NASA’s diligence began to take the first pictures of Mastcam-Z

A little farther From landing We have to see First 360 panorama Thanks Navcom for Mars NASA diligence. But those cameras are not specifically used to take detailed pictures of objects, but rather to help engineers decide which way to go. There will always be two Mastcam-Z for this “Head” of Mars Rover. Both cameras were tested to create the rover’s first high – definition panorama and the general Xerox groove.

High-resolution overview of NASA diligence

Rover, which is in motion Tuesday Less than 8 days now, he still hasn’t moved. So what is seen in the two panoramas is significantly similar, what changes details. As mentioned, everything revolves around cameras Mastcom-Z The name means “Z” “Zoom”, Given its structure. Curiosity, for example, had a mastcam, but with standard optics.

We remember it Mastcom-Z of NASA diligence It is a dual camera based system with a spacing of 24.2 cm and a height of 2 m. The Kodak Truxense KAI-2020 CM sensor has a resolution 1600 x 1200 pixels With 7.4 micron pixels. Most importantly its resolution can vary from 150 microns per pixel to 7.4 mm per pixel. To store images, each camera has 256 MB of RAM and 8 GB of storage space.

Click on the image to enlarge, the resolution is equal to 9238 x 2451 pixels

The optical system has two sections: one ranging from 28 mm to 50 mm and one ranging from 50 mm to 100 mm. Also, the focusing capacity varies from 1 meter to 2 meters respectively. The aperture is not particularly large compared to the photo lens Consumers, But obviously this is a completely different field! For the wide-angle section, the maximum aperture is equal to f / 8, and for magnification it is equal to f / 10.

Extensive image taken from Mastcom-Z cameras of NASA diligence Thanks to the compilation of 142 images and the power of the technical section, you can find details of 3 to 5 mm near the rover for more distant sections from 2 to 3 meters. Remember that this is only a beginning! Many more to come in the coming days, months and years: the journey has only just begun.

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