the sequence. All the frames have a 0.2-second delay, except the last frame (image 12) which has a 0.5-second delay before looping. Image submitted by Ian Musgrave, Adelaide, Australia, 28 August 2008. Ian writes: Dec 23 2009 MEX-VMC Composite of Valles Marineris and Argyre Planitia ---- Composite image of MEX-VMC images taken on December 23, 2009. ---- The raw images were then converted to rgb.png files using Gordan Ugarkovic's VMC2RGB utility with flatfield correction. MEX-VMC Images No 11, 15, 19, and 24 were coordinated to Image No 19. The set was converted to 16-bit, then increased in size 5x. All the images werecontrast-adjusted to image no 24. Layer masks were used to blend the mosaic. The final image is a HiPassLRGB composite. ---- To make the RGB Color layer, a Hue/Saturation level was added (+40) and a Channel Mix layer was added (R: +170%Red, -50%Green, -20%Blue; G: -20%Red, +140%Green, -20%Blue; B: -50%Red, -20%Green, +170% Blue). The color image was Gaussian Blurred 1.5 pixels. ---- To make the luminance (L) layer, the unblurred color layer was converted using a B&W conversion layer with R:+60%,Y:+70%,G:+70%, C:+20%, B: +50%, M: +50%). The luminance layer was combined in the stack with the Luminance blending mode. Above this was placed another B&W converted layer, this time with a 30 pixel HiPass filter that was blended with the other layers in the stack. A final Curves layer were added to make the final composite. ---- The combined image was then downsampled to 100% and rotated so that north is at top. ---- In the image, Valles Marineris and Eos Chaos can be seen at top center. At the extreme south of the composite, the bright Argyre Planitia can be seen. ---- Image credits: ESA / Mike Malaska ---- Original via: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31678681@N07/4230483496/ Doug Ellison: Mars Limb Mosaic, 15th December 2010. I used ugordan's VMC2RGB app to convert the .raw VMC files into .png images. Then I used Photoshop to enhance the colour saturation and mosaic the frames. Image credits: Doug Ellison/ESA Mars image in false colour created from two originals captured 10 October 2008. The originals were processed by Bogdan Stancescu, Bucharest, Romania. Bogdan writes: