Martian Hotel Lobby Painting

There was a paper recently linking the hyperromantic landscapes of the mid 19th century American West and the false color glories of the Hubble images, both speaking to shared reverence, and as propaganda for further exploration.

This Spirit rover image of Mars is beautiful- with a sky color unusual on earth (except for sandstorm skies) , and a deep, deep distance implied to the right, with the clairity of a thin atmosphere, and although the distant values are muddier, there is no "bluing." (I think this is a near true-color image).

These are tremendous optics and images - well done. I wonder whether the highlight on the hill in the foreground is from a sort of flash.

If the robots are going to explore other planets, they'd better bring back photos.