[quote name='RipeFRuit' date='Jun 22 2008, 05:28 PM' post='2356192']
Hi, I took some time to trace the most distinctive lines that are in the left mirrored and right mirrored image. The tracing may look juvenile, this is because I just used paint ( I don't have a good photo editor or the patience ;] ) and from what I can tell it almost looks like a male (right) and a female (left) figure, possibly with decorative accessories or like you said, a mask of some sort. If you want to take the time and do true editing possibly you would get a better vision on what it could be, but what id id is just a basic outline.

Hello RipeFRuit....Not bad at all.....The Face is apart of an overall design.....This design extends out to the plains. Also, The original Mars Express images
have a resolution of 45 feet per pixel (approx..Talking about spatial resolution).....I wish it could be better.....

Visit my other slide shows on Hebes Chasma and Nepenthes Mensae.

Paint is not bad..I used it for my last post comparing MRO and Mars Express versions.

Those images are Mars Express....Not NASA. My entire website is based on the Mars Express.....For me, I am leaning towards ESA/Mars Express
as being the "Honest" ones

my bad, i misunderstood. i was just going by the "I will compare the NASA/MRO version"
but i know what you mean

No problem...Actually, I am partially to blame...I am a terrible writer...I do try to write in a logical fashion.

Thanks for your interest.

Hi again,
I looked at the regions you suggested to me, and is there a hires image of Nepenthes Mensae region?
And as for Hebes Chasma, I labeled some especially interesting point to me and labeled them 1,2,and 3. 1 and 2, when zoomed in, look like skulls and im not sure if you noticed this but number 3 looks like a total anomaly compared to the rest of the image/surrounding area. 3 is a perfect rectangle that is rising up, witch by no means seems natural.
I am curious to see witch images interest you the most in your research.

[quote name='RipeFRuit' date='Jun 22 2008, 06:21 PM' post='2356279']
Hi again,
I looked at the regions you suggested to me, and is there a hires image of Nepenthes Mensae region?
And as for Hebes Chasma, I labeled some especially interesting point to me and labeled them 1,2,and 3. 1 and 2, when zoomed in, look like skulls and im not sure if you noticed this but number 3 looks like a total anomaly compared to the rest of the image/surrounding area. 3 is a perfect rectangle that is rising up, witch by no means seems natural.
I am curious to see witch images interest you the most in your research.

Hello. Try not to reduce the images. This image is from the Nepenthes Mensae region not Hebes Chasma. Yes, there are two little images from HiRise.
Review my other posts on this forum...Page 16 and 17....Review the past few pages to get an overview.

I recommend using Internet Explorer 7 to browse my website. Make sure both the image and the window is maximized.

Thanks

Hello again, KS15. I've been away for a while, so I haven't been able to respond to you recent posts. Sorry to disappoint you, but both agencies are telling the truth here. Neither NASA, nor JPL, nor the University of Arizona is altering HiRISE images to obscure details. The Mars Express HRSC is an excellent instrument, but the MRO HiRISE images have far, far better resolution. I'm afraid that, as with all your other analysis here, the only problem is that you really don't understand what you're looking at.

I've done this for you before, but let's try it again. Here's a comparison:



On the left is the Mars Express HRSC image of the "face" which you appear to believe is the best of all available images. It is taken directly from the nadir imager science data file H3253_0000_ND2.IMG and is shown at it's full resolution of about 13.7 meters per pixel. Note that this image has not been map-corrected and so is very slightly skewed.
On the right is the MRO HiRISE image of the "face" taken from the full-resolution (0.3 meters per pixel!) JPEG2000 file PSP_003234_2210_RED.QLOOK.jp2 available here. It has been reduced to about 2% of its original size to match the resolution of the HRSC image.

I think any objective observer would have to agree that these two images look very similar at this resolution (about 14 m/pixel). The lighting conditions are slightly different, but all of the features match up very well. Do you agree with this, KS15? If you think NASA is being dishonest about something here, please tell me specifically what is wrong with the HiRISE image.



Now, let's enlarge each image by a factor of 3. Here's the Mars Express HRSC image:



This image is now three times larger than full-resolution, so the pixels are becoming obvious. Resolution can't get any better than the original 13.7 meters per pixel, no matter how much image processing you do.



And here's the HiRISE image, now scaled to about 6% of full resolution (3x larger than the 2% size shown in the previous version):



This image now has a resolution of roughly 5 meters per pixel. At only 6% of full size, this version of the HiRISE image isn't much more than a thumbnail, but it's already showing a lot more detail than the Mars Express HRSC image. Do you agree, KS15?




Ok, so let's zoom in even more. To keep things from getting too huge, let's crop the images to look just at the left side of the "mouth." Here's a side-by-side comparison taken directly from my last photos above:





Now, I'll enlarge each image by a factor of 16 from the original size (a little over 5 times bigger than the last set). Here's the Mars Express HRSC image of the "mouth" enlarged to 16x full resolution:



Wow, those pixels are getting pretty huge. Can't really even tell what we're looking at anymore! Resolution is still only 13.7 meters per pixel, and we're just zooming way in on the individual pixels.



And here's the MRO HiRISE image, now scaled to about 31% of full-size:



The detail looks pretty stunning to me at a resolution which is now about 1 meter per pixel, and we're only looking at an image about 1/3 of full size.


And finally, if you want to see what the "mouth" looks like at the HiRISE camera's full resolution of about 30 cm per pixel, click on this thumbnail:




So please tell me KS15, where is the problem here? Do you still believe that the MRO HiRISE image of the "face" is of lower quality than the Mars Express HRSC image?

It's very, very clear from all of the available post-Viking imagery that the "face" is nothing more than an eroded mesa. It's a hill. There's nothing artificial here -- no polished crystal casing, no headdress, no shaped eyebrows -- just rocks and dust.

Nice try......As I said before.....Your purpose is to DEBUNK and nothing else....Your tactics are to divert and mislead...

I wonder how much effort and strange photos of our earthly mountains one would get if you did the same to ours? Its like someone has way too much time to do these things? IMO. A mountain is still a mountain. Not a Face on some far away place.

nice pix.. that for the link to the site- great collection .

We can see all we want to see in an image I guess. I like the pics though the Lion smokeing a dubie thats up side down is my fav.LoL

A couple of images of the Face. Images speak for themselves.







Source image:

http://www.esa.int/esa-mmg/mmg.pl?b=b&...t=10&size=b

Website:
http://www.marsesa.9f.com/slide_show.html

I have to agree, it's nothing artificial...just a case of pareidolia.

Actually, I wish there really were ruins of an ancient civilization on Mars. But, it's like the old saying goes: "If wishes were horses then beggers would ride".

Pareidolia, I have been hearing that word a lot lately. I will obliterated any validity of this term.

The word pareidolia is a fake word…..There is no scientific basis for this pseudo-scientific word…
Nor is it a recognized human behavior or accepted psychological phenomenon.
This word is not even listed in the Merriam Webster’s online Dictionary.
As the Wikipedia link suggests, This word was created by an individual in 1994 to satisfy ones pet theory.
Anyone can create a word.

The word sounds academic…But it is not……

The word apophenia is another made up term….First use in 1958.

Even if pareidolia was a valid phenomenon , It would have limits of applicability.

This is also true for scientific terms/Theories.

The entire field of Psychology is too philosophical…There is no hardcore scientific foundation. All of psychology is open to interpretation.
Psychology is not the same as say Nuclear Physics or Astrophysics.

Sure, I can use my imagination and play games…See images in clouds, ink blots, wood grains.….
When it comes to science, I am hard core…. I do not force random patterns and optical illusions into something that does not exist.

Wouldnt you just love to really go there and look for yourself? I mean soon in space fareing terms we will be able to walk on Mars and really explore the place. No If this or what about that or all the conjecture thats put into the place now. If we all work together and belive we can do it we can see it happen. I want to see it before Im gone how about you?

No, my intent here is only to show you the published data and to ask you to defend your claims.

You've said several times now that the Mars Express image of Cydonia is much, much better than other available images and that NASA is lying to cover up the truth. The images I posted above show very clearly that the HiRISE image of the "face" displays essentially the same set of features as the HRSC image when both are shown at a resolution of about 14 meters per pixel (the limit of the HRSC camera). At full resolution, though, the HiRISE image shows vastly more detail than the HRSC image. I've told you which data files I've used for my comparison, so why don't you show me exactly where I've attempted to mislead you and where NASA/JPL/UA has attempted to distort or degrade the imagery. I'd really, really like to see some of that hard-core science you claim to practice.

why cant it be possible though, that those are old weathered ruins? after hundreds of thousands of years?
id like to see what people would say 200000 years from now, if everything on earth died today. would they look at mt.rushmore and have the same argument we are? or think the pyramids of giza (or any of them) were just mountains or anomolies? the shpinx is just an oldy shaped rock?
(i picked 200000 years cause i had no idea what number to choose. could be more or less. w/e)

but NASA apparently Does lie. as employees are coming forth and telling the world 'my job was to airbrush out ufos and other anomolies
in space before the public saw the pics'. so why couldnt they do it with something like this?

*edit*
N - never
A - a
S - straight
A - answer

Sure, it's possible that the "face" is really a ruined alien structure that just happens to look exactly like a hill. It's also possible that Mt. Everest is really a gigantic alien battlecruiser that crashed on Earth millions of years ago and has weathered and deteriorated until it now looks exactly like a mountain. Many things are possible, but without some strong evidence to support these sorts of extraordinary claims, there's absolutely no reason to believe they're true.

We have a ton of evidence from multiple spacecraft which shows the "face" at Cydonia is just a hill like all the others in the area. There's not one single scrap of evidence that shows anything artificial at the site. MRO/HiRISE has photographed that hill at about the same resolution as the best you'll find on Google Maps, and there isn't anything visible except rocks and dust. There's just no reason to believe this thing is anything but a hill.

no its not. weve been on everest. studied it. taken samples from it. we KNOW its a moutain formed on earth. you didnt know that?
and the reason to believe its Not a hill is that it looks like a face in many pics (as well as an odlly shaped hill that looks like a face, and has the features in the right place)
and the other places on that cydonia region that look like pyramids are interesting as well. reminds me of the pyramids of giza almost

Well, I think there are some pretty major problems with Donna Tietze Hare's claims, but that's a topic for another thread. In general though, sure, it's possible NASA, JPL, and the University of Arizona might be lying about the HiRISE images. You don't have to take their word for anything, though. They've made the data available to the world's science community and to you, too. Take a look at the images I posted and show me specifically what's wrong with the HiRISE data. I don't see any problems with it.

Edited to remove some unnecessary text

Sure, we've studied Everest. Everything we know about it says it's an ordinary mountain. We've also studied the "face" at Cydonia. Everything we know about it says it's just an ordinary martian hill.


Well, one side of it looks like a face when lit from certain angles and viewed from above. The rest of it isn't even close. Here's a 3D animation showing the true shape of the "face" generated from Mars Express and Mars Global Surveyor data (link). Does this really have all the features of a face in the right places?

And yes, some of the other hills at Cydonia look a bit like pyramids. Nature can do that. Take a look at this mountain in Glacier National Park. It has sharp, nearly-straight edges, and two of it's three sides are flat and smooth. Is it artificial? Of course not.

Which is a pretty pathetic response on several levels. Is that seriously the best argument you can come up with? A debunker he may be but he knows what he's talking about and he puts proper effort into explaning things in his posts, all you do is mis-read data, mirror images for absolutely no logical reason, and then either ignore someone or come up with a childish sarcastic response when you're challenged on the subject.

Seriously, why are you bothering? Get a blog instead.

Why do you continually refer to it as a 'face' when it clearly isn't?

I suspect it's because some people really do see a face. The problem is, 'what you see ain't what you get'. Just resembling something isn't enough to say it actually is something.

For example, if you look at the formation at the very bottom of the posted pix, it looks (to me) very much like a nice round goldfish with a diamond ring in his mouth!

I totally agree - there hasn't been any actual 'discussion' on this thread since KS15 decided that sceptics were beneath his radar, since all they do is 'debunk' (meaning, 'to remove bunk[um]', KS15 - the only reason you'd be opposed to debunking is if you want to believe in bunkum, yes?).

The only reason I still check back on this thread is for Pericynthion's very informative and interesting responses. I love those full-res HiRISE images he posts. It's a pity such good-quality postings are lost on a wilderness thread like this one.

A simple analysis of the Face.

This first image is a section of the original Mars Express image. No enlargement or processing.


Processed for color and contrast.


The Face rotated.


In this next image, The Face has been reversed. This image clearly demonstrates the difference between left and right sides of the Face.


The results………




The Face enlarged and processed for color and contrast.


My website is not just about the Face. There are other Mars Express Images showing evidence of intelligent activity.

Source Image:

www.esa.int/esa-mmg/mmg.pl?b=b&keyword=cydonia&single=y&start=10

I wouldn't say Peri's posts are *lost* really. One never knows how many folks have been influenced by his 'voice of reason' postings.

I hope you're right... the perennial hope

KSI5, what is the address for your page?

I love the man-you-Lip-You-Lation of the pics from Mars. must be fun to photo shop and imagine all sorts of things in the pictures we see here Its a new art form I think Spacepics of the Mind. I think you can do the same with sat/pics of earth. From 200 miles above earth you can just make out we are even here,except at nite. From 500 mile out nothing,and just look at earth from the distance of mars a small dot.Keep lookin though. DONTEATUS Great pics.

well not quite. weve just like taken pics of it, and looked at this odly shaped mountain. which is quite different than weve done with everest.
and obviously some sides will look like a face while other wont. if im hovering above it, id see a face. if im hovering right beside it, i wouldnt. you hover above
the pyramid, you could see a square. you stand beside it, you see a triangle. so whats your point?
and i know as well we have these anomolies on earth as well. theyre quite interesting. and like i said, i also find it interesting that those 'pyramids' on cydonia remind
me of the pyramids of giza. and we have a sphinx, like they have a 'face'. all in the same area basically.

Jusyt look at any satilite pics of earth at 300 miles and tell me what you see looking say down at the Rockies,or even a city like L.A. ? Try it. Lots of free satalite web sites to choose from. cant see a darn thing but mountians and a few really big water masses.

The Pyramid of Cydonia.

This first image is processed for color and contrast. No enlargement. Even at this stage details can be observed.
Details not found in any natural geologic feature. Resolution is approximately 13.7 meters per pixel (45 feet per pixel).



This next image is enlarged 1.20X


This third image is enlarged 1.30X. Areas of interest enhanced and marked.
Note areas A, B, C, D, E, and F.


Area A is an enhancement of the damaged side. Note arrows.

Area B is a facial profile.

Area C shows a human(?) infant wearing a crystal crown. The crystal is approximately 150 meters (~490 feet) in length.
Overall, The length is approx. 370 meters (~1200 feet).

This next image is enlarged 1.67X. Areas of interest enhanced and marked A thru F. Area C is the figure wearing a crystal crown.


Source image:
http://www.esa.int/esa-mmg/mmg.pl?b=b&...t=10&size=b

Website:
http://www.marsesa.9f.com/slide_show.html

On JonnyC`s post 280 image 5 thats viewable its a lot like Mike Tyson? Who`s playing with who in here? Oh! and he`s wearing his Little alien T-ee shirt . LoL

Take a quick look here at this Google map. Looks just like a huge Native American face...did aliens create it as well?

Thats a great sat view,And if you look hard enough you can tell its a great Mayan warrior jumping out of the way of a chaseing Jaguar.Or it could be a giant Crab?

There are a handful of famous pictures of the "face" that seem to get all the publicity, but the spacecraft we've been sending to Mars do much more than just snap a few tourist photos. The MOC camera on Mars Global Surveyor, the HRSC camera on Mars Express, and the HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are not just there to take pretty pictures -- they're precision instruments whose primary purpose is to accurately measure brightness levels at specific wavelengths of light. Each pixel of those pretty pictures contains valuable science data.

The Mars Odyssey THEMIS instrument has mapped Cydonia (and the rest of the planet) in multiple visible wavelengths, in multiple infrared wavelengths, and even at night in infrared.

The Gamma Ray Spectrometer and Neutron Spectrometer (GRS) onboard Odyssey have mapped element distributions on Mars by detecting gamma rays and neutrons emitted from the Martian surface.

The Thermal Emission Spectrometer onboard Mars Global Surveyor has made a similar survey of the planet by measuring the heat emitted from Mars. Here's a sample TES map of the Martian surface dust distribution:



The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter experiment onboard MGS has measured detailed surface heights at Cydonia and the rest of the planet.

And that's just a quick sample of some of the other ways we're getting data on Cydonia and the rest of Mars. You may also want to look up SHARAD, MARSIS, OMEGA, and CRISM to find out more about the instruments on MRO and Mars Express.


My point is that the "face" at Cydonia isn't really shaped at all like a three-dimensional humanoid face. Its peaks and valleys only look like a face on one side of the hill, and only then when lit from just the right direction and looked at from above. It's an illusion -- pareidolia, like Lilly said.

Great example, Lilly! I think that looks a heck of lot more like a real face than the one on Mars.

Ok, if you're really a hard-core scientist then you won't mind a little peer review of your work. Hopefully we can have a nice technical discussion of your analysis. I'm adding a lot of images to this post, but they're all very small files. Here are my comments on a few of the things you claim to have found:

CYDONIA


KS15 Image F200a.jpg (Cropped)



To identify this artifact, we first need to understand how this image was created. This color image is actually a composite of the high-detail grayscale nadir channel view taken on orbit 3253 with color tinting obtained from the RGB channels of a lower-quality image taken on orbit 1216. If we look at the image data file for the nadir channel on orbit 3253, we see this:



This is clearly a data dropout or noise of some sort. It falls exactly along one scan line of pixels. I know for a fact that it isn't a real feature on the surface of Mars because it only shows up in the nadir channel image. The stereo 1 and stereo 2 channel images taken at just about the same time don't show anything at all:





NEPENTHES MENSAE


KS15 Image D42.jpg (Cropped)




You think it's difficult to find a natural origin for a large, symmetric, circular shape? Mars is literally covered with them! It's a crater:





HEBES CHASMA


Ok, first of all you're wrong about the release date. You're looking at a public relations image, not the science data. This image is just a pretty picture put together to show the public a nice example of the results coming in from Mars Express. The actual science data was released long before this PR image was posted to the web. The image is made up of data taken on two orbits, though ESA only mentions one of them. The western half of the image is data from orbit 2149. As ESA mentions, the image was acquired on September 16, 2005. The data was released to the public on November 29, 2006, about 14 months later. The eastern portion of the image was actually acquired on Janaury 3, 2005, during orbit 1235. This data was released to the public as part of the first HRSC data release on April 4, 2006, about 15 months after it was taken.

As of today, ESA has released all HRSC data up through June 2007 (last release was 05 February 2008).
As of today, NASA has released all MRO/HiRISE data up through 26 April 2008 (last release was 09 June 2008).


KS15 Image A24 (Cropped) -- Reference letters added by Pericynthion



I picked just one of the images you listed as part of your post. Item "A" is the feature you identified as a "trail or causeway." It's just a natural ridge:




You've labeled areas B & C as "areas of interest." I assume you believe they're artificial ruins of some sort. They're not. They're both just rock formations:






By the way, the Hebes Chasma image I'm using for comparison here is MRO Context Camera image P03_002129_1790_XN_01S076W.IMG. Are you familiar with this instrument? I don't have the actual resolution data for this particular image file, but it appears to be pretty close to CTX's advertised maximum resolution of 6 meters per pixel. That's about twice the resolution of the Mars Express HRSC camera.

If you're interested, here's the full image. To keep the file size manageable, I've reduced it to 1/4 of it's original size (FYI, my crops above are shown at full resolution):





Seriously, KS15, I know it's exciting to look at these images and feel like you're making new discoveries, but this sort of image analysis is a lot more complicated than just downloading a public relations jpeg file and running it through Photoshop until some cool-looking patterns emerge. I really do hope you keep looking at photos as they come in. Mars is a fascinating place, even if there aren't alien artifacts scattered over every square meter of the planet. If you're serious about wanting to do real scientific investigation, though, then you really need to shut down Photoshop for a while and do some serious studying.

Some really good facts there, Peri. Also, I like your style. you intelligently criticise what KS15 is analysing, unlike other sceptics here who do so without actually adding valuable, technical information, like you have. Thank you for the assessment!! Thanks for taking the time to share your opinions here too, KS15. I've enjoyed hearing what all members think of these things. Carry on!!

The following images are from the Nepenthes Mensae regions. This post is the first of a series. I will be posting more images on Nepenthes Mensae and Hebes Chasma on subsequent posts in the future.

This first image shows technological artifacts. I am not sure if ruins or a present day operation. Note objects A, B, C. Black arrow points to a geyser. I assuming this geyser is of a natural origin.


Object B reminds of some kind of transport. Note shape of this vehicle. look for the three appendages on the left side.
Note rectangular opening in the front. At a resolution of 50 feet per pixel (No enlargement), This structure is approx. 1700 feet long and approx. 600 to 700 feet high.
This is a major size vehicle....Larger than an aircraft carrier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ronald_Reagan_(CVN-76)

Object C is another type of vehicle. Its length is approx 750 feet. Note that this vehicle or transport can easily fit thru the front opening of object B.
In fact, this vehicle seems to originate from object/vehicle B. Note two piece design. There is a flexible front vehicle with an attached larger vehicle in tow.

Object A, F is upright rectangular structure. There seems to be fluid leaking on to the ground….Maybe water.

Object G is a spherical structure located on top of object A,F. Note highly reflective surface (High albedo). It seems to be transparent or translucent in
nature. It is possible this structure is emitting energy.

Another view……..


In this next image, Yellow arrows point to areas of interest. Black arrow points to the aircraft carrier size vehicle. Note area A…………


In this image, Yellow arrows point to areas of interest. Black arrow points to the geyser.


Source Image:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEM4FHSZEFF_0.html

Web site:
http://www.marsesa.9f.com/slide_show.html

KS15, would you mind engaging in conversation and telling us why you think these lumps of rock are "technological artifacts"?

Maybe the mods wouldn't mind locking this one-sided thread if you don't.

I'd like to hear what he thinks in reference to that question, too. There's no need to call for the thread to be locked, though. There's only decent conversation going on here between adults. After all, as someone here has as their a signature - if we are overly romantic and visionary, we will see things that are not there. However, if we are overly mechanical and cynical, we will never see anything. We need people like KS15 to at least present his point of view. He's not doing any harm and this thread has bought out a lot of valid points from both sides of the argument.

Please continue, all!

The following Mars Express images are perfectly valid science data…..

http://www.esa.int/esa-mmg/mmg.pl?b=b&...e=y&start=4
http://www.esa.int/esa-mmg/mmg.pl?b=b&...=y&start=10
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEM565R03EF_1.html
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEM4FHSZEFF_0.html

My website is based on this data. JPEG images are valid images. In fact, The Mars Express camera transmits images to Earth in JPEG form.
Visit the link below to get an overview.

http://berlinadmin.dlr.de/Missions/express...kameraeng.shtml

I do use Adobe Photoshop CS3. I am minimally processing the source images.
Basic enlargement, Filtering, Color Balance, Brightness and Contrast.

Processing and analyzing the Mars Express images is a simple process.

The Mars Express images are COLOR images. There is absolutely no reason to convert these images to black and white (Grayscale).
There is no reason to compare B&W images to color….There is no comparison.

When enlarging images, I do not use pixel duplication. This method does not preserve the original image.
No object dissolves into pixilation when one takes a closer look. I use an algorithm called Bicubic Interpolation.
This method enlarges while preserving the original image.

Some examples of an attempt to obscure images….

Good image:
http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/8652/d42cropov1.jpg
By the way, This is not a crater.

Poor image:
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/7804/ne...seupcropvu6.jpg
This image is an attempt to remove color and detail.

Good image:
http://www.marsesa.9f.com/slide_shows/Face/C55.jpg

Poor image. Pixilated, Black and White.
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/4637/bh...pcaptionso7.jpg

It seems certain few individual(s) are determined to make this topic more complicated than it really is.

I will keep it simple.

Beautiful statment JonnyC first one must belive in it to see it. too narrow of vision is blindness,and too open minded is posibilities. Its a balance of all observations. Keep the thread alive please. maybe soon we will see more from mars. One must look to see.

I took a visit to the HiRise website. I came across this image of Cydonia....

Link:
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_005924_2210

A quote taken from their caption.....

"The Face has subsequently been imaged by many orbiters, including HiRISE
( PSP_003234_2210), showing that it is simply a rocky mound, and the face-
like appearance was due to a trick of shadows."

I laughed little while reading this. They (NASA) are still pulling this ancient "Trick of light and shadows" phrase around.

I find interesting this image labeled "Buttes and Knobs in Cydonia Region" has nothing to do with the "Face". They still took the time to add a debunking moment.

A view of the "Face". The left eye has a shaped eyebrow, eyelash, iris, and a pupil. I suspect there is a crystal set into the right (Feline) eye.
This crystal is barely detectable at higher magnifications.


For comparison, A MRO image of the Face. The MRO version of the Face is a poor quality image regardless of stated resolution.
This is especially true when compare to other MRO images.


Review post 246 on page 17 for additional background. Also, Review post 277, page 19.

In a few days, I will be posting more Nepenthes Mensae images.

Source images:
http://www.esa.int/esa-mmg/mmg.pl?b=b&...t=10&size=b
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_003234_2210

No, the images on these pages are not valid science data. They're press release images. No serious scientist would dream of using these images for any real analysis because there's no record of how the data was processed to get to these pretty pictures. They're beautiful images to look at, but they're not meant for research, especially if you're trying to interpret tiny details at or below the resolution limits of the data. The real science data is carefully processed step by step, with complete records of the exact work that was done. There's a good overview of the image processing done both for the science data and for the press release images in this conference paper by the HRSC team:

PUBLIC OUTREACH AND ARCHIVING OF DATA FROM THE HIGH RESOLUTION STEREO CAMERA ONBOARD MARS EXPRESS: 2004 – THE FIRST YEAR

Pay special attention to this paragraph:

QUOTE (LPI 2202)

Press Release Images.
HRSC scenes selected for publication by the PI and produced by the PI group in cooperation with DLR will contain several images: Highest resolution is provided with a black and white nadir image; the identical scene is also displayed in color and by an anaglyph image – the latter based on a digital elevation model calculated from the stereo channels; this applies also for one or more perspective views; all images make use of the high resolution of HRSC data, and therefore have considerable dimensions of several thousand pixels per line and column to allow large-format printing; the resolution, though, is slightly reduced for convenience, to allow better online handling. Interpretational text, context images and geographical location of the scene on a Mars globe are also provided. The release sets go online simultaneously at ESA and DLR.

The HRSC scientists state flat-out that the highest resolution is provided by the black and white nadir image. That's what I've been trying to tell you all along, and that's why I'm posting black and white images. They also state that they're reducing the resolution of the press release images for better online handling. Were you aware of this? The resolution figures you keep posting are for the full-scale original images, not the reduced-size press-release images. As I said, you can't use press-release images for serious science because you just don't know how they've been manipulated.



Yes, Mars Express typically uses JPEG-type compression to save bandwidth. It's a tradeoff between sending back just a few uncompressed images or many more compressed images with slightly lower quality. The science teams have carefully weighed the alternatives and have selected a compression level that gives the best balance between quality and quantity.

Once the images are back on Earth, though, no serious scientist would use press release images when the original science data is available. Heck, you haven't even been using the best available press release images! The press release JPEGs have been highly compressed to make the file sizes small for easier web downloading. They have much, much lower quality than the original images transimitted from Mars Express. On the sites you've been using, though, ESA has also provided a much better TIFF version of each of the press release images. These files are very large, but they generally have much better resolution and much lower compression than the JPEG versions.

You've been using this:

385-090408-5212-6-co1-01-NepenthesMensae_H1.jpg (cropped)

When you just as easily could have been using this:

385-090408-5212-6-co1-01-NepenthesMensae_H2.tiff (cropped)

Is there a reason you don't want to use the best available images?








No, the HRSC camera does NOT record color images. If you would read your own link, you'd know that the HRSC camera has nine image sensors, each of which is a line of pixels that record grayscale data. The entire camera works like a giant flatbed scanner or photocopy machine. As the spacecraft orbits over Mars, the camera stares downward and the sensor lines sweep over the surface like the scan head on a scanner. To get color information, three of the nine sensor lines are fitted with color filters (red, blue, and green). These sensors still only record grayscale information, but the three channels can be assembled into a color image back on Earth.

The nadir channel is the primary image channel, so its data is normally saved at the full 12.5 meters per pixel resolution. To save memory, though, the color channels are typically downsampled and saved at either 50 meters per pixel or 100 meters per pixel resolution.

Reference:
The high-resolution stereo camera (HRSC) experiment on Mars Express: Instrument aspects and experiment conduct from interplanetary cruise through the nominal mission

QUOTE

In order to decrease the data volume to accomplish spacecraft downlink requirements, the pixels of a CCD line can be summed up on-chip in an analog way in flight direction by increasing the exposure time, and in a crosstrack direction by multiple pixel binning 2, 4 or 8 times digitally. A typical mode for high-resolution imaging with emphasis on surface mapping is operating the nadir sensor without pixel summation, the 4 multi-spectral sensors with 4x4 or 8x8 pixel summation, the outer stereo sensors with 2x2 pixel summation and the inner stereo sensors (the photometry sensors) with 4x4 pixel summation.

The color images of Cydonia you've been posting over and over are actually created from four individual black and white images taken on two different orbits. You can see this by looking at the FU Berlin site for the Cydonia press-release images here: (link). Look at the image download table near the bottom of the page and you will see:

#co1 rgb color scene, large, (data: HRSC orbit 3253 (nadir), HRSC orbit 1216 (rgb))

The Cydonia color images are made up from nadir channel data from orbit 3253 (at 12.5 meter per pixel resolution) and from the three channel red-green-blue data from orbit 1216 (at 50 meters per pixel resolution). I've used the original Level 3 science data files for each of these four images to generate my own version of the color Cydonia image. Here's how it all goes together:



The three images at the top of the picture are the red, green, and blue data from orbit 1216. Since this data was saved at only 50 meters per pixel, it doesn't show much detail at all. I've used Photoshop to combine these three grayscale images into a single color image, shown in the second row. You can see that the colors are good, but that there is very, very little image detail visible. That's where the final step comes in. The nadir image from orbit 3253 is a very good, 12.5 meter per pixel resolution grayscale image of the "face." By using the low-res colors from the orbit 1216 data to tint the orbit 3253 nadir image, I end up with a final color image of the "face." This is essentially the same way that ESA made their color press-release image. Frankly, I'm not that impressed with their results. I think their final images have far too much contrast and far too much sharpening.




Nope. It's my attempt to show you the image with the best detail. From the DLR Nepenthes Mensae web page (near the bottom):

The colour scenes have been derived from the three HRSC-colour channels and the nadir channel. The perspective views have been calculated from the digital terrain model derived from the stereo channels. The anaglyph (3D) image was calculated from the nadir and one stereo channel. The black and white high-resolution images were derived from the nadir channel which provides the highest detail of all channels.

As I've described above, the color images are typically created by tinting the black and white nadir image. All of the image detail comes from the nadir image. Still, if you want to see color, try this:


385-090408-5212-6-co1-01-NepenthesMensae_H2.tiff (cropped, 1.5x enlargement)

This IS a crater. The feature's shadows and the 3D anaglyph image show that it's a shallow depression in the surface. It looks just like several other craters in the area. What evidence do you have that it's NOT a crater?



But this stuff ISN'T simple! It really is rocket science, and there are a lot of very, very smart people working very hard to get these amazing images back to Earth.

Sigh. You're showing a thumbnail version of the HiRISE image. How can you possibly judge the quality of the image from such a tiny version? Take a look at this 1/4 size version of the HiRISE image (and make sure you click on the image on the ImageShack page to display it full-size. It's BIG!):



How can you possibly say that this is a poor quality image???

P.S.: Hey Nucular, this one's for you. Hope you enjoy it!

Fantastic - cheers Peri