Rover captures light source on Mars!!

bottleslingguy
reply to post by tsurfer2000h

 

I keep asking phage why the fuzzy part is at the top and he keeps avoiding the question. Maybe you can answer that?

Look at the zoomed in image. What you are calling a "fuzzy part" looks to me more like blooming of the overloaded pixels into the neighbouring columns. The bottom couple of bright pixels are surrounded by dark pixels so the energy is more easily absorbed by them: the additional energy only takes them up to a mid grey. The upper ones are surrounded by brighter pixels so the energy is added to a brighter base level and so the surrounding pixels become that much brighter. Hard to explain clearly but hopefully you can see what I mean.



Does anyone know how the pixels are addressed on the sensor? I don't know but I suspect that the overloaded pixel is that bottom brightest one and the effects are smeared upwards by the camera electronics. If the pixels are addressed column by column then this explains why the "light" appears totally vertical. As I said before, when you see an anomaly that is perfectly aligned with the pixel grid then you probably need to be looking at the camera or image processing rather than something in the physical scene.

Whether that pixel is overloaded by a cosmic ray strike or a very bright physical light source is unknown though.

But please can people stop sniping at others who don't agree with them, it is spoiling the thread.

If it were not for the other image, I would still be in the cosmic ray camp based on the stereo pairs alone, and it would obviously make the most sense, since the other camera in the stereo pair, does not show it.

There is great coincidence, that if it is a cosmic ray collision in the sensor, that it is nearly perfectly vertical, and terminates near that surface division in horizontal plane, but it certainly can happen.

There is one other explanation, and I did not see it brought up here yet.. What if it is an external image, but the image is rapidly blinking?

This would imply that the stereo pair has some kind of delay between them when imaging the object. Something like the fact that the image processor must frame and store the image from each camera separately... perhaps only taking milliseconds. This is conjecture, not knowing the technical aspects of the stereo imaging, but if the image were blinking very rapidly, the other camera in the pair may have caught it in the "off" state, as it were. It would also explain the existence of the other image, taken at a later time.

I direct this to any here that know specifics about the rover imaging technology. I think Phage and Jim Oberg might know these specifics.

So, do you think that this could be a plausible scenario?

Rob48

bottleslingguy
reply to post by tsurfer2000h

 

I keep asking phage why the fuzzy part is at the top and he keeps avoiding the question. Maybe you can answer that?

Look at the zoomed in image. What you are calling a "fuzzy part" looks to me more like blooming of the overloaded pixels into the neighbouring columns. The bottom couple of bright pixels are surrounded by dark pixels so the energy is more easily absorbed by then. The upper ones are surrounded by brighter pixels so the energy is added to a brighter base level. Hard to explain clearly but hopefully you can see what I mean.

Does anyone know how the pixels are addressed on the sensor? I don't know but I suspect that the overloaded pixel is that bottom brightest one and the effects are smeared upwards by the camera electronics. If the pixels are addressed column by column then this explains why the "light" appears totally vertical. As I said before, when you see an anomaly that is perfectly aligned with the pixel grid then you probably need to be looking at the camera or image processing rather than something in the physical scene.

Whether that pixel is overloaded by a cosmic ray strike or a very bright physical light source is unknown though.

But please can people stop sniping at others who don't agree with them, it is spoiling the thread.

edit on 9-4-2014 by Rob48 because: (no reason given)

I like that analysis. It would imply that the image processor scans for sensor pixel input from the bottom, upward in like a raster fashion. The lower pixels have not seen the cosmic ray yet, so they do not register the bloom. Nice work. This as well needs a technical review from someone that knows the hardware.

Miniscuzz

grey580
reply to post by Miniscuzz

 

Could that be a pixel gone bad?
Or maybe corruption of the data coming from Mars?
Could also be a geyser or water vapor with the sun shining on it.

A few posts back I mentioned that the Rover used a program called ICER. Neither ICER nor the NAV-CAM are capable of sending pixelated pictures or any corrupted data. It's also in the PDS link provided in my post above.

The excuse of "bad pixels" or "corrupted data" is just as plausible as swamp gas in my opinion.

Regardless of the image software used, the SENSOR on the cameras, in this case a CCD sensor, CAN have hot pixels, black pixels, blemishes, and other contaminants. Here's some information about CCD sensors and their blemished/non uniformities: CCD Sensor Probs...

In regards to the image being discussed, I don't think blemishes or pixel problems are the cause. However, I don't know for certain and cannot rule it out. I would believe the anomaly or light geyser was caused by a problem with the CCD sensor before I would believe Martians are beaming up lights from below the surface of their planet.

Becoming defensive and so absolute in your opinion that it just CANNOT be a cosmic ray, camera issue, etc. doesn't allow for a good debate and makes you seem rigid and close minded.

But hey, who knows, maybe it is the Martians!

reply to post by lovebeck


Miniscuzz said:

Neither ICER nor the NAV-CAM are capable of sending pixelated pictures or any corrupted data.

I would love to know what he meant by that! Is he suggesting that images compressed by ICER do not consist of pixels? Clearly that is nonsense.

ICER is a wavelet-based image compressor that allows for a graceful trade-off between the amount of compression (expressed in terms of compressed data volume in bits/pixel) and the resulting degradation in image quality (distortion). ICER has some similarities to JPEG2000, with respect to select wavelet operations.

It doesn't look like image distortion because the light source starts exactly at ground level and extends consistently into lower part of sky. There is nothing to suggest its not what it appears to be a light. Everyone has their own view. I heard in one image it wsnt there and one it was. Well that can mean its an intermittent light source indicating intelligent control.