There is a transcript of the video out in the tall grass for the bandwidth limited among us.
Transcript, all errors attributed to LeftOfYou.
Hi. I'm Justin Maki, Engineering Camera Team Lead and MastCam Deputy PI and this is your Curiosity Rover Report.
One of the things that is so exciting about the Curiosity mission is that the rover takes so many pictures.
We've received a lot of questions about the cameras on the rover and we're here to answer some of those questions.
How Many Cameras are on Curiosity?
The Curiosity Rover actually has seventeen cameras on it, which is the most of any NASA planetary mission, ever.
We start with the MARDI, or the Mars Descent Imager, which, you may recall took pictures as the Rover was landing on Mars.
Then we have the MAHLI instrument, which is the camera mounted on the end of the arm and that takes close-up high resolution color photos.
Down here, we have the hazard avoidance cameras, or HAZCAMS. There are four of these in the front and four in the back and they are used to take pictures of the terrain near the wheels and nearby the rover.
Up here on the mast we have the cameras that take most of the pictures for the mission. We have the Navigation Cameras, which take pictures that are used to drive the rover, we have the Mast Cameras which take color images to do geology investigations and then, finally, we have the remote microscopic imager which is part of the ChemCam laser instrument, and that's used to document the laser spots that are made on the surface.
Why are Some Cameras Black & White and Others are Color?
Many of the black & white image that come back from the rover are from the engineering cameras such as the HAZCAMS or the NAVCAMS, shown here. The reason why they're black and white, or gray scale, as we call it, is because that's all the rover really needs in order to detect rocks and other obstacles.
Other cameras are color, such as the MASTCAM imager and the reason that they're color is that the scientists use the color information to learn about the soil and the rocks.
What is the Resolution of the Cameras?
The rover has two different types of cameras. There are one megapixel black & white imagers for the engineering cameras and two megapixel color imagers for the science cameras.
Can Curiosity Make Videos?
Yes. In fact, we already have taken video. In addition to the video that we took when the rover was descending on the surface, we've taken movies of the soil being shaken in the scoop. The reason we don't see more video is that the video files are pretty large and because we have a limited downlink each day, the scientists prefer to take still images of new targets.
How Does Curiosity Get Shots of the Martian Landscape?
The rover takes panoramic photos much like you do with your smart phone. By taking individual pictures and then moving between the frames, you can acquire a collection of pictures you can stitch together in a single panorama. The rover does the same thing. We move the camera between each individual picture and stitch them together on the ground.
How Does Curiosity Shoot its Own Self-Portrait?
The rover is able to take its own picture using its robotic arm. Because the arm is two meters long, the rover is able to place the camera out in front of itself, high above the rover deck. The self-portrait appears as if taken by a single wide angle lens camera out in front of the rover. But, it's actually a series of individual images stitched together.
As this animation shows, the rover is imaging the deck while the arm is behind the camera. Then, to image the ground, we spin the arm around one hundred and eighty degrees and image the terrain. Again, the arm is behind the camera while taking these pictures. When we stitch them all together, you don't see the arm in any of the pictures.
We hope this answers some of your questions about cameras and Curiosity, our robotic photographer on Mars.
I'm Justin Maki and this has been your Curiosity Rover Report.