Spirit Deck Pan #5
Over Sols 1355-1358 (October 25-28, 2007) Spirit tipped her Panoramic cameras down to acquire another self portrait. This time, the rover deck is blanketed by an opaque layer of dust, rendering it almost indistinguishable from the Martian surface below (see the sol 1229 Spirit self portrait panorama for comparison). This dusty situation is difficult for a solar powered rover as Martian winter, with its relative lack of sunlight, looms in the coming months.
The vertical projection used here produces the best view of the rover deck, though it distorts the ground and antennas somewhat. The eight-pointed star shape near the front of the rover (bottom of the image) marks the location of the camera mast, which is out of view of the Pancam atop the mast. Pancam's 601nm, 535nm and 482nm filters were used in this mosaic.
Jim Bell
Pancam Instrument Lead
December 11, 2007
JPG TIF
Image size: 5000 x 4083
Image mosaicking: Jim Bell
Calibration and color rendering: CCC and the Pancam team (Jim Bell)