Mastcam-Z 360° Panorama #3: “Van Zyl Overlook” with rover! (Sols 53-64)
[Note: The banner image here is a 1/10 scale low-resolution JPEG (the full-resolution version exceeds the allowable size of JPEG files!). For full-resolution versions of this Mastcam-Z mosaic in PNG or TIFF formats, however, click on one of the red buttons below. And for additional versions of this panorama at full resolution, including 3-D anaglyphs for red/blue glasses and vertical projection views, visit the Mastcam Z’s 360° Panoramas Collection blog page…]
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its Mastcam-Z stereo imaging system to capture this 360-degree panorama of “Van Zyl Overlook,” where the rover was parked for 13 days as the Ingenuity helicopter performed its first flights. Van Zyl Overlook is named after the late NASA/JPL Director for Solar System Exploration Jakob J. Van Zyl, who played a major role in the advocacy and development of many NASA robotic solar system missions.
This mosaic was publicly released by JPL/NASA at https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24663
The 2.4 billion-pixel panorama is made up of 992 individual right-eye Mastcam-Z images stitched together. The images were taken between April 15 and 26, 2021, or the 53rd and 64th Martian days, or sols, of the mission. View an interactive version of this image here. View an Augmented Reality (AR) version on YouTube here. You can also view the raw images yourself on the NASA/JPL Mars 2020 mission “Raw Images” web site. There you can find the nearly 1000 separate pairs of left-right images taken at Mastcam-Z’s maximum zoom setting (110-mm focal length) that span 360-degrees in azimuth around the rover, covering terrain from next to the rover all the way out to the horizon.
This version of the panorama also includes the addition of the rover’s deck as seen by its navigation cameras on March 20, 2021, the 31st sol of the mission.
A few small patches of near-field sand had been covered by parts of Perseverance when the right-eye Mastcam-Z images were taken; those gaps were filled with images of the same sandy patches taken by the Mastcam-Z left-eye camera at the same time, or from the earlier navigation camera images. Imaging coverage of the sky has also been digitally smoothed and expanded based on the actual sky color observed as the panorama was being acquired on Mars.
Full-resolution versions of this panorama without the rover superimposed are available at these links:
No-Rover Versions: [Full resolution PNG] [Full resolution TIFF]
Full-resolution versions of this panorama that just showcase the detail along part of the horizon are available at these links:
Horizon-only: [Full resolution JPG] [Full resolution PNG] [Full resolution TIFF]
This partial section of the full Van Zyl panorama just shows the horizon view, spanning about 180-degrees in azimuth from roughly due south (left side) to due north (right side) of the rover. This part of the full mosaic was featured in a NASA/JPL Media Briefing about the success of the Ingenuity helicopter’s tech demo mission, as well as in testimony to Congress summarizing some of the early successes of the Mars 2020 mission.
Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS.
April 25, 2021