Mosaic of Viking Lander Photos. The above photographic print utilizing the digital data was made in 1977 during my work as a "Viking Intern" for the Viking Lander Imaging Team at JPL. At JPL's Image Processing Laboratory, about a dozen high resolution images were mosaiced together to produce this high resolution panoramic view of the Martian surface. The component images have fields of view 20 degrees high and span varying amounts of azimuth.
This mosaic was taken by Viking Lander 1, Camera 2. The component images were taken in the afternoon within an hour or so (Chryse Planitia local time) of each other on various sols (Martian days), however each image was corrected for slight variations in the solar illumination as a function of time prior to mosaicing.
The pixel resolution of the high resolution photodiode on the Lander camera is .04 degrees, thus providing much higher resolution than the single low resolution (.12 degree) panoramic views generated using a different photodiode on the camera.
The image here is a scan from a photographic print from the original data, so some image quality is lost.
This is a one of four 90 degree quadrants that constitute a full 360 degree panorama. I had put together a total of 5 mosaics including morning and afternoon for Viking 1, along with morning, noontime, and afternoon for Viking 2.
Here is a more complete set of later versions of the mosaics made by my successors:
The following mosaics are also available from MSSS :
Another source is from GSFC including VL1 Camera 1 AM and VL2 noon mosaics:
A more recent mosaic for VL-2 was constructed by Calvin Hamilton .
PDS imagery from the Viking Landers is available for VL1 and VL2 . A general summary of Viking Lander Imaging results is in a NASA Publication called The Martian Landscape SP-425. More good stuff on Viking is here at the Viking Preservation Project and the 40th anniversary gathering.
