Re:Photo shows Mars rover descent
by startupfounder on Monday August 06, 2012 @02:19PM
(#4346407)
Interesting, its like "scanning" not a shutter "clicking". That being said it was much more likely given the MRO's orbit that it would be able to scan Mars and have Curiosity in that scan path. You can even correlate the angle of the photo to the location of the MRO: http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/672880main_martin_mur-1-4...
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Re:Photo shows Mars rover descent
by ricardobeat on Monday August 06, 2012 @04:04PM
(#4346994)
To be fair, most modern (CMOS) digital cameras work like that too, it's called a rolling shutter. The scanning speed is the cause of that wobbly effect you see on videos made with mobile phones.
Re:Photo shows Mars rover descent
by startupfounder on Monday August 06, 2012 @04:36PM
(#4347146)
True, but if you can do 1m fps on earth[1] and the MRO travels at a speed of 133,879.68 inches/second then you could take 7.4693934 pictures per inch even if you had a rolling "scanning" shutter. I know that would be way to much data for them to process, but for the 172 seconds from parachute deployment to touchdown you could have one amazing high speed film.
I am sure NASA can fund a high speed camera for MRO... or do we need to crowdfund that one as well... [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfDoQwIAaXg