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

 

 

Doug Ellison

 

Image Credit: Doug Ellison/ESA

Doug is from the UK and is a regular VMC contributor and supporter. He runs the Unmanned Spaceflight forum which always generates plenty of active VMC discussion. He produced this wonderful mosaic of the planet limb from the limb images. He wrote this about his work:

 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.

Beautiful image, thanks Doug!

 

 

 

Hannes Griebel

Image Credit: Hannes Griebel/ESA Hannes is a first time contributor to VMC but one we know very well as he works on Mars Express mission planning. His job involves coordinating all the activities for the spacecraft and turning those into commands which the spacecraft can execute (including our VMC observations!). Hannes lives in Frankfurt, Germany ,and with his scientific background has taken a great interest in his spare time in the VMC images. This first post of his work shows an annotated view of a mosaic he made covering the limb observation. This is what he has to say about it:

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!

Thorough and interesting analysis! Thanks, Hannes!

 

 

 

Mike Malaska  Image Credit: Mike Malaska/ESA Mike is another regular contributor to the Mars Express VMC site and always produces detailed and beautiful work. This latest image of clouds hanging above the Martian limb is no exception and shows a fantastic amount of structure and detail in the clouds. This is what he has to say about it:

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.

Amazing detail! Thanks, Mike...!