[nkoren]

Note that this is actually missing a very major feature of the landscape: Aeolis Mons, or mount Sharp. The NASA panorama that this was adapted from failed to image the upper 2/5ths of the environment (roughly), and therefore did not capture the 15,000-foot mountain that is looming above the rover.

The maker of this panorama cleverly edited the image to show a false horizon where the mountain would actually be. It looks good, but gives the misleading impression that the rover is surrounded by a band of low hills, when the truth is rather different.

Here's a picture of mount Sharp, taken from a different camera than did the panorama:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4271

If you look at the foreground terrain, you'll see that it matches the WSW terrain of the OP. There should be a gobsmackingly big mountain there!

[360pano]

nkoren: you are very careful ;)

Thanks for the comment, but I really did not have source materials to recreate this mountain

[nkoren]

Yeah, I know the material is missing. Sorry if that came off critical of you -- your panorama is really truly gorgeous! I'm honestly feeling a bit petulant towards NASA for failing to include the mountain in their initial panoramas[1] -- they've missed 80% of the drama in that landscape! When they finally get around to imaging the mountain properly, I hope you patch that back into your panorama, because that'll be stunning.

[1] And yes, I'm well aware that in the litany of First World Problems, "Whaaaa, NASA landed a giant rover on Mars but didn't take exactly the photo I wanted" has got to be pretty high on the list...

[mbrubeck]

> in the litany of First World Problems...

This is what we might call a "Fourth-World Problem." :)

[360pano]

nkoren: no prob, you are welcome!

and thank you for comments!

[CamperBob2]

I'm honestly feeling a bit petulant towards NASA for failing to include the mountain in their initial panoramas[1] -- they've missed 80% of the drama in that landscape!

It's very frustrating. It's as if NASA/JPL either don't know or don't care where their funding comes from, or how to get the stereotypical "man on the street" interested in what they're doing.

Hey, dumbasses: just before you launch something like this, put the best $1000 digital camera currently being manufactured on it. If the camera doesn't survive because it's not rated for use on Mars or whatever, fine. If it does, then that $1000 is going to pay for itself a million times over in firing up the public's imagination and garnering subsequent political support.

You know what? I'll bet James Cameron would help you out for free.

[nkoren]

The cameras they have on Curiosity are just fine, considering the bandwidth that they've got available to them. The problem, in this case, is simply that they didn't point them at the most interesting thing in the area!

[jonursenbach]

Problem is all the testing that is necessary to do to ensure that that $1000 camera works at all isn't possible to do before they launch.

[CamperBob2]

Sorry, not buying it. That might be a good reason to fly a camera that's one year behind the commercial state of the art, but not 10 years as seems to be the usual practice.

This stuff matters, whether NASA likes it or not.