Wednesday, March 11, 2015
A Chance to Choose Targets for the Mars Express VMC camera
Mars Express has The Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC, which is basically a webcam).
Originally the VMC was to monitor the separation of the Beagle Lander from the Orbiter, but it is able to give unique, wide field views of Mars. For several years, amateurs have had free reign of the VMC camera images to make images and animations of the Martian surface (more VMC images here).
Now, in a game changer, the VMC on board Mars Express will be soon available for public imaging
requests. They are inviting schools, science clubs and youth groups to
submit proposals for one of eight opportunities to image Mars. If you are interested in submitting a proposal follow the link below.
Labels: Mars, Mars Express VMC, public outreach, webcam
Thursday, March 04, 2010
While we are waiting for images of Phobos
Here's an image from the Mars VMC webcam. Nice.There may not be too many images of Phobos, as the orbiter went behind Phobos so it was all dark anyway. Check the Phobos weblog here.
Labels: Mars, Mars Express VMC, webcam
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The Volcanoes of Mars
Over at the ESA's Mars VMC webcam site, the most recent images show the most impressive volcanoes of Mars. Olympus Mons right on the edge near the top, and Tharsis Montes complex (Arisa Mons, Pavonis Mons and Ascraeus Mons) near the middle edge. Click on the image to enlarge it.There is a 3D image below this, and a GIF animation here.
3D image of Mars. It's a red-blue anaglyph, so you will need those red-blue glasses to see it in 3D. Click on the image to enlarge it.Labels: Mars, Mars Express VMC, webcam
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Mars VMC images in Colour
Images 10 and 11 from 22-06-08Here's a quick and dirty play around with some of the Mars Express VMVC images. I've used Gordan Ugarković's colour converter to extract colour PNG images from the RAW files, then used Registax to sharpen the images, and GIMP to overlay two images.
Labels: Mars, Mars Express VMC, webcam
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Still more Mars VMC camera animations: High cloud!
Over at the Mars Express VMC camera site, they have images of an "unknown artefact". I'm pretty sure the artefact is a cloud, with its shadow. In the 3 D image to the left it's pretty clear that the object is much higher than the surface (click to enlarge). In this animated gif, you can see the cloud drift away from a group of 3 craters (use a line drawn from the bottom crater to the nearby peak as a reference), and its shadow grows smaller as the sun rises.(in the animation the streak to the centre left and the parallel bright blobs that turn up at the end are camera artefacts)
Also have a look at this colour composite of Mars created by Ted Stryk, pretty amazing, and Mike Malaska has a great animation of clouds near the terminator.
You can see detailed descriptions of how I made these images here.
UPDATE: My images have been posted at the VMC website, along with Gordan Ugarković's great colour images.
Labels: anaglyph, animation, Mars, Mars Express VMC, webcam
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
