Your posts come close to violating both of those rules. Phil can make his own determination of whether you have crossed the line or not, but consider this a friendly reminder from the community. Play nice or go away.

Gary Ansorge, the prior evidence for liquid water on Mars, the precipitate trails, are something else entirely. The flap at this point is over a color shifted image of a close up of a crater wall with some flat surfaces that are interpreted by one pair of analysts as resembling pooling liquid water. Completely different issues.

Ed Minchau, you have your facts reversed. The first images from Viking did show a blue sky, but those were the images with the purple, white, and orange American flag. That is why NASA color shifted the image and obtained the red sky.

As for the physics, a much thinner atmosphere means much less Rayleigh scattering. The sky would appear a lot less blue and more black, like the daytime sky on the Moon. (Something of a hybrid – faint blue near the horizon and darker as it gets more overhead.) However, there is a lot of red Martian dust in the Martian sky, dominating the visual scene with more reddish colors.

Gary 7
PS.Ted, sleep well and LOOOONG.

Ron Levin was actually there in the control room when Viking sent back its first pictures of Mars, and nearly got kicked out of there when he changed the monitors back to true color after NASA techs forced the sky to a reddish color. And he’s right, the sky really is blue (Rayleigh scattering works the same on Mars, physics is the same everywhere). That is, unless you believe that the red-white-and-blue flag on Viking was actually purple-white-and-orange, as the NASA techs set it in the images, and which case go ahead and believe that the sky is red – but explain why the laws of physics behave differently on Mars and why Rayleigh scattering doesn’t work there.

GAry 7

I’m not going to comment on the character slurs against Doug – no need to; people who know him know what he’s actually like. Besides, “sticks and stones” and all that – but I am going to stand up for UMSF, just because many people reading this won’t be aware of what it actually is, and might actually believe some of that previous post and be put off joining or just taking a look at the Forum.

Which would be a shame, because in stark contrast to the rather bleak and dark picture painted by the previous poster, UMSF is in fact a world-respected forum where space enthusiasts mix freely and respectfully with engineers, scientists and decision makers from ALL the major planetary science missions. So, instead of “cronies”, if you wander over to UMSF and pull up a seat at the bar you’ll be rubbing shoulders with people actively involved in the planning, operating and science gathering of such missions as MER, New Horizons, Cassini/Huygens and others. Hardly the kind of people to subscribe to an “online personality cult”.

As for using Photoshop, well, there are imaging experts on UMSF who use Photoshop and other programs to create original images out of “raw” or previously published NASA images. The most popular are the images created using NASA’s raw Mars rover images, with the full approval and support of the MER team. Such is the high standard of work there that members of UMSF have had their images accepted by such respected publications as Aviation Week, shown on TV programs and featured on websites such as APOD.

As for the relationship between The Planetary Society and UMSF, they have a good relationship because their members share both a love of space exploration and a commitment to “spreading the word” about it and its worth – just like the people who visit Bad Astronomy, I think.

Some people don’t like UMSF because it is, compared to other “wild west” forums, not a very welcoming place for people who delight in being rude, or confrontational. A little respect is asked for, from everyone, and if that respect isn’t shown then… well, there are other forums, everyone knows that. So, if you want to go somewhere where debate is encouraged, but flames and argument are not, where science is valued more highly than bad plot ideas from the X-Files, and where you can actually talk to people who drive rovers on Mars, or fly probes around Titan – the “real space professionals” referred to in that previous post, then it’s a good home. If you want to rant about Faces on Mars, or insist that only you know The Truth about something, or just get a kick out of winding people up, then you’re probably in the wrong bar. But hey, a little further down the street there’s another bar.

None of which ted would agree with, I’m sure, for whatever reason, and that’s a shame, but no-one can be friends with everyone, can they?

AS for umsf, it’s wonderful so long as you kiss Ellison’s ass and his
cronies. Otherwise it’s just another online personality cult, and the
overlording personality is a man-child with limited imagination who
wouldn’t even be recognized by the scientific community if he
didn’t have the internet to play with.

NOte that somehow he got a cover story in the latest Planetary
Report, even though the Planetary Society is supposed to feature
only articles written by real space experts – meaning someone who
has actually worked on and made real contributions to space
missions. I don’t consider playing with your Photoshop being
a real space expert. Emily and Doug are real good friends -
hmmm, I wonder if that had anything to do with his getting
published? Naaaah. They wouldn’t make such a breach in
integrity like that.

Clearly the quality of the Planetary Society has taken a nosedive
in the last few years. I suppose we should be grateful that their
publication isn’t a serious science journal but a rah-rah rag for
their limited and inclusive activities. No wonder the Society and
umsf get along so well with each other.

Don’t fall into their trap, Phil, or your quality will go down the
tubes, too. There are plenty of real space professionals out there
you can get your info and images from.

http://www.enterprisemission.com/Bees/thebeesneeds.htm

Apparently, the recent outbreak of Colony Colapse Disorder in honeybees is tied into the changing physics in our section of the Galaxy – (and of course NASA is keeping this fact a secret – shhhhh, don’t tell anybody).

I’m almost sorry I don’t work 2nd shift anymore, and don’t have a 1-hour commute home, to listen to George Noory – even though the laughter was almost as much of an impediment to my driving skill as sleepiness…

But this… well… I can’t help feeling badly let down by this whole pantomime.

Emily as ever gets the point across forcefully but with more style than I could ever manage!

Doug

I’ve put up a few of NASA’s Mars rover photos on my website but projected into 360 panoramas, including Burns Cliff. If you’re interested, here are the two Burns Cliff photos (they might take time to load though as the server seems to be a bit slow today):

http://www.metalvortex.com/panoramic/mars/mars_burns_cliff.htm
http://www.metalvortex.com/panoramic/mars/nasa_mars_rover_opportunity_at_the_wall.htm

And if you want some really great images of the two rovers, try these two!
(try zooming out and then looking “down”)

http://www.metalvortex.com/panoramic/mars/erebus.htm
http://www.metalvortex.com/panoramic/mars/summit.htm

Enjoy.