Image Sets  10 September, 2009 18:40

New Images From 10 September 2009 Added

09-253_18.21.37_VMC_Img_No_1.pngNew images have been posted to the image database. These images are from the VMC observation on 10 September 2009. 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  06 September, 2009 18:18

New Images From 06 September 2009 Added

09-249_17.49.34_VMC_Img_No_1.pngNew images have been posted to the image database. These images are from the VMC observation on 06 September 2009. 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)



06/09/2009 17:49-18:18 Gallery

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Image Sets  05 September, 2009 07:50

New Images From 05 September 2009 Added

09-248_07.21.10_VMC_Img_No_1.pngNew images have been posted to the image database. These images are from the VMC observation on 05 September 2009. 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)



05/09/2009 07:21-07:50 Gallery

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Image Sets  04 September, 2009 18:03

New Images From 04 September 2009 Added

09-247_17.33.41_VMC_Img_No_1.pngNew images have been posted to the image database. These images are from the VMC observation on 04 September 2009. 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)



04/09/2009 17:33-18:03 Gallery

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Image Sets  03 September, 2009 07:34

New Images From 03 September 2009 Added

09-246_07.05.11_VMC_Img_No_1.pngNew images have been posted to the image database. These images are from the VMC observation on 03 September 2009. 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)



03/09/2009 07:05-07:34 Gallery

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Image submitted by Ted Stryk, Powell, TN, USA. Ted writes: Mike Malaska: Side View of Upper Atmosphere Clouds on Mars - Image taken by the MEX-VMC Camera of the Mars Express Spacecraft on December 15, 2009. In this image the detailed structure of upper atmosphere clouds can be seen against the masked limb of Mars. To make this image, MEX VMC Image 09-349_06.49.25_Img_No_57 and 58 were converted to a png files using the VMC2RGB utility. The two images were aligned in the stack with brighter image No 57 sitting on top of darker Image No 58. An artificial mask was made for the planetary disk of Image No 57 using a threshhold function. The mask allowed image 58 to be visible through the masked portion. Next saturation was increased and a custom channel mix added. A very subtle change in contrast gradient was added. Colors were unmodified. Image Credits: Mike Malaska/ESA View of the North Polar cap of Mars taken by the Mars webcam (MEX-VMC) instrument from a distance of 10,000 km on September 30, 2010. This image was created by making an average of several images 2,4,6,8,10,12,14, and 16. Then Gaussian blurring this by 1 pixel to make a smooth color background. Next, Image No 12 was used as a luminosity layer. It was also used as a HiPass layer to enhance subtle details. Finally it was blended with some of the original Image No. 12. Contrast enhancement and rotation and cropping gave the final image. Image credits: ESA / Mike Malaska 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