Mars nomenclature

Bill J Gray Aug 29, 2003

Hi Arild,

You'd probably be best off swapping the two 'planet04.gaz' files.
The original one is just wonderful if you're looking at highly detailed
Viking or Mars Global Surveyor or similar images, where you can
see the craters and volcanoes and so forth. The one I posted recently
is wonderful if you're a visual observer; the features it labels correspond
to ones actual ALPO observers have seen through eyepieces and
Earth-based CCD cameras. I can't really imagine a situation where
you'd mix-and-match the two.

For a terrestrial analogy: the original IAU nomenclature corresponds
to a low-earth satellite looking at "small town, Norway" and "crossroads,
Maine" and "Falkland Islands, South Atlantic". The ALPO nomenclature
corresponds more to "South Atlantic Ocean", "Europe", and "North
America"... the sort of things a Martian might see when looking through
a scope at Earth. Dunno if I'd see much point in combining the two.

-- Bill