The headline “New Mexico: Rover . . ” and the name Andrew Bodrov as the photographer is a bit irritating . .

Klaus

This headline plus the panorama´s stitching-quality as well as the photographer´s name
implicates it´s done at the test-site in New Mexico – and the sun seems not really “mars-like”.

See the other one: http://panoramas.dk/mars/greeley-haven.html

Klaus

Klaus

There are no solar-collectors on the rover.

That´s a very well made interactive panorama from New Mexico – as it´s recognizable from the headline.

So: what´s the problem? )

Klaus

– JediJesse: Google Street View “looks” midair too; it doesn’t take a picture of itself; the camera is swivelling on a pole so the parallax effect “moves” the pole out of the way. Combining enough photos of itself pointing downwards, at many different rotations, you can eliminate the view of the pole that the camera is on, and leave only minor artifacts in the rotation centerpoint. You can still see evidence of where the pole is — look at the other NASA Images at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov and compare to this mosiac; you’ll see evidence of the pole.

– Rob O’Brien: The shadows point in different directions only because it’s a mosiac. Different pictures are taken at diffrent times of the day. The mosiac is amazingly well-blended; Andrew Bodrov does a better job of blending mosiac’s than NASA’s automated software. On that note, Andrew spends a lot more time blending the images together.